LOAD 28 and 29...and we're DONE!

Day 28's prompt was "On The Screen".  The awesome thing about the daily videos is that on almost every day (maybe with the exception of 2) when I listened to the video I had that "light bulb" moment where I knew EXACTLY what photos I needed to grab and the kind of layout I'd do.  When I heard the discussion for 28, I knew that my first movie experience would be a great addition for a book about me.  No photos...no problem.  Google can help with that!

And finally, Day 29.  This one was a bit harder for me.  The prompt was "once in a blue moon"...Hmmm...what happens for us "once in a blue moon"???  I thought I'd peruse through the photos to see if anything stood out.  Well, I'm obviously in front of the camera once in a blue moon!  Wow...our vacation to Disney in November...NO photos of me.  Ha ha...seriously!  NONE!  I promise...I WAS there!  So, that's the direction I took with today's layout.

And just like that, LOAD 212 is over.  Many people are posting that they're ready for a break from scrapbooking.  Not me, really.  Now I'm not going to be doing one a day, but I'd like to get 2 done every week.  I have not spent much time in my craft room on paper crafting since I've been so busy with layouts, so I'll get back in there, but I am going to try and keep some momentum going.  I have a ton of photos of my parents and my childhood that really deserve to be scanned and scrapbooked.  Now that I see what a scanned photo looks like when put on a digital page and scrapbooked, I think I'll do more of those.  I think they look great.

Hope you enjoyed the 29 layouts (I ended up with 32, because I did 2 layouts on 3 different days).  I promise I'll be back to some cards and such soon.  I have some new My Creative Time stamps that are begging to be used!  Thanks for indulging my scrappy month, and thanks to everyone that took the time to comment.  This blogger loves comments!

Lori

LOAD 26 & 27

Here is day 26...Girl Crush.  Ugh...did not like this one!  I decided to go with the stuff I can remember liking as a kid/teen.

Day 27 was "Animal Magnetism"...the prompt suggested a layout dedicated to a pet.  I thought Mia (our new pup) deserved her own page!

 Now, little sister has gotten most of the attention during scrapbooking month, so I thought I should do a Drake page, since he hasn't had many layouts this month.  His recent (as in 2 days ago) music competition seemed a good place to start.  So I give you....LOAD Day 27, layout 2:

I'm seriously going to be sad when this ends!  I think a LOEOD (layout every other day) would be perfect for me!  Right now I'm 30 layouts for 27 days.  Totally, completely happy with that!  I have learned a lot about my digital scrapbooking software and I'm eager to learn more.  The music paper you see in the layout above was found by googling "digital scrapbook paper music" and then importing the paper into SBC 3.0.  Oh, did I mention....it was FREE!  Even better!

LOAD 23, 24, and 25

Here are my layouts for days 23, 24, and 25.  Sorry for those of you craving more crafty posts...maybe once LOAD is done I will have a bit more time to share with crafting!

23 - Road Trip
I decided to go with her "Dream Vacation" part of the prompt!

 24 - By The Numbers
I saw someone do stats on their birth, so I thought that was a good one for the book about me.

25 -  "I feel like...."
Well, that one could've gone a lot of ways, right?  So, I took this route...

If anyone is thinking about getting into digital scrapbooking, I am using Creative Memories Story Book Creator 3.0 for all of these layouts.  I'm learning a lot!  Let me know if you have any questions.

LOAD Day 22

Here is my Day 22 layout, for the prompt "Holidays"

I do pages in a Christmas album every year.  The first pages for each year are the photos that we received in cards.  Then I close that year's page(s) with photos of our family at Christmas.  I actually already scrapped the card photos one day when I was on hold for Cricut tech support!  So, once I get this page printed and maybe do a page with our holiday card, the Christmas album will be current.

ONE week left...I am shocked!  The time (and the layouts) has flown by.  I've really enjoyed the experience.  If you're needing a kick in the pants for scrapbooking, check out Lain's "Layout A Day" method.

Now, are you ready for even MORE exciting news?  If you're a regular follower of my blog you probably have noticed that I'm a huge fan of My Creative Time's line of products.  I adore them!  The stamps give you a beautiful, crisp image every time, and her new line of dies are incredible!  Well, I made comments on her design team's blogs during her new release blog hop.  One commenter from each blog was chosen and then Emma took those names and chose a winner for a $100 gift certificate to her online store.

I WON!!!!!!!


I can't even explain how excited I was when I got the e-mail!  Holy moly...I WON!  I am so excited.  I hope I can post some fun things on here soon, made with, of course, some of Miss Emma's awesome products.  If you're a stamper, check her items out.  I think you'll love them!

LOAD Days 20 and 21

Here is Day 20:

 As I browsed through the pages of childhood photos, one thing that stood out to me was the crazy fashions!  Imagine my shock when our prompt for Day 20 was "Fashion Plate"...how perfect!  I love the short, <2 minute videos that Lain does with each day's prompt.  She gives you several ways to go with the prompt, so even if at first you see them prompt and have NOTHING...by the time you listen to the video, you're inspired!

Day 21:  This is My Hometown

This page was fun to to.  I got my "map background" inspiration from someone on the LOAD group...not my original idea.  Then hubs showed me how to capture the image, save it, crop it, covert it to a .jpg, and then I was able to use it as "background paper".  I wanted it to be a bit "faded" so I adjusted the opacity to make it fade out a bit.  Awesome-ness!  The only picture on the layout that is actually mine is the one of my childhood home in the top right corner.  The rest of them were found on Google!  How cool is THAT?

So, I'm still on track...23 layouts done in 21 days right now.  I'm determined to finish it out.  I can't believe there are only 8 days left!  Soon it will be less than a week.  WOW!

LOAD ~ Day 16, 17, 18, and 19

Here is the Day 16 layout.  The prompt for this layout was "People In My Neighborhood".  Since we have such a great neighborhood I thought it would be fun to do a layout from one of the neighborhood activities.  Since I've been salivating over My Creative Time's new stamp release (all about Easter) these photos immediately came to mind!

And, for anyone that's curious about those My Creative Time stamps and dies...click HERE and it will take you right to Miss Emma's store and you can see all of the awesome items she has to offer.  I love her products.  She's a small business woman and takes sincere pride in what she is doing.  If you have an issue, SHE will call you herself (and I speak from experience...I was too blonde to get a gift certificate to work, but Miss Emma helped me out!!!).  I get no payment or product for this endorsement!  I just really love her products and think you will too!


I ordered some additional digital content today for Story Book Creator, and once the LOAD Challenge is finished I think I will probably upgrade to SBC 4.0.  If anyone out there is interested in the Creative Memories software (or other items) and needs a CM Consultant, let me know!  My good friend Laura is a consultant and she'd be happy to help you out.

Here is Day 17.  The prompt was "When I Grow Up".  I finally found the book that contains many childhood photos, so it's time to scan them and scrap them.  Did I mention that I'm really starting to adore digital scrap booking?  Yeah, well....I am.

Here's a few things I love about this page.  First of all, the papers and such came from the new content that I downloaded, so that's kinda fun to be using that.  Second, I figured out how to scan directly into Memory Manger, using my multi-function scanner/copier/fax/printer.  I figured I'd have to scan, save, import to MM...NOPE!  You can use the "Get Photos From" and pick scanner.  Awesomely cool!

Day 18:  This is a page that I will use for a book about me for my kids to have.  I scanned these photos from the book that I got the Day 17 photos from.

Day 19:  This prompt was about friends...new ones and old ones.  I always thought it would be fun for my childhood friends to meet my friends here.  I think we'd all have a great time.  This layout only has a few of my awesome girl friends.  I need to start taking more photos!  I guess since I had gotten out of the scrap booking habit I also slacked off on taking photos.

Hope you enjoy the posts this week.  I can't believe the LOAD Challenge is almost over!  In today's video, Lain said "Only 10 more days" and I could not believe it!  Only 10 more????!!!  I hope that I can do at least 4-6 layouts per month after this.  I have really enjoyed learning a lot about SBC and digital scrap booking.  I will definitely do the next LOAD Challenge when it's offered.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll try to help  you!  If you're interested in Lain's LOAD Challenge, click HERE to find out about all of the classes Lain offers.

Here's the schedule for my blog this week...Wednesday and Friday will be crafty posts, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday will be layouts.  Once I'm done with LOAD you will probably see less scrapbooking posts and more crafty ones.  If you're not into scrapping, bear with me!

Happy Crafting!

LOAD ~ Days 14 & 15

Here are my layouts for days 14 and 15.

 Day 14's prompt was "love lasts" which was hugely appropriate, considering it was Valentine's Day!  I used more photos of my parents.  I hope that when my Dad sees all of these layouts that he smiles about the good times, even though I'm sure tears will fall.  They were such an awesome couple and such a great example.  They disagreed, but they always worked it out.

Day 15's prompt was "Songs of Days Gone By" and frankly, when I saw that I groaned a bit.  But, once I watched Lain's video to explain the prompt I knew exactly what I wanted to scrapbook.  For both of our kids we sang this song, so it works.  I used photos from varying times and this is what I came up with.  This time I figured out how to round certain corners, instead of all 4.  I have to admit, I REALLY like the looks of opposite rounded corners.  I don't know why, but I totally love that look!

I think I'll do a "You are my sunshine...." page for our son too...don't want him to feel left out!  One thing that I noticed today...I have NO photos from 2012 of my kids yet!  Time to get snapping!  Now that I'm scrapbooking again, I need photos!

Hope you have a great weekend...see you back here Monday with some new layouts and some new crafty posts!

LOAD ~ Day 13

Sorry I'm a bit late in posting this.  I completed the layout on time, but wanted to post Valentine's Day projects on the 14th, so this post will be going live on the 15th.

Day 13's prompt was about past hobbies.  I just couldn't think of anything to do, but thankfully a friend gave me the digital pics from my 40th Birthday Bash on the 11th, so I did 2 pages from that!

It was a super fun night and I am happy that I now have a small bit of it scrapbooked!

LOAD Days 11 & 12

I'm combining 11 and 12 for you.  The 11th was my 40th birthday and I STILL did a layout!  I'm not sure if that's the impressive part or the fact that I did a layout the next day (after the party)!!!  Either way, I am still rolling along and have completed at least 1 layout every day so far in February!

Day 11 ~ School Days:

Day 12 ~ History Repeats Itself:

 The funny thing is, I never imagined I'd be working on any of the photos of my Mom when I started LOAD.  Now I actually am excited when a prompt fits some of the materials I have of her life.  I am excited to do a book on my Mom and her life.  I'm also trying to scrapbook more on my own life so that my kids will have that later on.

LOAD ~ Day 10

Yep, I'm still in it.  Is it funny to anyone that every day I'm shocked that I'm still keeping up?

Today...favorite memory.  Quick post to show you the layout...off for pre-40th-birthday mani and pedi!  The journaling explains the photo...or at least it SHOULD!

That's it...hope you enjoyed today's layout.  I'm learning more things every day with Story Book Creator and I am finding it ironic that I am enjoying this digital scrapbooking so very much.  I think I might be upgrading to SB4.0 soon since I'm using it so much.

LOAD ~ Day 9

I think I've mentioned as much before, but I'm seriously shocked that I'm still in the game.  I'm enjoying this WAY more than I thought I would.  And I am learning some really cool things with the Story Book Creator, mostly by trial and error.

Today's prompt....Home Sweet Home.  Now, I must say Lain is smart, 'cause today's prompt is a bit less emotional for most folks, and I needed that!

I decided to do a bit of a comparison of our home from when we bought it to when we moved in.  I found the before photos in my digital photo software and then grabbed my camera to snap comparison photos of the same shot, only current.  (...does that make ANY sense....?)

There you have it...there you are.  Today's page.  Honestly, not my favorite, but I think that has more to do with the color/paper selections than anything else.  I don't have a whole lot of options, but can now see the benefit of buying some more digital "kits" or "collections" to have more options.

Hope you enjoyed it!

LOAD ~ Day 8 ~ twofer

Today's prompt was "I Miss...."

Damn if I don't have a lot of material for that prompt.  But having material and actually being mentally able to deal with that material are two different things.  At first, I thought "I miss being able to talk to my Mom on the phone" but I knew there was NO WAY I could do it.  I couldn't go through photos, I couldn't journal that story...I just couldn't.

So I kept thinking and then I thought about Schuyler.  And I thought about his smile.  And I knew, "I miss your smile" was do-able.  I guess I've spent so much time looking at photos of Sky that I felt like I could do it without turning into an emotional wreck.

I love how this page turned out...it makes me smile.

When I uploaded the layout I scanned through the other group member's submissions.  I found a layout that was of a phone with small photos of the scrapbooker's Mom underneath and the journaling was about missing being able to talk to her Mom on the phone...the lightbulb went off.  Inspiration had struck.  I found the envelope that my brother Jeff had sent me a few years ago with photos from the funeral memory boards.  Not only did it have the photos, but a disc where he had scanned them all in.  Bless him!  Here's what I ended up with...

I love how this one turned out also...I miss them both, but these pages make me smile, although through a few tears.

So, shocking as it is, not only have I done a layout every day, but now I've done two for today.  I'd have to go back and count to be sure, but I'm fairly certain that I have now completed more layouts in February than I did during all months combined of 2011.  I'm learning a lot about the digital scrapbooking software, but I'm also finding the process therapeutic.  I've scrapped a bit about myself, and now on some emotional topics.  At the end of the day, it's been a good experience for me.

If you're interested in the LOAD Challenge, click HERE to view Lain's website.  She does the LOAD Challenge a few times a year (3 or 4...can't remember which).  I've had a great experience thus far, and can't imagine her future "classes" will be any less helpful.

See you tomorrow...back with another layout!

LOAD ~ Day 7

Today's prompt gave me instant inspiration....

BUT, it inspired me to tell a story about myself, with no actual photos from my own life.

Hmmm....how could this be, right?

Well...............

Yep...I thought the Wicked Witch said "Potty"...and it never occurred to me that urine would NOT make one fall asleep!  The really sad part is, I was a teenager (probably 14-16) when I was found out!  My brothers and I were talking about the movie and one of them referenced this scene.  I was SHOCKED!  And in my shock, I blurted out "POPPIES?  I thought she was saying "potty"..."

And they will NEVER let me live that down.....!

Now, as silly as this page is, it has me thinking.  My Mom passed away and we later found a notepad that she has started to write about herself for us, for us to find years later when she died.  Well, she started it, but never added to it.  A few months ago, a dear friend lost her Mom and they located the most amazing "autobiography" that she had written for a ministry project.  My friend and I took the text and combined that with photos from throughout her Mom's life and made a book.  So, these few pages that I am creating on my own life made me think that it might be cool to make some pages and create a book about my life for my kids.

So, I now have one silly story from my life that my kids can read and crack up about my silliness.  I don't know how long it will take me, but at the very least, the LOAD Challenge has changed my way of thinking on scrapbooking and I'm getting pages done.

Hope you enjoy today's page, and remember.....stay away from urine slinging witches....  :-)

LOAD ~ Day 6

I have to be honest...I'm a bit shocked that I'm still in the game and that I haven't missed a day.  Today's prompt was about little girl dreams.  I was going to try and locate some photos of me as a child and use those, but after searching for a book with the photos for about 15 minutes I changed my game plan.  I went with photos that I already knew where they were!

And behold...another page on Avery!

I used the click and fill page layout and then chose the papers from a digital pack that I had.  I adjusted the color saturation on the ribbons of the tag because I thought they were too light.  I also added the 2 flowers at the top, using the embellishments.  I'm learning something new every day!

Six for six...I'm shocked...really!  If I stopped right now I'd be satisfied.  But, I'm not going to stop...I'm going to keep on scrapping!

LOAD ~ Day 5

Today's prompt is to create a page about something that has stayed the same, since yesterday was all about something that has changed.

The relationship between my kids came to mind first.  Yes, it has changed, as it obviously would have to, but what I really thought about was how excited Drake was when we told him we were going to have another baby, and how he's been such an awesome brother to her from the get-go.

Today I used a page that had the elements there, but no colors.  I dropped in the papers, rounded some corners, and added the border thingy in the middle.  I love how it turned out, and can see myself using this method a lot in the future.  I love that I'm learning so many things by doing this challenge.  I've had Story Book Creator 3.0 for a long time and am finally using it.  I may be upgrading to 4 soon, if I keep up the pace of actually using it.

Hope you enjoy!  Check out the LOAD Challenge for a fun, motivating way to get you scrapping!  I am loving it!

LOAD ~ Day 4

Today's LOAD Challenge prompt was to do a layout on a "how I've changed" train of thought.  I immediately thought of those wonderful first day of school photos, so I decided to do a layout of Avery's first days of "school" for her preschool years.

When I initially uploaded the layout to the LOAD group I did not have the stars or the embellishment in the bottom left corner.  I added those later when I just wasn't satisfied with the layout.  It's not my favorite layout ever, but not the worst either.

You know what the best thing about this class is?  Getting something DONE!  Avery loves to look at my scrapbook pages that I do every day.  And that is pretty cool.  I can't wait until the end of February to have a bunch of layouts done...order them, and then put those layouts in an album that my kids can look through.

After yesterday's layout and having such a hard time finding the photos to fill in the layout, I decided I would take some time this month and really sort my photos in Memory Manager a bit better.  I think I will start with a BIG scope sort (Holidays, School, Birthday, etc) and then maybe go crazy and sort those down even further to specific people.  It will take time, but it will hopefully save time later when I need to find a specific photo for something.

Lori

LOAD ~ Day 3

Short and sweet tonight...because if I don't get to bed soon, the Day 4 prompt is going to hit my e-mail inbox and then I might not ever make it to bed!  This LOAD thing is highly motivating and addicting to me! If you're a scrapbooker and needing some motivation, or thinking about getting into scrapbooking your photos and don't know how to get started, click HERE to find out about Layout A Day!

Today's prompt encouraged us to scrapbook about ourselves.  This was HARD for me as I'm normally behind the camera, not in front of it!  And, from the comments I saw on other LOAD participants, that is a common issue.

But, as I thought about the prompt and scrolled through the years of photos in Memory Manager, one thing kept coming to mind...I always wanted to be a Mom, but it's WAY more than I ever could've imagined.  So, here's what I ended up with...

I have found in doing these layouts that the journaling is more significant on my digital layouts than I used to do with traditional layouts.  Not sure why that is...maybe because I can type a lot faster than I write, hence I keep up with my flow of thoughts easier.  Anyway, I like it...don't LOVE it, but I do like it.

Another benefit I've noticed from the LOAD Challenge is that I am getting inspiration from others.  I have noticed several layouts that I really like.  One concept is to make a "You are X" page...X being the person's age.  Then you describe the person and what they like, what they're involved in, etc at that age.  I think that's a fun idea for the kids' books.  I also saw a 12 on 12 thing where basically take 12 photos on the 12th of the month and then create a layout with them...some of them have been pretty cool.  This ends up being similar to the calendar albums I used to do.

OK...enough rambling.  If you're keeping track...I'm 3 for 3 now!  I'm just happy to have 3 layouts done!

LOAD ~ Day 2

I think I'm becoming a LOAD groupie!  I am finding that I am able to shed my "gotta be perfect...gotta go in order...gotta have 3 hours and tons of supplies in front of me" mentality and just changing over to getting it DONE!

Today's prompt was to basically find a favorite photo and scrap it.  Now, Lain explained that the main idea is for the photo to be one that gets to you emotionally.  Now, I'm sure we all have hundreds of those kinds of photos.  I thought of several.  I ended up moving both my Memory Manager and Story Book Creator software to my desktop, which I use more often.  Now, let me warn you...this is not an impossible task, but a time intensive one.  It took me quite a while to get both of the software products installed onto my desktop and then the key files moved from my laptop to my desktop.  My Memory Vault was HUGE, so I ended up digging out an external hard drive, which I'd highly recommend for this kind of job!

So, after spending a lot of time doing that, I thought it was probably best for me to go ahead and stick with the same paper theme that I used yesterday and just get the page done.  So, Avery's first birthday seemed like perfect photos to go with those bright papers.  I promise I'll do other types of pages during this month.  But, right now I'm having fun with the digital thing.

LOAD Day 2

I thought it was a good idea to try something new on each LOAD, so today I figured out how to round the corners of the photo.  Not a huge thing, but it did take some clicking to figure out and now I know!  There are lots of options for the type of corner cut, too, which is kinda cool.  I went traditional for this first attempt...don't want to get too crazy at first!

So, that's it...two days into February and two layouts done.  I'm on a roll...hopefully I can keep it up!  I actually think that I might find some more photos and make a few more layouts if I have time tonight.  Right now it's too nice to be inside, so I'm going to take the dog for a walk!

LOAD ~ Day 1

Today's prompt was for a food-related layout.  At first I was kinda stumped, but let that prompt drift from the top of my mind to that more useful subconscious area, and BAM...I've got my idea baby!

I decided to do a page of Avery's first cooking lesson with me...cinnamon popovers were the result.

Then I decided to do a DIGITAL page, using the Creative Memories Storybook Creator software.  I've had it for a long time, but don't really use it much.  Time to remedy that.

It all went well until I could not for the life of me figure out how to export the page, or save it as a .jpg, or share it on Facebook, or ANYTHING!  I ended up uploading it to the CM digital center, previewing the page, copying that imagine, and pasting it into Notepad.  I then saved that as a .jpg. and there you have it.  I was seriously about 2 minutes away from taking a photo of my computer screen and uploading that as proof that I actually did the Day 1 layout!

So, without further ado...my crappy .jpg of my pretty cool 12" x 12" page layout! ***EDIT...I called CM and the problem is FIXED...here's the GOOD image!

I'm going to call CM tomorrow and see if someone can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong or why the "share to Facebook" isn't working.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  I have had these digital products for a long time and don't use them.  I think I'm more likely to do a mixture of traditional pages and digital pages, and that's fine.  It's all about pages that are DONE, no matter how you got them done, right?

Now, I need to go to bed before the Day 2 prompt comes out and I end up scrapbooking when I should be sleeping!

Lori