Hello. Lindsey here to tell you about the amazing scrapbooking weekend I have just had. Ten of us "girls" from Tauranga once again rented a house in Waihi Beach. Now normally I don't actually return home with an awful lot of completed layouts and, if my husband was to ask me to show him the results of my two days away, I would be mightily embarrassed. This time I vowed things would be different. Yes indeedy. My target for the weekend was FIFTEEN layouts (gulp!). Clearly I needed a different way of working to avoid abject failure.

Coincidentally, I was cruising around in cyberspace and noticed that Sunday 16th is "Dictionary Day" on some alternative calendar - probably American. Anyway, you know how brilliant ideas come to you first thing in the morning? No? Neither do I. However, a little chink of light started to form in my befuddled brain and I had an epiphany [a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something].

I would use "Dictionary Day" as my inspiration for the titles and journalling of each layout. Usually I agonise for ages over the journalling and it wastes so much time. I studied my photos during the week leading up to our Retreat and tried to come up with a one-word title and then looked it up in the dictionary and wrote down the definition. On some photos, I added the title with Photoshop prior to printing them so I didn't even have to worry about finding the appropriate alphabet for the title.

The second piece of genius was collating all my "one-photo-sketches" into one folder - for these were going to be my instant inspiration for every layout during the weekend. So before I even began packing, I had photos, titles, journalling, sketch and, in some cases, I had chosen some appropriate Basic Grey papers to "go-with" (another goal this weekend - was to use up some of that huge stash of Basic Grey gorgeousness).

The third brilliant idea was my mantra for the weekend ... ... ... SIMPLIFY [to reduce to basic essentials, to diminish in scope or complexity]. I left a lot of stuff at home. You probably would not have believed that if you had seen the boot of my car which is humongous (that is a proper word - I just looked it up! - who knew).

By now you must be most anxious to ascertain the outcome of all these machinations [scheming or crafty action or artful design intended to accomplish some usually evil end]. Sounds so much better than "plans". Either that or you have gone off to do something way more interesting - like unpicking an old cardigan or something.

OK - so without further ado - here are the results:



You will notice (those of you who are still awake) that this is just ONE layout. This is because I actually don't have time right now because I want to watch the Rugby.


Come back tomorrow and you will see whether I achieved my goal (no pun intended).