Welcome to the LOAD 213 bloghop! We’ve got a special treat today, with a bloghop featuring both veteran and brave new LOADsters.

If you’ve never been on a bloghop before, this is how it works: after you are done here, I’ll have a link for the next person for you to visit on the hop, and she will have a link on her blog for the next person, and so on, until you get all the way back here. It’s a great big circle of LOAD-loving scrappiness! Sound good? Let’s hop!

I have been participating in Layout a Day for a long time. I just realized this week that this will be my tenth LOAD! That’s a lot of pages! As I was going through previous collections of pages, I kept noticing how many of the pages I’ve made during LOAD are some of my favorites. It occurred to me that a LOAD Hall of Fame might be in order, so here they are: One favorite from each LOAD I’ve participated in. These are the pages that make me scrap happy:

1. The first page I made for the first Layout a Day I joined. The night before LOAD started, I dreamed this page. It came out pretty much the way I wanted, with the self-deprecating humor, the internet-sourced thumbnails, and a photo my grandfather took of me when I was applying for a job on a cruise liner. Bonus? It’s just one piece of paper run through my wide-format printer.

2. My wide format printer isn’t always kind to me. Especially when something gets stuck in it and smears the print, like on this photo. Love that I dealt with it by adding some stamp flourishes. Mistakes are just problems looking for a creative solution.

3. I can NOT get a decent group family photo. These individual shots will have to do. Love this design; it’s one of my go-to layouts.

4. I love the imperfections of this. The messy handprints, the incomplete rolled “happy” stamp, the not quite in focus pictures. I also love that I have these pictures, because they really show my youngest’s personality.

5. This is one of those photos that sneaks up on you and makes you laugh. I really wanted to let that happen by letting the photo be the most important thing on the page.

6. I love drawing odd conclusions from a group of photos. If I can turn it into a bad joke? I’m even happier. As a side note, this is another one of my go-to designs, albeit slightly askew. 😉

7. I love to experiment with new techniques. I began seriously dabbling in paper crafts with rubber stamping, which can be a very technique-happy field. Being able to play with new ideas is one of the many reasons LOAD makes me happy. Bonus: I made this nametag and took this picture right before MotherLOAD when Lain tweeted about having a nightmare about needing nametags for everyone, and not being able to find them. Inspiration truly is everywhere.

8. When my previous house was on the market, I cleaned my house ALOT. It got very frustrating to do all that cleaning, and not get any positive feedback. I also have four cats and a dog, so as soon as I got done cleaning, I’d find a dust bunny drifting by. Made me want to shave my animals. 😉 It also made good fodder for a page, because it is such an everyday and always type of theme.

9. The number one reason LOAD makes me scrap happy is because of this. Not because it’s a great page (which I happen to believe, but then I’m biased) but because this is a case where, the more you do something, the better you get at it, until what you make matches your vision. This is one of those rare pages that came out just as I envisioned it, all thanks to LOAD.

Layout a Day is one of the best challenges out there. You stretch your creative muscles, and get into a very productive routine. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, give it a try.   You won’t regret it!

Now it’s time for you to hop on to the next blog: my very creative friend Alison Day

If you get lost, you can head back here, and find all the participating blogs: