After completing the School Year Photos layout, I had fun idea for another collage type layout for my kids school years - a page for all of the first day of school photos. What began as an idea for just the first day of school photos turned into a First Day of School - Last Day of School 2-page layout, highlighting the first day of Kindergarten, and what will be the last day of High School.
Again I had to go back and collect all of the first day of school photos. Thank goodness for digital technology and computers - they were all basically at my fingertips - just a few clicks away!
After gathering the photos, I tried many variations of the layout before deciding on this one. My original idea was to have one long strip through the center of both pages with all of the school years, but I realized that 6 thin photos was the most I'd be able to squeeze in a 12x12, and I couldn't get the Kindergarten picture in. I considered just doing grades 1-12, but really wanted to keep the Kindergarten photo in. So I moved it to the top and realized I could balance it out on the other side with what will be a Last Day of High School photo. With that, the layout was set.
To accent the photos, I added a border across the top of both pages - different borders but from the same paper collection and same color scheme. I created the labels with a black piece of cardstock and various colors of chipboard letters. I really wanted the words "Kindergarten" and "Highschool" to stand out, so I used a larger chipboard for them, and placed them running over the photo (the H is not yet attached, I'll need to put the photo under in first.) To label the yearly photos, I added transparent gel numbers to each photo - they are noticeable but yet subtle enough to not distract from the photo.
It was so fun making this layout, even though it is a work in progress and not yet complete. Each year I'll just add one photo and 5 years from now it will be complete!
Thanks for looking and I hope you are inspired to make a few school year pages for your kids!
I recently started working on my kids school year albums again, and decided that I wanted to do a 2-page layout of their school photos. I've often seen those picture frames where you can add each year's photo into a collage, and so I wanted to do a scrapbook version of that.
The first step was gathering up all of the photos of the same size from each year, this proved to be the most time consuming part of the process. I had some of the photos in the right size, but searched through 4 photo boxes to find a straggler here and there. With 2 still missing, I asked my husband if he still had any old school photos of the kids at work, and he did! The last 2 were found.
From here I laid them out in various arrangements to see how the years would best be grouped or sequenced. I knew I wanted to add a large graduation photo as well, so I made that the highlight of the second page and arranged the small photos around it, with the 4 high school year photos above the graduation photo.
This layout was really quite simple - I chose a subtle pattern paper for the background of the collage page, and mounted each school photo on grey cardstock. I needed one filler square in which I added a journaling card with a nice quote on it.
The Graduation embellishments came mostly from the Echo Park Grad kit, and one other graduation sticker sheer I had on hand. To add each grade, I printed out the numbers in a font that I liked, and punched them out with a 1/2" circle punch. And that was it! Here is the final layout.
I'm happy to have this done, and I had the pleasure of making 2 of these, one for each of my boys albums. Now, all I have to do each year is add the photo. So easy.
After finished up these layouts, I came up with another school year layout which I am really excited to share tomorrow!
Some of my favorite scrapbooks that I've made have been school albums for my kids. When my kids started school, I knew I'd create an album of their school years, and I naively thought that it would probably be just one album for their younger years, and maybe an album for high school. But once I started scrapbooking preschool and kindergarden, I quickly realized that more albums would be in order. I now have one album for PreK - 2nd grade, one album for 3rd-5th, and one album for middle school 6th-8th. High school will be its own album as well.
Scrapbooking school year pictures and mementos can take take some active planning all year long. I am always on the lookout for things they bring home from school that I can keep to put in the books - notes from teachers, small projects they made, things they have hand written, and artwork. And I always have a camera handy so that when they pull something out of their backpack, I can grab a picture of it.
What can go into your child's school album? Just about anything! Each year I try to take some of the same photos like:
- first day of school
- last day of school
- photos by the school sign
- school concerts
- art show and open house
- projects they made
- artwork
Since I don't tend to take a lot of photos at the school (except for concerts and the art open house), I will try to take a picture of them with their projects at home. You may also be able to get photos from their teacher - often teachers will create a slide show of pictures from the year and some will send this home at the end of the school year. I've also asked a few teachers if they could email the slideshow to me if they didn't send it home on a CD.
So what should you save during the school year?
- concert programs or flyers
- notes from teachers
- certificates
- drawings
- handwriting samples
- art
- poster projects
- special person projects
Anything that comes home that I think I might use goes right into a folder that I keep on my desk so that I don't lose or misplace anything throughout the year.
One of the best ways to scrapbook children's art is to take a picture of it! When any art comes home, take a picture of it right away, before it gets set aside, lost, crumpled, or hung on the fridge! This is especially great for things like clay or other 3D pieces, and any large scale projects they work on - poster boards, and things like science fair displays. At the end of the year you can print out the pictures, and create a collage of their artwork from the school year!
When it comes to actually scrapbooking the pages, I usually scrapbook the school year twice - once after the first semester and then at the end of the school year. Waiting to do the whole school year at one will work too...it can be fun to go back over the year with your child and look through all of these things together!
My kids love to look back at their school year books and of all of the scrapbooking I've done, I'm most happy that I made these and have kept up with them though out the years. And, they are fun and relatively easy albums to make!
