... just Laura

Updating The School Albums: Part 1

This week is my girl's last week of school. Hard to believe we have knocked out another school year already. With the end of the year, I am seeing lots and lots of papers come through the door lately. Now that they are in the higher up grades, it seems like they don't bring papers home all that often, throughout the year. It's like they save it all up until the end, and then dump it all on me at once. So it's definately time to do a little work on their school albums.

I want to back up just a bit, for anyone new to my blog, or for those of you that havn't read any previous posts about my school albums. I am using the original school kit from Becky Higgins. It's hasn't been available for years, but you can occasionally still find some on Ebay. Although I do know that Becky is working on a totally new school kit, that incorporates a lot of her Project Life system.

THIS is the post where I finally forced myself to gain control over the girls school stuff. I had it organized, but I hadn't really gone through the piles. I then posted about what came out of that, and when I finally put all of these albums together, in this post HERE. This was all back in February of 2009. Ages ago, right? A year and a half later, in September 2010, I posted HERE with an updated look at the albums. In fact, I had a video, walking you through one of Alyssa's albums.

 

So, is anyone still with me, after all that backtracking? LOL. Sorry. Just wanted to cover everything in one post, with all the links and important stuff. Now, back to what I have done recently. The following photos were all taken back in February, of this year. I felt like I had a good amount of papers and school stuff, to spend a bit of time putting some of it away. I find that if I set aside a bit of time, twice a school year (somewhere in the middle, and then again at the end), I am able to keep everything caught up.

When I'm ready to get started, I pull out their albums. I have four albums total set up for Alyssa's school years, and four albums total for Sarah school years. So I just pull out whatever album holds the grade they're in, and the grade I'm working on. I also pull out extra page protectors, in varying sizes. I have the 12x12 pages inside the albums. But I love to add in 8.5x11 page protectors for awards, class photos, and report cards. And I have mixed in the 6x12 page protectors for holding concert programs.

Thoughout the year, I keep two simple folders in a drawer in the kitchen. One for Alyssa and one for Sarah. When they bring home progress notes, report cards, awards, concert programs, school photos, or any random homework or tests, I just toss them in their folder. It's a simple way to keep things in one place, until I'm ready to put everything into their school albums.

Just because I put something in the folder, doesn't mean I will necessarily keep it. The school work, homework, and tests are something I weed though at the end of the year and select just a handful of things to keep.

I always keep the awards, report cards, programs, schedules, etc.

Then I take over the old scrap island (that now resides in the playroom) and spread everything out. I sort papers, trim school photos, put report cards in order, cut out newspaper clippings, and try to make sense out of everything I have saved. It's messy and confusing, even though I'm really only working on one school year at a time. Which I still don't understand. It should be easier, right ;)

The girls have their last day of school on Friday. So my plan is to get everything in order, and then I'll share part two of this school album update. Stay tuned!

last day of jr.high - a jillibean soup layout

today is layout day over on the jillibean soup blog. i actually have both of my layouts for the month, that went up today. but i decided to share one of them with you today. and i'll share the other one tomorrow. of course, you can see both of them HERE. but you know i have all the details here on my blog ;)

 

i knew the new atomic soup collection would be perfect for these photos from alyssa's last day of junior high school. i made sure she took her camera to school, and gave her strict instructions to make sure she took lots of photos. i honestly don't have photos of her and her friends. other than when she has a birthday party. and i wanted her to have something to look back on. and i have to say. she came back with more photos than i was expecting.

 

when i start a two page layout, i begin with the photos and 2 sheets of cardstock. i will decide on my photo placement first, and then build the rest of the layout around the photos. i do adhere all my photos down, once they're trimmed. then i measure and trim the pattern papers to fit around the rest of the space. it makes good use of my pattern papers too, since i only cut off the pieces i need. the papers here might look like they go all the way across the page. but they're only about 10 inches long, and end where the green cardstock starts.

 

i went with the blue corrugated alphas for my title. i wanted to make them stand out just a little bit more against the whiter patterned paper, so i lightly inked the edges with brown ink. and i have done this before, but i adhered the "o" sideways. mainly, because it wouldn't have fit the other way. lol! maybe i should start adhering my title, before adhering the embellishments around it. nah. that'd be too easy.

 

i choose the green embossed cardstock, because i wanted some extra texture. and because the numbers are sort of school related. and because our school color was green, for the mustangs.

 

alyssa got some great photos with her camera. and was really good about handing the camera over, and getting in some of the photos herself. i printed all her photos as 4x6's, through costco. usually, i like to go in before ordering and do any cropping to all my photos. zoom in and get rid of any excess background that doesn't need to be there. but i left most of her's uncropped, because i knew i was going to trim them up into smaller sizes. i pulled out all the ones that i could crop to 3x3, and then arranged them in two rows. then i took three of the photos that had a lot going on, and just trimmed them a tad bit to make them fit on the pages.

 

this is actually a photo that i took after school let out. the jr high side of the school, was an emotional mess. everyone was saying their goodbyes, knowing that they wouldn't all be at the same high school. and knowing that some of them wouldn't see each other much during the summer months, off school. there were lots and lots of tears. it was hard to watch, and i felt for each and every one of them. i was waiting with sarah and her friend on the other side of the school, giving alyssa and her friends their space. but i had to stop and capture a little bit of the moment.

 

alyssa also had a lot of photos with friends, where they simply held the camera out at arm's length and snapped away. there was no way to crop these photos smaller, but i wanted to include them. so i choose to simply slip them into a divided page protector, which is right after this layout in her school album.

supplies: atomic soup bunch of matter pattern paper by jillibean soup, atomic soup cup of equations pattern paper by jillibean soup, jillibean soup embossed cardstock by core'dinations core impressions, atomic soup journaling sprouts by jillibean soup, arrows corrugated shapes by jillibean soup, blue corrugated alphas by jillibean soup, baked bean alphabean letter stickers by jillibean soup, green cool beans buttons by jillibean soup, buttons by making memories

updated look at our school albums

i have been working on updating the girls school albums this past weekend. i started out taking photos of all the pages, so that i could show you what i've been adding to them since i originally shared the albums (HERE). then it crossed my mind that a video might be nice, to sort of walk you through the album. just a few things before you watch this. excuse the shake. i'm NOT a videographer, and had to steal one of the girls small video camera's to shoot this. and i talk with my hands all the time. so when the camera is shaking, i'm more than likely talking to you with my hands, even though you can't see them. i say "actually" a lot. and apparently, "eventually" is a term i use for when i will finish things that i havn't gotten around to doing. it cut me off at the very end, because the memory card was full. but i was pretty much done, and i'm not good an ending things anyways ;)

i think i covered the set-up of alyssa's album in pretty good detail in the video, so i won't show you pictures of all of her pages in her album. but i did want to point out one of the new things i added to their albums recently.

i added in some 6x12 page protectors. i have a few different brands, so anything will work. i cut some sheets of kraft cardstock in half, so that they were 6x12 in size. i had a lot of band concert programs and play programs, that i've collected over the years. i had been slipping them into the large pocket page. but i thought it would be fun to include them in their own page protector, so that they were more visible.

i used the same idea for both the band concerts programs and the play programs. i simply stapled the second page to the kraft cardstock, so that you can still flip the program open to read inside. and you can also flip the program up, so that you can read the backside. for the concert programs, i stapled two onto each side of the kraft cardstock. i just did the bottom one first, and then layered the top one slightly overlapping it. for the play program, i also adhered some of our tickets from when we went to see the performances.

and i happen to have some newspaper clippings, with photos of the play from the local newspaper. so i stapled those to the backside of the play program. just a really simple way to add these things into the albums.

i can't just show you alyssa's album, since that would NOT be fair. that's how it works here in this house, anyways. lol! here is a look at sarah's 5th grade year, from last school year. this is her pocket page, with a sampling of her work. an additional thing that i added to her pocket, was her medal that she received for perfect attendance. for the record, alyssa got perfect attendance too, but their grade didn't get a medal. bummer.

some of sarah's work that i pulled out, to save. sampling of her work, spelling tests, math sheet, a few journal's, some artwork, reports, etc.

this is something extra i added to sarah's album. it's a CD envelope, that came from the becky higgins baby kit, from a few years back. i just checked the creating keepsakes site, and it actually looks like they still have these in the store, HERE.

a few of the 5th grade classes, did a "thriller" performance at the beginning of the year. it wasn't a special tribute to michael jackson or anything, since these teachers have been doing this for years with their students. but they practiced for 6 weeks, and put on a great show for us. i had gotten a CD of the performance, and wanted to include it in her album. and this little CD envelope was a perfect way to do that.

her class photo, in an 8.5x11 page protector.

report card on the backside of the class photo. and then a few page protectors, to hold awards that she received during the school year.

i also include the report that shows how she did on her STAR testing, which is the california state testing that all students do here, every year.

then i added a 6x12 page protector, with her band concert programs.

next up, is her school photo. this page comes just like you see it, with the grade printed down the side. and i just added an 8x10 photo. 

then the last page is where we'll write down things from the year that she wants to remember. we just havn't gotten to that yet. not sure why, but i don't have a first day of school layout for her. i have one of the girls together, but not of just sarah. when i get around to that, i'll add that after this page. and i want to do a layout with the photos from their thriller performance. and then i'll add in some divided page protectors, to hold any additional photos from the year.

i get asked a lot about these school albums all the time. and everyone wants to know if they can still get the becky higgins school kit. nope, they're not available anymore. those were from a few years ago. well, i take that back. you can occasionally find them on ebay. i searched for them tonight, and found about 4 listed, that have about a day left on their bidding time. so you could check that out. BUT. i do know that she has a new school kit in the works. not because i have any insider info, because i dont. lol! but because i read her blog everyday. i hope she doesn't mind, but i copied this info directly from her blog for you:

Q: Please tell us about the new school kit. When is it coming?

A: Yes, we are developing a kick-bootie school kit. A lot of thought is going into the organization and system and design and everything. It’s going to be very fool-proof, user-friendly, perfect for the non-scrapbooker, and will cover all school years, from preschool through high school, in one kit. Plus, it’ll be versatile enough for homeschool use and even students outside the U.S. The next round of Project Life kits (yes, that’s plural) should be available in time for the holidays this year. Since that has been a priority, the school kit will be come out after Project Life. The plan is early 2011. You know this is the place to come for all the latest scoop.