A Layout A Day? I can't even imagine creating a layout a day. I'm more of a slow, deliberate, story-focused kind of gal. And scrapbook pages for me just don't come together very quickly. But that's how I work, and I embrace it. Just for visual reference, here's one of the fastest layouts I've ever created in my life:
Note that the date stamp above refers to the date I sent the email. The layout is a more recent creation. Do you love the Stampin' Up! owl paper?
Above you see the 13 words I received in response.
Speed wasn't the goal on this particular page, but it came together quickly anyway. And I ain't complainin.' (Were you wondering when you'd finally see the word "ain't" on this blog?) This is a layout about the one time I got up the courage to email a fan letter to a writer. And he responded! I love, love, love Malcolm Gladwell. I discovered him in The New Yorker magazine years ago, after realizing that virtually every recent article I'd read that kept me riveted from beginning to end, and that stayed with me long after I put the issue down, had a Malcolm Gladwell byline.
In a nutshell, Malcolm (may I call him Malcolm?) makes fascinatingly unique connections, and he delivers his ideas with beautiful, perfect clarity. He can turn a mundane subject (ketchup) into a magical and deep exploration of how we taste. I think it all comes down to the fact that he asks very good questions, like: why do we associate genius with precocity? And is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?
Whoa, that post really got away from me! Pardon my digression. Back to the topic at hand. When it comes to scrapbooking, and pretty much everything else, I take my own sweet time. That's why I so admire Lain Ehmann and her L.O.A.D. participants. (L.O.A.D. = LayOut A Day). Everyone commits to creating a scrapbook page a day for just one month, sharing and encouraging one another in an online gallery. There are prizes, challenges, the works! It's been so much fun that Lain's firing it up for the third time this May. Read all about it here.
I actually think I'm going to try it this time! While I'm not going to commit to completing a layout a day, I will commit to scrapbooking for 20 minutes a day, which could very easily result in two layouts a week. That's more my speed. If you'd like to sign up this May, readers of this blog can save $3 off the $10 participation fee. When you send your $7 to Lain via Pay Pal, just include the word "YEAH" (for Yeah, Write) in the comments box. Tell her I sent you.
Thanks for hanging in there until I finally made my point. Happy Thursday!
~Angie
p.s. The "favorite sentence" that I emailed to Malcolm, and that he referred to in his response, is this: "He taught psychology at Princeton and Rugters, and was the author of Affect, Imagery, Consciousness, a four-volume work so dense that its readers were evenly divided between those who understood it and thought it was brilliant and those who did not understand it and thought it was brilliant." A bit of an anti-climax, eh?
