Today is an excellent day to talk about scrapbooking, because I am heading out tomorrow afternoon to go with one of my daughters and some friends to a scrapbook retreat! This will not be quite the pampering event that Kathy and I are accustomed to with another group of friends, because at this location…. we all have to be responsible for a meal! YIKES. Can scrapbooking be fun if we have to cook, too? I’m sure we’ll manage. Thank goodness for things like lasagne that can be made ahead, to take and toss in the oven! Can you guess what I’m taking? wink, wink
My sweet Aussie friend, Melissa Shanhun, from Digital Scrapbooking HQ, has a great guest post about scrapbook planning and scheduling over at the The Daily Digi blog. Even though Melissa teaches digital scrapping, the info she shares in this post is appropriate for any method of scrapbooking.
I have to admit, there have been very few time I have planned a scrapbook. I mostly create pages from photos that I love, or from prompts I receive at events like the Layout A Day challenge, which begins again, February 1. However, Melissa talks about pages she plans for through the year, and I think that without really thinking about it, many of us create our scrapbook pages like this. We DO have a plan for some pages, in the back of our mind.
It would be silly of me to tell you everything Melissa said in her post about scrapbook planning and scheduling, so run on over and check it out!
Welcome to my Artful Adventures post for the LOAD213 Blog Hop! If you are following in order, you have come here from my talented friend Beth Soler’s Scrapping Wonders website.
Do you ever get together with others who share your love of a particular hobby? If so, you know they can identify with your feelings of how wonderful you think your hobby is! If scrapbooking is something you like to do, and you want to find some others who share that passion, then Lain Ehmann’s Layout-a-day (LOAD) February 2013 may be just for you! The goal is to create at least one scrapbook page each day for a particular month, and this time it’s February. Does one page a day sound overwhelming? It’s not — read on!
Along with the basic goal, each LOAD has a theme, daily prompts, and at least one sample layout for each day. If the theme doesn’t particularly tickle your fancy, you can still participate — just get your pages done! There have been LOAD months where I have completed a page day, and others that I ended up with my total number of pages for the month, but perhaps didn’t get them done on the 1 per day schedule. I didn’t care — I still ended up with a pile of completed pages! Yeah ME!
If you are afraid that you won’t be able to complete a page each day and have time for your day-to-day life, never fear! With a little planning, I’m sure you can do it. We all handle it a little differently. Some people may slack off on having a spic-n-span environment, some may use the crockpot for help with meals, some people have a stack of pictures they want to get put on pages and have their own theme…. You get the idea, it may be a little different than other months of your life, but it can be done!
This is one of my favorite layouts! It is a 2 page layout at the end of LOAD212. It is digital and has a mini version of all the other pages I had made during February 2012.
Whether you are a digital scrapper, traditional paper scrapper, or combination “hybrid” scrapper,
You Will Have Fun and Complete Scrapbook Pages!
There is a private Flickr group for the event. You upload your completed page, and receive comments about how fabulous your page is, and how smart you were to think of doing that way! Of course, you reciprocate the favor and pass on the love by commenting on other people’s layouts they share with the group. Soon you will be pinching yourself to see if it is really true — your dream of having a whole bunch of scrapping friends really has come true!
Progressive Scrapbook Page Technique
If you do paper layouts, be sure to have paper, pictures, adhesive and some embellishments for your pages. If you’ve been scrapping for awhile, only buy adhesive. USE the stuff you already have! THAT is one of the benefits of LOAD — you can use up your stash. Sshhh….and then you’ll have a reason to get new stuff! I won’t tell, if you don’t!
For digital pages, you may want to go through some of your pictures as a reminder of all the people who live in the digital world of your hard drives. Stop holding them captive and let them get out onto some scrapbook page layouts. I don’t print digital pages at home, but if you do, you’ll want to be sure and have plenty of ink on hand for your printer!
If you sometimes feel stuck in getting a page together, you may want to try the “progressive” page technique. I did a post on the technique last year, and you can find it here.
Templates and Scraplifts
Also, remember that you can use templates, and by rotating or flipping them, you can really give a page a run for the money! Here’s a few thoughts on using templates or doing some scraplifting.
If you aren’t signed up yet, click here to learn more and to see if there is still room and join us!
Stop by again, any time! I enjoy comments and try to always reply!
Here is the list of the LOAD213 Blog Hop Participants and you’ll see where to hop to next!
Okay, life happens, and although I did not complete a layout each day this month, I did complete thirteen, which is thirteen more pages than I had before May started!
Where is a place you have many happy memories of? We often hear something about going to our “happy place” and here is one of mine:
Digi kit: Ever After by Krystal Hartley
Journaling reads: Daddy built my playhouse when I was very young and it was originally furnished with a little cupboard, stove, table and chairs. I even remember the tablecloth and napkins Mother made. When we moved to the country, the playhouse was brought along! This little house holds untold hours of make believe, and every time I remember playing in it or see a picture, it brings a smile and fond memories. Here is Kloe playing in it. She is our third generation to enjoy the magic of my playhouse!
Do you have a favorite place from your past or the present? Create a page, don’t for the journaling, and share it!
If you are a scrapbooker, you are probably documenting special moments of your family and friends. How often are you including your own story in those pages? Probably not as often as you should!
YOUR story is important — the good and the bad, happy and sad. It’s all about your life. There is so much I wish I knew about other people in my family from previous generations. Just a glimpse into their lives would be interesting. If you are fortunate enough to have some family heritage pictures, do you know who the people are in the pictures, or any little stories about them? In the end, it’s the stories and the pictures that are important.
Made with digi kit Waiting for the Sun by Stephanie Ogren
If you run across a picture that has a little bit of a back story, why not get that down on paper with the picture? It doesn’t matter if the pictures are perfect. An imperfect picture is better than no picture if that’s all you have!
Here is a page I made from the first day’s prompt for the LayOutaDay challenge that tells about our wedding cake. It’s not a photographer’s shot of the cake, it’s a picture of the cake while still on the kitchen table. I had been taking cake decorating lessons during the year before we got married, and a special wedding cake class. From making all the icing for my classes, I had ended up burning up the motors in both my mom’s hand mixer, as well as my future mother-in-laws! By the time it was time to make the wedding cake, I had to use my grandmother’s stand mixer.
I had never seen or heard of anything other than white wedding cake, but I wanted our to taste good and I decided to make it a spice cake. Not sure if there are any superstitions about the flavor of your wedding cake, but it seems to be good luck, as we have been married now for 35 years!
What pictures do you have that remind you of an untold story?
Today is an excellent day to talk about scrapbooking, because I am heading out tomorrow afternoon to go with one of my daughters and some friends to a scrapbook retreat! This will not be quite the pampering event that Kathy and I are accustomed to with another group of friends, because at this location…. we all have to be responsible for a meal! YIKES. Can scrapbooking be fun if we have to cook, too? I’m sure we’ll manage. Thank goodness for things like lasagne that can be made ahead, to take and toss in the oven! Can you guess what I’m taking? wink, wink
Welcome to my Artful Adventures post for the LOAD213 Blog Hop! If you are following in order, you have come here from my talented friend Beth Soler’s 
