Pre-Informal October LOAD Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Hop.  Here is the whole blog lineup:

                             Lisa:                        http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com

                             Katherine:            http://www.csmoferret.blogspot.com

                             Tambur:            http://myhearties.blogspot.com

                             Pam:                          http://dailypamage.blogspot.com

You are Here:     Katrina:            http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com

Next Stop:          Christie:            http://mrsingie.com

                             Lisa:                         http://lisamzepponi.blogspot.com

I am Katrina, also known as kskreations on Flickr which is short for my little crafty business Katrina's Kreations.  I am a widow & a mom of one, my DS Ryan who is turning 9 the 17th of October (I can't believe how fast time flies).  Do you already feel like you know him from my Layouts?  Feel like I've been scrapping my whole life, I did some scrappy kind of things with magazine pictures & cutouts of certain hearthrobs when I was a young teenager, in 1994 I did a whole album from a vacation I took in an old magnetic page album with only photos and ephemera I collected on the trip.  I started doing what we think of as scrapbooking when I did an album for my parents 30th Anniversary in 2001, and then started scrapping again after Ryan was born in 2002. When my husband died in April of 2003, it gave me an even greater motivation: preserve his memory for my son.  I haven't done a whole lot of pages about him recently, but I do at least one every LOAD-it's like Therapy for me.

 

I have been very busy working on the layouts for the Mother LOAD this month and will only have a few days off before Our Informal LOAD starts the first of October.  This will be my 4th LOAD including the MotherLOAD and I have enjoyed Every Single one so much!  

Now I don't usually do a whole lot of prep.  I have a gazillion photos in boxes in my studio or in my PSE Organizer (Or both sometimes) so I often just let the prompt inspire which page I do that day, but I wouldn't be able to do that if my photos weren't organized.  I haven't taken LOM, (but I do have the book Photo Freedom) so most of my photos are still stored chronologically.  

I have a big 12x12 album that all my LOAD LO's go in, then eventually I will move them to the individual albums they belong in.  I have several that are as follows:  Ryan's Baby Album (separate from the baby book but you knew that already right), Then 2 more Ryan Albums (one is full), which have pages from various ages.  An Album about my husband & my memories of him. I have an all about me album which has a surprisingly large number of pages.  I have a travel album, a disney album, and a misc for those pages that don't fit anywhere else, & a couple albums with no particular theme from when I first started scrapbooking.   

My Scraproom is my favorite place in my house, except that it usually looks like a paper truck exploded, so I am going to work on cleaning it up & organizing before LOAD starts too.  My supplies are mostly sorted by color.  I do have a whole bunch of binders with themed embellies stickers etc.  And some file drawers with themed paper.  (I have really been breaking into it a lot this month.  I have only done 1 digi layout so far, which is very unusual for me.)  I always make it my goal to use my stash & not buy anything new for LOAD.  It doesn't always happen, but I certainly have enough in my stash to keep me busy for a couple of years...even if LOAD was every month.  Sooo for those of you who have read this whole thing, if you want me to share some of my stash with you, leave me a comment saying so & I will randomly pick somebody (or depending how many comments I get maybe a couple somebodies) to share with.  I've got some great stuff, I promise, even if some of it is getting a little bit old, I also promise not to share anything I wouldn't use myself.

Enjoy the rest of the hop and enjoy LOAD.  I look forward to seeing all your wonderful pages. As well as hearing all the wonderful comments.  You are all so encouraging I just love it. Thank you so much! While I'm at it, Thank you Leslie for all of the hard work you have put into organizing the LOAD and Lisa for organizing the hop.  And of course, THANK YOU Lain for putting us all together in this wonderful community!!!

If you are interested in some of the place I get ideas for my LOs (besides from ScrapHappy) check out this earlier blog post: journaling & inspiration made easy.

Your next stop is  Christie:            http://mrsingie.com Be sure to stop by and show her some love.

See you October first.