This is traditionally my day to write a Words on Wednesday post so I decided to take this opportunity to tell you all about my experience with LOAD.
What is LOAD?
LOAD is short for LayOut A Day and is a month long challenge in which the participants are emailed a daily prompt designed to help them create a new scrapbook layout every day. My first LOAD was May 2011 and I completed nine layouts. That probably doesn’t seem like a lot when it’s a challenge spanning 31 days (and 31 prompts) but considering I had three kids under the age of 6 in the house AND my husband and I got to go away for a whole week by ourselves, I’d say that was pretty good!
My next LOAD was in February 2012 and this time I finished 28 layouts. It was a leap year which means I missed one day somewhere but I think 28 out of 29 is pretty darn good! Here’s a look at my finished pile.
How satisfying is that?
The next LOAD was in May 2012 and I completed 12 layouts (again, we were away for over a week – this time it was a family trip to Disneyland). Then some of the members of my ScrapHappy group decided to host their own LOAD in October of 2012 without Lain’s help (Lain Ehmann was the originator of LOAD and ScrapHappy was her organization until just recently when my friend Alice purchased it). I managed to complete all 31 prompts that month (plus a couple extra)! I think I may even have helped with one or two of the days by providing inspiration layouts. Can’t remember anymore! Here’s a layout I made about all the layouts I made (I know how ridiculous that sounds, truly I do!)
I was a Featured Designer for LOAD213 which was a big honour for me but must have thrown me for a loop (or else, the rest of that month was crazy busy) as I only completed two other layouts besides my four assigned layouts. In subsequent LOAD’s I had equally varying levels of participation but through it all I watched every video, listened to every prompt, and filed away ideas for future dates when I could make scrapbooking a priority again.
Which is really a long and involved way of saying that although LOAD is a challenge, and there are prize incentives and bragging rights on the line for completing a page every day by the deadline, … it is so much more than that!
LOAD is about delving deeper.
Sometimes the prompts are fun things like “use as many buttons on your page as you can” or “create a page without any words“, but more often they are about deeper things. Lain was famous for giving you prompts like “I always thought …“, or “I miss …“, or even how a prompt about a road trip can turn into a page about all the cars I’ve owned.
This past February was Lain’s last LOAD and I managed to complete 29 layouts in 29 days (leap year, remember?) I blogged about them in weekly recap posts which you can see here, here, here, here, and here. Or you can watch my LOAD216 Walk Through video below.
Think this is something you’d like to try? Well I have good news for you, we are gearing up to start a brand new LOAD challenge on May 1st! New host (Alice Boll of Scrapbook Wonderland), new prompts, new featured designers (including yours truly) and in the end, new memories scrapped! Which is really what it’s all about, right? Whether you complete one, twelve or thirty-one layouts in May, every memory recorded is a win. Which makes up all winners!!
It’s only $50 BUT if you sign up TODAY you can still get the Early Bird pricing of $35.
If you are at all interested in getting more of your family stories documented then sign up.
If you like a fun group of women (and some men) who will support you with comments and suggestions, then sign up.
Registration closes at midnight on April 30th so SIGN UP TODAY!
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