This is the second year I’ve participated in LOAD. Both experiences were positive. It amazes me that I can create more layouts in one month than I do the entire rest of the year. This year I came to some realizations about my process and what makes me happy. 

 First, the more I scrapbook, the easier it becomes. By the end of the month, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish with a given layout. Although I used a sketch to get me going early in the month, by the end of the month I was designing the pages in Photoshop Elements. This worked especially well since I could then size the photos exactly as I wanted them before I printed them.

Second, a few months ago, I purged a lot of my supplies. I had read somewhere (Ali’s blog?) that the more you have, the harder it is to make decisions about what to use. I now know that is true. With less to choose from, decisions are easier. In addition, I kept the supplies that I loved, so that helped too. Clearly it would be good if I continued to scrap on a regular basis. We’re going to be gone a good part of March, and I’ve let two online courses go in order to complete LOAD, so I don’t expect to get much done in the next month, but I do hope to do more scrapping on a regular basis.

Finally, I’ve come to realize that I am, without a doubt, a clean and simple scrapbooker! All I really need to be happy is some good cardstock, a couple pieces of patterned paper, and some good photographs. I like dimensional alphabets, journaling spots, and wood veneer accents. I don’t need a lot of embellishments, but I’m glad I kept a few flowers, and other embellishments to add when they seem appropriate. Story is also very important, and that is a huge change from the time I started scrapping. My earliest layouts have photos, but few words. Now there are often more words than photographs. Recording the story for my family seems much more important now than it did ten years ago.

So here are the last four layouts:

One of the things we enjoy doing when we travel is visiting the old, elegant hotels that are often near or in the national parks. We can't afford to stay there, but we often have a meal in one of the restaurants. This time we had dinner reservations at a fabulous steak house, so we went to the Stanley Hotel for drinks. I had no idea it was the site for filming Stephen King's "The Shining."

Once I photographed this layout, I realized I needed to move the title to the left. I did that, but was too lazy to take another photo! I used some stamps and dies from Papertrey Ink to embellish these pages. Here's the journaling: 

Driving across the plains states never seems very exciting to me. They are SO big, SO flat, and it takes SO long. In addition, I’m always looking forward to getting to our destination. After driving across desolate Nevada a few years ago, I have a new appreciation for the plain states. At least there are signs of life and I saw lots of iconic scenes I would have loved to stop to photograph. 

 We spent one morning at the Amana Villages in Iowa. They are just charming, and I found plenty of inspiration for photographs. I was disappointed in the shopping, hoping for lots of hand-crafted items but finding the shops filled with the usual tourist, gift-shop type items. The one exception was the Amana General Store, and our best purchases were some German sausages, mustard, and sauerkraut as well as some bread from one of the local bakeries. So glad we had a cooler with us.

Sarah chose a jungle theme for her nursery and baby shower, and the paper I used to create favors and goodies for the shower worked perfectly with the zoo photos.

This layout (#29) completed the layouts for our August road trip. On our way south we visited with our good friends in North Carolina. One afternoon we wandered around the National White Water Center. There'll be no ziplining for me, but we all agreed we'd like to go back some day for the white water rafting.

I finished LOAD today–actually did one extra layout (29) to finish up all the photos I wanted to scrap from the road trip last August. We leave in a couple of weeks to visit Sarah, Adam, and Caleb and I know I'll come home with a new pile of photos to deal with. To spare you some overload, I'll post the last ones in two batches.

Once I got to these photos, I decided to spend the rest of the week getting the vacation photos scrapped. I watched a few of the prompt videos, but eventually gave that up since I wasn't paying any attention to them. This was Caleb's first introduction to a pool, and he was not the least bit intimidated. He even let Sarah take him under water.

One of the stops we made on the way from Atlanta to Denver was in Birmingham, AL. We wanted to visit the Civil Rights Institute there, and it was well worth the trip. But we were delighted to find some other fun things to do there as well:  The Vulcan Center (with a fascinating museum about Birmingham's history and gorgeous views of the Birmingham skyline,) and The Peanut Depot which turned out to be loads of fun.

A very kind waitress came outside with us after dinner at The Lowcountry BackYard Restaurant in Hilton Head to take our photo. It was the only photo of all five of us taken on the trip.

I wrote a blog post about the amazing Crystal Bridges American Museum of Art, but I'd never gotten any of the photos into the Travel Album.

Here's a better view of the first page and the journaling.

Finally remembered to use some Washi tape on some of these layouts. I just love how easy it is to use. The little wood veneer heart in the Photo Op layout was covered with Washi tape, too.