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!

While getting ready to make my page for today’s first prompt for LOAD, I thought it might be useful to talk about what, if any, excuses that might pop up during LOAD, and how to talk yourself out of letting those excuses control how much and what you scrap.

In other words, what’s the process for scrapbooking every day? What kind of self talk goes on? How does a prompt turn into a page? What kind of excuses pop up, and how do you recognize a valid reason vs. a  lazy or fearful excuse?

Let’s see what happens this month, shall we?

Today’s prompt was to scrap an imperfect photo. Since I’m an imperfect photographer, finding one wasn’t that hard. I flipped through the pile of photos I still need to put away, and pulled imperfect ones, until I can across one from college.

It was exposed during a party, so is partially orange, and is filled with the mess from the dorm I used to share freshman year. (I hereby claim all said mess as my own. My poor roommate!)

Anyhoo…

From the photo, I moved to paper selection, and chose papers that helped illustrate the theme. I thought originally that I was going to do an 8.5×11 page, but then realized I had a lot to say, so went 12×12 so I’d have room for lots of journaling. A simple design (One of my go-to’s. I should do a post about my go-to design structures for you), some journaling, and a few embellishments, and it was done.

Today, I didn’t have any issues to deal with. The only problems I ran into were ones I made for myself. For example, I really want to make a point of using up scraps from my scrap bin this month, but when I first started putting the page together, I was pulling fresh pages from my shelf. So I paused, and took a second look at how the page design was shaping up , and pulled out a few scraps to use as well. The purple and orange are from the scrap bin, the blue and lined paper were full sheets.

And then, because I’m spastic like that, I managed to get stickles all over the place while coloring the grungeboard camera icon up top.

So that’s my quick little page for the day. Did you make a page today?