The winners of the copy of Your Story Matters has been announced at LayoutADay.com. Go check it out, and see if you’re a winner. Remember, you need to claim your prize by the end of day Wednesday!
If you didn’t win, and you would like to get your own copy of the ebook, you can get it by clicking here.
***These are old posts, updated and re-published to gear up for Friday’s blog-hop for this year’s LOAD. Enjoy this week’s LOAD overload!***
Let me take you back to the fall of 2009. I had been hearing about LOAD (LayOut A Day for any non-scrappers out there) from people at Big Picture Classes and through various social media sources. Everyone who had taken part raved about how productive and inspired they were during the month-long sessions.
I was intrigued. My productivity had fallen off, mainly due to the unexpected death of my mother-in-law that spring. I hadn’t fully completed any classes I was taking at BPC or JessicaSprague.com since then, and was feeling a bit disappointed in myself. I needed a challenge. A goal. A plan of action.
LOAD to the rescue!
I wasn’t sure what to expect that first day, but I knew what page I had to do first. I’d been mulling over a page about meeting Whoopi Goldberg for days. I took advantage of the wide-format printer that my mother had given me, and printed the title and journaling directly on a piece of patterned paper. A few images snagged from the internet, and I had my first page for LOAD done. I took a picture of it, uploaded it to Flickr, and went on with my day.
I am a rather solitary scrapbooker. I am not a joiner by nature. I don’t have many friends who understand how cool scrapbooking is. So it came as something of a surprise when I went back later, and had comments and compliments about my layout. I had feedback! I wasn’t alone!
This LOAD thing was awesome.
 |
|
| October 2009 LOAD |
As the month went along my stack of pages grew and grew. My kids eagerly read each page. They helped me choose topics. Simon even helped me put together one of two mini books I completed that month. (He loves buttons and flowers, just so you know.) I got so much DONE! And my family appreciated what I did. The housework didn’t suffer any more than usual. Everyone was fed, and got to bed and school at reasonable times. And I was happier. I was getting creative every day, and feeling more inspired as the mess on my desk piled up. The people on the message board were supportive, and funny, and generous. I spent as much time as I could commenting and spreading the love around as well. I couldn’t find a single downside to the whole process.
I still haven’t.
 |
| February 2010 LOAD |
I’m hooked. I love the people who sign up, who take the leap and ATTEMPT to push themselves creatively. There is no failure in LOAD, even if you don’t finish a single page. There’s only the certainty that you have tried, and you have completed more than you would have if you didn’t take that jump.
The theme for this month’s LOAD is all about scrapping happier. Every day you’ll get a link to a little prompt with ideas to get you scrapbooking, just in case you have no idea where to start. There’s even an interview with author Gretchen Rubin, who wrote “The Happiness Project,” and “Happier at Home.” (Both excellent books by the way.) There will be camaraderie, and sharing of the ups and downs of life as a dedicated scrapbooker. And you WILL get more done than if you hem and hah and dither and live in the world of CAN’T instead of CAN.
 |
| May 2010 LOAD |
To encourage you, and give you some ideas on how to prepare for a month of scrapbooking goodness, and to share how LOAD has made us ScrapHappier, I and a bunch of other LOAD alums as well as some brave new LOADsters are hosting a blog hop Friday, January 25th, beginning at 10am eastern. Join us!
And I said I wasn’t a joiner.
All you have to do to sign up is click my affiliate link: LOAD registration
 |
| October 2010 LOAD |
What are you waiting for?
How did you do with my challenge to you? Did you make a page with only ten words on it?
This is what I created:
Do you see the small little tooth at the end of toothless? It’s actually a little piece of plastic that was stuck on my son’s new watch to keep the battery from engaging. He finally started to wear it yesterday, and of course left the little piece of plastic behind.
I found it while wiping down the bathroom counter today, and when I saw it, I immediately thought “tooth!” Since this same son had recently lost his two front teeth, it seemed appropriate to make a page about his gap-toothed grin.
I narrowed my choices to a single kit that my local scrapbook store had put together with Studio Calico products, and tried out a new punch I got for my birthday (thanks Mom!) and searched for a photo or two of him with his gap. These were as good as I could find. I was sure I’d gotten a good gap-photo, but no such luck. And both teeth are well on their way in now, so no re-creating photo possibilities.
A few distressed edges, a little pleated paper ribbon, some salvaged scraps (note the tiny hexagons, from the border punch!) and ten words later, and a page is born.
My ten words? “Toothless. Hopefully you won’t need braces like your Dad did.”
Quick, simple, and communicates more than just look at these crazy kid photos. You can journal. You really, really can.
Welcome to the Your Story Matters blog hop! You should have come here from Alison at Scrapping in Singapore. If not, you can start here and work your way around the circle, or you can go back to the beginning to start with our fearless leader Lain at Layout a Day.
This past summer, I had the pleasure of joining fellow members of ScrapHappy in contributing to the ebook Your Story Matters. It is now available for sale! This is SO exciting!
First of all, this was a collaborative effort of the members of ScrapHappy. ScrapHappy is an online scrapbooking community, where anyone and everyone is welcome. This is really the nicest, most supportive, and funny group of people I know, online or in real life. Of course I jumped at the chance to make an ebook with them!
Second, the subject matter is so important to me as a scrapbooker. The topics covered everything from “How you and your husband met,” to “Your greatest fault (or strength.)” I firmly believe that the most important pages that you can do, the ones that will mean the most to you and your family in the future, are the ones that tell the story of your everyday, imperfect life. I can hear the naysayers, saying their lives are boring, but think about it from the other side of the coin. Aren’t you the least bit curious about what your great-grandmother ate for breakfast on a routine basis? Wouldn’t you love to know what she carried in her purse? You probably can’t ask her those questions now, but you can answer them for yourself, now. Someday, someone will find that information fascinating, even if you think your everyday life is so everyday it’s uninspiring. Use the prompts from this book, look at your life with a new perspective, and you will find your everyday to be inspiring.
I contributed two pages to the ebook. First up, “my morning routine.” Breakfast of course!
Then, since I had recently moved, “the place I call ‘home.'”
Intrigued? Want to see what the other ScrapHappy members contributed? Buy a copy of the ebook for yourself! (It’s an ebook only, so it’s only available for download.) The introductory price is $7, and I have a $2 off coupon code for you: HOP. That’s $5. You will never be able to get it for that little again! (The coupon expires midnight January 21st.)
We also are giving away three copies to commenters who post on any or all of the blogs participating in the bloghop. All you have to do to be eligible is leave a comment here about what story you think is important for scrapbookers to document by January 19th. The winners will be announced January 21st on Layoutaday.com. You will need to claim your prize by January 23rd. If you don’t want to wait that long, buy your book now, and you’ll get a refund if you win!
Now it’s time for you to move on to the next blog, my friend Danielle Hunter’s Ecoscrapbook. She has some great ideas on reducing, reusing and recycling in scrapbooking.
The full list of participants:
I’ve taught a lot of in-person classes, and one of the most frequent problems new scrapbookers run into is the question of what to say, and how to say it. I remember when I first started scrapbooking, I was nervous and unsure of where to start as well. I even took a class on it. The class, however, was not very useful, since basically all the instructor did was read from the book that came with the class. There was one exercise that we did where I was supposed to write as much about a particular occasion as I could remember, using as many sensory cues (sight, smell, scent, etc.) as I could tie in. Of course, being the good student that I am, I sat right there and wrote as much as I could in the five minutes she gave me during class. When she saw how much I had written she said to me something along the lines of “I thought you said you were having trouble journaling?” Right then it clicked.
Writing for a scrapbook is no different from any other writing.
What would you write about the photos you want to use if you were sharing them on Facebook or Instagram? How would you share a funny family story with your long distance family and friends? Why are the photos you want to scrapbook important to you?
In the end, that’s all journaling comes down to. It can be simple who, what, where, and when details, or you can flesh out your story and tell the why and how.
That’s all it is. The secret to successful journaling is just to write. It’s only words. They are not etched in stone, and there’s no rule that says you can’t revisit the story at a later date to make a new page that tells even more of the story.
I have a challenge for you. Make a page this week with only ten words on the page, including title. No more, no less. I’ll make one too, and show it to you later this week.
Here’s a little inspiration for you, with only five words on it. (Eight if you count the date.)
Let’s get scrapping! No excuses!