Blog Hop: Preparing for LOAD Feb 2014 Mythbusters

Welcome to the LOAD or Layout A Day blog hop!  If you are hopping along, you arrived here from Christy's blog

I'm Lisa and I confess that this is my first LOAD. So I want to tell you why I chose to sign up this time and what I'm doing to get prepared for the Layout A Day experience starting February 1.

Perhaps I should start with why I didn't sign up in the past.  The idea behind Layout a Day is to complete a layout every day for a month.  It's a great accomplishment and can be quite a commitment.  It also seemed to me like a lot of pressure.  I'm not a competitive person.  Pressure is not my friend.

I like to mull things over.  Often I pull out my photos and product and start planning the page in my head and maybe on paper.  I may do a sketch on the computer if the page is to be a process video on my YouTube channel.  Sometimes I know right away what I want to do with a certain photo and story.  Many times I have to think about it.  I browse my stash.  I plan and think.  If only I could find a pen that would write in the shower, I could get all those ideas at odd times down on paper!

This planning part is fun for me.  And that often means I don't complete a layout the same day I start.  (You may notice in my videos that my sleeves are different colors from beginning to end as one or more days has passed.)

Other things get in the way, too.  A husband, two parents who increasingly want me to to whatever it is they want Right NOW, stuff breaks, you know, all the parts of everyday life.  Scrapbooking is an important part of my life and I make time for it, but it has to be prioritized like everything else.

So how am I going to get a page done every day?  I certainly can do a page in a day, but a page a day for a month?  That's a lot!

And that was my stumbling block for the longest time.  But this time round, I really listened to Lain's video (link below).  First of all she wants us to have fun.  "If it's not fun, don't do it."  Well, that right there meant I could do a page a day or not.  Do what's fun.

She also introduced the topic of Mythbusters.  She suggested such myths as every page having to have a photo and every page having to have a great photo.   Now pages with just journaling appeals to me a great deal.  I have very, very few photos from my childhood with almost all of them from one set of grandparents but I still have stories to tell. I did this one a few years ago and liked it but never got around to another no photo page:

Lain is encouraging us to tell stories we might have not gotten around to yet.

While I don't want to be rushed to complete a page, ironically I do find challenges to be very motivating.  I often participate in CHA challenges, National Scrapbooking Day, whatever.  I like it when I have a theme or recipe to build my page around.  I once did a challenge to use 17 buttons on a scrapbook page.  It was fun and here's the page and the link to the original post:

So we are back to having fun, learning and getting pages done - pages that don't always take priority - at the pace I want to do them.  So will I really do a layout a day?  No, probably not.  So I won't qualify for the prize drawing.  But that isn't why I'm taking the class.  I'm looking for inspiration, socializing on-line and just having more fun scrapbooking.  I can already tell there will be lots of encouragement from the on-line message board.

Since I haven't done LOAD before, my preparation has been kind of minimal.  I did have some extra photos printed.  I selected a few of my childhood photos.  I have my 2013 Sketchbook ready to browse to save time designing. I've browsed my stash for collections I'd like to whittle down particularly as new product will soon be available for purchase.

I've told my husband what I'm doing so he knows I'm taking an on-line 'class' and I want to get as much out of it as possible.  Meaning, I may be scrapping more than usual.

I also plan to do a little journaling this weekend to get down some of those stories that don't necessarily have a photo.  I'm excited to start seeing Lain's e-mail in my inbox each day starting February 1.

If you haven't already and would like to sign up for LOAD, there is still time!  Here's the intro video mentioned above and the sign up screen.

Click here to view more details

So that's a bit about my thought process in signing up.   Here on my blog, I post just about every papercraft I create - pages, cards and mixed media.  I also do many, many process and other scrapbooking videos.  They are linked here and at my YouTube channel:  LisaEDesign

Thanks for visiting!  I look forward to seeing all of your projects from LOAD, too.

From here, your next stop is Lisa Hausmann 

In case you get lost along the way, here is a list of everyone in the hop:

Kelli www.useitscrapbooking.com/
Dani http://scrapperonthestreet.com
Valerie http://myrainbowcoalition.blogspot.com/
Karen http://photoskeptalive.wordpress.com/
Danielle http://ecoscrapbook.blogspot.com/
Connie http://clickychickcreates.com/
Sherrie http://littlebitofeverythingme.blogspot.com
Cara www.vincens.typepad.com/
Heather http://noexcusescrapbooking.com/
Kim http://gma654.blogspot.com
Christy http://myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com/
Lisa E http://lisae-design.blogspot.com/
Lisa H http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com

Happy hopping!