Announcing 30 in 30 Scrapbooking

I'm very excited to announce a new month-long challenge I've created called 30 in 30 Scrapbooking.

In the past, I've participated in and completed several month-long challenges, some of them scrapbooking-related, that required a daily commitment. I've always been thrilled at how inspired I was, how the daily drumbeat, the 24-hour deadline, pushed me to stretch my creative muscles, sometimes to the breaking point, but always with results that both amazed and delighted me. When it came to scrapbooking challenges, I was so happy to have all those pages completed, all those memories preserved, all those photos featured in one month’s time.

But.

Those days were very different from the life I’m living now when I’ve got very real, very important time constraints. I still really love the idea of daily creativity practice, whether it’s writing or scrapbooking or art journaling. However, I know myself well, and I know that if I try to create a scrapbook page, take a photo of it and upload it to my blog or a gallery every single day, I’m not only setting myself up to fail, I’m going to be more stressed than challenged or inspired.

That's not good.

That's where 30 in 30 Scrapbooking comes in.

There's really only one rule, and it's a simple one: create 30 scrapbook layouts in 30 days, with no daily requirement. Create three layouts on 10 different days or two on 15 days. Or go on a coffee and chocolate infused scrappin' bender and crank out half of the required 30 layouts in one weekend, the other half on another. Whatever works for your schedule. The flexibility of doing those 30 layouts whenever I can make the time, rather than having to do one each day or fail, will still challenge me and keep me creating, but without too much of the pressure or stress that saps my creative inspiration.

Since June is the next month with thirty days, I'm ready to jump in for a test run and see how it goes, and I’m inviting you to jump in with me. During the next week, I'll share ideas to get ready for the month, and I'll post some prompts, perhaps some individual layout challenges, to jump start our creative motors throughout the month. I'll also be posting my layouts as I complete them.

If you want to play along, drop me a quick email, and I'll send you an invitation to the Yahoo group I've set up for this project. Also feel free to email me with any questions you have regarding this adventure.

So...who's in? :)

p.s. If all goes well, I'm planning to host a second installment of the 30 in 30 Scrapbooking Challenge in September!