What's a Blog Train?

Here at DigitalScrapbook.com we have a monthly blog train. Every month we have a set palette and theme that designers work with. They create something and then we make a list of all the creations, usually hosted on people's individual blogs. So you can visit all the stops and at the end you'll have a fun collection of coordinating items.

My version of explaining it to my friends goes something like this: "Every month, we choose a color palette and theme for a train that'll come out on the first of the month after next...so in January, we're choosing the March palette, and so on. The themes are usually kind of broad, so there are usually several different ways they can be interpreted. They're open to anyone who wants to design something for it, whether they're a pro or just learning, which is kind of a rare thing in the digital scrapbooking world. Each designer makes things that match the chosen palette, whether they're papers, elements, word art, templates, or a combination of those, but they sometimes put their own spin on the theme. For example, one we had was "England", and some people chose to do iconic London, while others chose to do country cottages and gardens. One lady did some stuff for her family's genealogy, and another one chose to do a mini-kit about British punk rock, Sid Vicious and all! My own spin on it had to do with [my fiance] being British, and that blog train coming out June 1st; I made a kit focused on wedding/travel, with brides, grooms, a horsedrawn carriage, a register office, doves, a jetliner, luggage, luggage tags, an old British Airways airline ticket folder, bows, ribbons, bells, and papers that worked for generic travel or weddings, though they matched the England palette. Some of us post previews along the way to show what we've done with the theme; others don't post anything until near the end of the month, or only in the final list.

"At the end of the month, we check our part over and pack it up in a zip file and upload it someplace on the net, then link it in a blog post or Facebook freebie. A "Final List" thread is posted, and we all put previews and links to our blogs or Facebook pages in that thread. Then people can go to that Final List thread and they follow the links to each of the blogs and download our freebies from the links we posted on our blogs. When they make it through all the people, they might have things from 30 or 40 different designers, all color-coordinated and at least loosely related to a theme. It's basically a giant free collaborative kit every month, and all you have to do is go around and collect the parts and say thanks if you want to."

It's a little bit long, but it covers most of the questions they'd ask otherwise anyway.

A little more to help you make sense of the different threads in the Blog Trains section of the forums:
"Final List" threads are the ones that contain the links to the designers' blogs to download stuff. Blog trains here go live on the 1st of the month.
"Working" threads are where we talk about what we're working on for the blog train that comes out in the month listed in the thread name, or ooh and aah over what someone else has done, and sometimes chitchat about life.
"Poll" threads are for voting between theme/palette choices if we can't quite decide.
"Ideas" threads are for suggesting themes and color palettes.

Thank you Katherine for bringing this topic up! I made the rounds today for my 1st blog train. It was very cool checking out everyones stuff. There are so many talented people here.