It's LOAD time

February LOAD is my favourite LOAD of the year. The month is short, it's been low on the creating side of things over Christmas and New Year, there's not a lot else going on, and last but not least... it's been a looong time since the last LOAD in October! Which means I'm missing my scrappy friends and need to get a good inspirational fix.

Added to that, this time around, I managed to persuade a few friends to join us - Pam and Susanne again,  and then Sylvia and Lesley for the first time. I'm hoping the latter two learn to love it as much as us veterans do.

And as for happy dance when I heard that Pam had signed up again. It's so great to see her creating again and she even managed one of the WM prompts. (Which reminds me that I have to get working through my list of open prompts - there's a lot.)

I've said this before, but one of the secrets of success for me is working with kits during this crazy daily creating period. It helps to take away at least a few of the more time consuming decisions that can slow me down on a normal day. In fact, recently I've been almost exclusively working from kits or collection packs in my general scrapbooking too. It works for me.

Therefore, the rather neglected Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits sitting on my self are seeing the light of day at last. I have Passport from September (one layout created so far I think), Comfort from November (one or two layouts only), Begin from January (only one before LOAD started) and then my two kits from February, Nostalgic and Tender. That's a lot of product and a lot of choice. The only decision to make is which kit to grab and create with. But as each of the kits has a certain feeling to them, this is also pretty easy. And you know that I don't ever really try too hard to match the products with the paper or stories so I try not to think about it too much. With most of the papers included in the kits being double sided, I can only imagine how many combinations that gives me.

Have I mentioned that we are smashing scrapbook myths all month long? Each day Lain will give us a common scrap myth and then challenge us to create a page which proves the "rule" to be just that - a myth! I've been uploading the Counterfeit kit layouts I've been making to the CKC group Flickr gallery (here) but I thought I'd just share a couple here as well.

Let's start off with this page which features almost exclusively Teresa Collins product from my February Tender kit and will be used to record some of my primary school memories. The left hand photo is on top of a file folder inside which I intend to document the little snippets that come back to me. I might even be able to add in some more papers if I find that I want to write more. Of course, I can always make a second page but I am starting to panic about the piles and piles of pages that I have and at the rate I create, how quickly those piles are growing. So finding a way of combining stories onto a single page seems like a good idea.

Scrapbook Myth: a layout always needs a title
I sometimes take ages to come up with a half-decent title so it was a relief to be able to bust this myth. I'll be doing this again.

As you can see, if I write small, there should be a reasonable amount of space for some of those memories. But first I need to come up with some! A brainstorming session is definitely called for because for the moment, my mind is blank.

Yep, I'm THAT old! :-)

And second up is a page I created with January's Begin kit which is too pretty to leave lying around, unloved.

We cleared out the cellar and garage last week of my MIL's house. She moved out some time ago and we had stored quite a lot of rubbish stuff there for a long time. It was time to get rid. However good the decluttering felt, and it felt really good, it was a bittersweet experience as we've spent many a day sitting in the garden, having BBQs and just generally enjoying family time there. We entertained the kids with pools and inflatables and silliness, and in fact, this is where my husband grew up. Having sorted out everything, I will never go there again :-( It felt sad. So I was pleased to come across these photos and have the chance to just capture some of the happy times we had there and to write down a few words of then and now. And yes, I was channelling my inner Pam the whole time I was creating!

Scrapbook Myth: scrapbooking takes a long time
I made this in just over an hour. This is fast for me. I know I could have probably managed it faster than that but I was feeling a little undecided about the embellies and then took time to find sequins. This is not necessary for most scrappers LOL!

How are your Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits doing? Sitting on the shelf or getting made into layouts which make you happy. Mine are certainly making me happy :-)