Welcome to my blog and the Pre-LOAD {Layout A Day} Blog Hop! LOAD is a challenge hosted by Lain Ehmann for scrapbookers. It is just like it sounds. A bunch of us scrapbookers commit to producing a LAYOUT A DAY for one whole month. We post our layouts every day (by midnight PST) in our Flickr group gallery, cheer each other on and offer encouragement. Lain sends us daily emails with prompts, and this month she's got 29 videos to inspire our creativity! There are even prizes.
This blog hop is meant to offer ideas and encouragement for newbies and alumni alike on how to prepare for the month ahead. Some of us are seasoned alums with lots of wisdom to share, others of us are brand new and sharing our goals and plans and some possible fears for the month ahead.
Before I tell you about my LOAD experience, I have to begin by telling you about the layout at the top of this blog post. I made that layout in 2002. Guess how long it took me to make it?
GUESS?
It sat on my dining room table for ONE WHOLE MONTH before I finally finished it. I wanted so badly to design a layout like the ones I saw in the magazines. I had Becky Higgins' 
See the border of blue rectangles at the bottom of the page? I had originally made an entire background using those rectangles, but it didn't look right to me, so after a MONTH of arranging and rearranging the parts and pieces, I finally came up with that finished layout.
Now it is a nice layout and in all honesty, it doesn't look too dated. It is a pretty classic design and tells a nice story and does a good job of highlighting the photos. BUT IT TOOK ME A MONTH! That is just way too long.
I would hear about people with shelves bursting with albums filled to overflowing with scrapbook pages and all I had was a handful of painstakingly made layouts. At this rate, by the time I died, each of my 3 kids would be lucky to have two layouts each! I needed a different strategy.
Fast forward a few years...
Along came LOAD.
I signed up for the very first one. It was January of 2007, lead by Lain. January wasn't a good month for me (too close to the holidays with a birthday towards the end). I only finished one page that first time!
The following year it was going to happen in February. I was so excited because I was committed and raring to go. I loved the idea of a challenge and I knew if I had the right mindset, I could do it. And guess what? Much to my amazement, I did it! I completed one page every single day in February of 2008. It was so much fun!
We did it again in May and October. And I am proud to say I completed 31 days in May and again in October.
Now it is 2012, and I have participated in two or three LOADS every year and have completed countless layouts. I now have shelves bursting with albums overflowing with pages. I've been published, I'm a BPC Library of Memories coach and I was asked to join the Ella Publishing Take Twelve Design team. I even have some wonderful new "internet friends" since joining LOAD back 2007.
I credit my regular participation in LOAD (among a few other habits) to be a large reason I was able to make all of these scrapbooking goals come true.
You could say I am a seasoned LOAD veteran.
So how can you be successful at LOAD?
*Besides having some basic supplies at your disposal (i.e., for paper & hybrid scrappers: lots of your favorite adhesive, plenty of cardstock & patterned paper, printed photos, etc), most of the preparation for me is the mindset of being comitted to a layout a day.
*Plan the page into your day. Decide the night before or first thing in the morning the photos you will work on, the story you want to tell. Think about it throughout the day so you have a basic idea of what you want to do when you sit down to work.
*Refer to your favorite inspiration: sketches, magazines, your photos
*Mine your blog for stories. I have a category on mine for Future Scrapbook Pages - couldn't be easier to find something to scrap about.
*Finish up any online classes that aren't complete - LOAD is the prefect time to do it.
*Finish up any incomplete albums (vacation albums, mini albums, Xmas gifts undelivered).
*Catch up with Project Life - this year or even last year! I always do a few spreads each time.
*Make quick decisions while making a page. Trust your gut. Glue it down and move on.
*Get the story told.
*Leave perfectionism behind. LOAD helped me get over that and learn to trust my gut.
DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT!!!
In Layout a Day DONE is the most important thing.
If you messed up one day, you can do better tomorrow.
KEEP CALM and SCRAPBOOK ON!
LOAD starts on February 1st. If you are not already signed up, it's not too late to join us! Click here for more information. It's the nicest group of scrapbookers on the internet!
This month's theme is PAST PERFECT. The prompts will encourage us to scrapbook about our pasts, but how far back we go, is up to us. And if you want to scrapbook something totally unrelated to the prompt or the theme, that is totally fine too!
Now on to the other inspiring blogs... But before you go... Leave me a comment - SEASONED VETRANS: your best word of LOAD advice; NEWBIES: your biggest LOAD fear.
Then on with the blog hop to KELLI. (Please return here if you get lost along the way, to make sure you visit all of the blogs on the hop today.)
To see everything LOAD on my blog, including all my posted layouts and the last blog hop, click here.
Pre-LOAD Blog Hop Partcipants.
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com <--- You are HERE.
Affiliate links used when possible.
