You know how I said no excuses this month? Well, I actually have an excuse. A reason, more exactly.

I knew going into the month that I might be heading to my sister’s during my kids’ winter break. I was planning on scrapping digitally while down there, but plans have changed.

Now, I’m heading to my sister’s tomorrow. Sans kids. Because, well she’s moving, and she needs help packing, and kids would only get in the way.

Since I’ll be helping with packing and baby wrangling, and her apartment will be filled with boxes, and her computer packed away, there’s no way I’ll be able to scrapbook while I’m down there. (There’s the reason right there to purchase a laptop!)

But, since I really want to complete 28 pages this month, I can make more than one layout a day for a few days to keep ahead/catch up with the days I’ll be missing.

So.

These three layouts were part of my effort to keep on track for my monthly goal of 28 completed pages. If I have time before I leave tomorrow, I’ll make another one.

Oh, and just for the record, these aren’t exactly prompt driven pages. Rather than digging through my stash to locate something really old, I just used what was closest to hand. The supplies for these pages are mostly from last May’s Gossamer Blue kit. I LOVE their kits, and if I were to subscribe to any kits, I’d probably use theirs, since they are so wonderfully color oriented.

Alrighty then, show me what you’ve been making! I’d love to see what you create!

Well, today, was going to be all about showing you how you CAN make a page in 30 minutes. But my tripod decided to be uncooperative, and started slowly tipping down as soon as I started taping. I figure you don’t really need to watch 5 minutes of just my right hand, right?

Since today’s prompt was all about time management, I made some executive decisions to limit my choices of both photos and papers. First, no searching for photos. I have a pile of pics I had pulled out for previous projects that I haven’t used yet, and that need to be put away. Rather than worrying about putting those away, I know I’ll be using a bunch of those to make pages this month, including today! Second decision? No searching for just the right piece of patterned paper. If it’s not in the scrap bin, it’s not on the menu for today.

So–number one recommendation for speedy scrapping? Limit choices! Use a kit, or a pile of scraps, and don’t worry about finding that perfect item. Perfection is overrated anyways!

After deciding on a photo, I pulled a few papers from my scrap bin, some Project Life journaling cards, and some random embellishments that were close at hand. The paper layers were shuffled around a bit, and the cards lined up so the gridlines matched up. A bit of journaling, and the page was done.

The video, from start to finish, including reframing the shot after the camera moved, and some put away, was a grand total of 31 minutes and 7 seconds. Sounds like a thirty minute page to me.

How fast can you scrap? Have you ever timed yourself?

It’s the third day into Layout A Day for February 2014, and today was a bit rougher for me. (I went to a Superbowl party last night. Now I’m dragging!)

The prompt was to create a page without a title. This, along with a no words prompt, is one of two of my most difficult prompts to follow. In case you hadn’t realized from reading this blog, I LOVE words. So when I can’t use a title or words I get a little antsy.

Of course, I could always go off prompt and just create any page that speaks to me, but I like following the prompts if I can. They help stretch me as a scrapbooker, and help me figure out what some of my must-haves and don’t-ever-want-to-do-agains are.

So. The prompt was to make a title-less page. I can do that! But deciding on a topic was a bit harder for me. I realized that titles really help me establish theme and story when creating a page, so I needed to create a page that didn’t need that title to draw it all together.

This time, rather than start with a photo, I decided to start with product. Thumbing through my most recent papers, I found a summer collection from Simple Stories with lots of little word art in it. That felt right!

That collection led me to these two photos–one of which is a complete picture, and one of which is waste from a previous page I made about the other kid in the main picture. The photo scrap was too good to toss, so went into my reuse pile.

I have no full sheets of this collection left, so am now using the half page and quarter page bits as patterned paper on full sheets of cardstock. You know all those kits with the weird cut apart papers? Use them! They look great on full size pages, as well as in pocket pages.

I added a few more stickers and journaling, and this page is done. What do you think? Think you can make a page without a title? Show me what you’ve got!

Today’s page was first on the agenda, since we’re going to a Super Bowl party this evening. When I have busy days, I like to squeeze a page in first thing, before I get sidetracked by all the other chores and events of the day.

The prompt for today was to scrapbook something small. (When you first started scrapbooking, didn’t you think you needed to scrapbook all the major events? Don’t you wish you had saved more of the little moments? I know I do!)

This was very fast to put together. A piece of off white cardstock, a few scraps of paper in related colors, and some embellishments that have been staring at me from across the desk, and the page was done.

When you’ve got a lot planned for your day, don’t second guess yourself. The alpha stickers were the first set I came across that looked like they would work for the page. I almost kept looking for alternatives, but then decided they were good enough. I don’t have time to waste on trying for perfect. I prefer to just get things done.

Have you made anything today? Feel free to share!