I have an album project to share today that I spent the last week working on. It's also up over at Kerri Bradford Studio, since I used so many of her Silhouette designs throughout the album.
I recently got a call from a previous daycare parent, asking if I could do take on a sidejob for a friend of his. His friend was looking to put together an album as a graduation gift for his daughter who was graduating from high school last week. I remember talking to both of them, and hearing them both ask "is this something you do?". My first thought (in my head, of course) was "not really", since I don't often put together projects for other people.
But there were a few reasons that I couldn't say "no" to taking on this big project. The previous daycare parent that first asked was one of my absolute favorite familes to work with. If I had a third daughter, Amanda would be her name (their daugher). This graduating senior went to the same high school that Alyssa goes too, and they also went to the same elementary school. Alyssa and this senior played on the varsity soccer team together this past year, and I've watched this senior play in previous years while waiting for the junior varsity games to play. And this senior's dad had saved all of the newspaper clippings from her high school sports years and wanted to do something special with them, and I think that is pretty cool!
This album is almost all newspaper clippings from her years on the high school soccer team and volleyball team. There were only a few photos from "Senior Night" that he wanted to include. These were taken at the last soccer game of the year, where the seniors are recognized and walked out by their familes for their last game. This album is also ALL cardstock and patterned paper. No embellishments or bulky items of any kind. This helped keep the cost down for the parents.
Luckily, her dad was great about keeping all of the newpaper clippings organized by year, from freshman year through senior year. I simply went through and put them in order within each year, and trimmed up the chippings a bit more so they were all nice and neat.
I had decided on using lots of my favorite white grid patterned paper from Bella Blvd for the background pages. It's a great neutral background paper, and I happen to have a ton of it on hand. I lightly misted each grid paper with some tan misting spray. I also used kraft, green, and black cardstock for my background pages as well. Our school colors are green and black (or maybe it's technically green and white), and I wanted to stick with that color theme.
When I was laying out the newspaper clippings to get an idea of how many pages I would need, I got a good sense of how they would fit together on the pages. I decided to mix in some 6"x12" pages and some 8.5"x11" pages, as I keep those size page protectors on hand. In the end, I even ended up creating a few custom page protectors (using my sewing machine and then cutting them down to size), for 9"x12" pages, 10"x12" pages, etc.
I made four piles, one for each year of high school, and worked with those four seperate piles through out the entire process of working on this album.
I started by adhering all of the newspaper clippings to my background papers. I stuck with a sheet of white grid patterned paper on the left side of each spread, and then alternated using black, green, and kraft cardstock on the right side of the spreads.
I knew that the decision on where to place the newspaper clippings on each page would really be based off how they fit together, since most had 2 parts to each article (they're almost always continued on another page of the newspaper). I wasn't taking titles or accents into consideration at all at this point. Just adhering the clippings however they looked good on the page.
I then went through all of Kerri's kits, as well as my Silhouette library, pulling out any shapes (soccer ball, volley ball, and some stars), words, and phrases that I thought would fit in with the sports theme of the album. I created a folder in my Silhouette library for this project and dumped everything in there to work from.
Kerri's new Weathered Door Alphabet kit came at just the right time, as I was short on sports words and had planned on creating some of my own. I have to admit that I have never used regular fonts to make my own words. I love having things done for me, so I was glad to have this new kit to work with. I just love the chunkier font and slightly distressed look of the Weathered Door Alphas, and they have just the right look I was going for.
After collecting an assortment of shapes, I went page by page and choose words and phrases that fit in the space I had on that particular page. I set up four different sheets to work with in the Silhouette software: grid paper, black cardstock, green cardstock, and kraft cardstock. I knew that all of my cutting would be on those four papers.
As I chose a word or phrase, I would place in on the color I wanted to cut it from and size it to fit the space on the album page. I also kept notes (most of the time!) as to what cut went on what page, so that after I ran all four of the pages through my Cameo, I would know what shapes went where. Because believe me, it got really confusing.
Kerri's School Years: Add Ons kit came in really handy for the divider pages, to seperate the years in the album. I made the "freshman year", "sophomore year", "junior year", and "senior year" really big so that it filled up the page really well. I also cut out the actual years that that particular school year covered, by using the Decade 2000, twentyTEN, twentyELEVEN, twentyTWELVE, twentyTHIRTEEN kits.
I also used shapes from Kerri's Touchdown kit, The Ol' Ballgame kit, A Beautiful World kit, and her Graduation kit. I had shapes and phrases picked out from other kits as well, but didn't end up using them, most likely because they didn't fit the spaces I was working with.
Once I had my phrases and words down, I started adding in small strips of patterned paper. I stuck with just a few patterns from the Making The Team collection from Bella Blvd. I didn't want to make it too complicated, so I chose a few patterns to work with, and used just those and small strips of cardstock as well. I also took out just one border punch, and used that here and there on some of the strips.
I did sneak in some pink patterned paper, but only on 2 spreads in the album. This was for our "Kicking For A Cure" event, which our girls soccer team does each year to support cancer patients and research. The players all wear pink jerseys, and they paint a huge pink ribbon on the field. I thought it was a nice touch to add some pink in for those articles.
My only "embellishments" were the soccer balls, volley balls, and stars. I cut a ton of these shapes from all four of the main papers, and sprinkled them in throughout the album. I ended up cutting some small stars from a sheet of yellow star patterned paper, just to add a touch of additional color.
In the end, I think it ended up being 64 pages, or 32 front and back. That includes the handful of 6x12" pages, and 8.5x11" pages that were mixed in.
I was really happy with how this turned out. The parents were super happy with how it turned out. I don't think they really had any idea that this is the direction I was taking with it, and I love that it was such a fun surprise for them. And I hear that the graduating senior really loved the album as well.
Working on this project has me really wanting to make the time to get Alyssa and Sarah's school albums caught up. And maybe even tackle the 11 years of soccer photos that have piled up!
Awesome project! You have given the whole family a great gift; one that is sure to be enjoyed for many years to come.
Posted by: SandraA | May 29, 2013 at 11:46 AM
This is so cool & something she will treasure for ever! Awesome Laura!
Posted by: meganklauer | May 29, 2013 at 12:06 PM
This is really awesome, Laura! I am sure that this album will be a keepsake for the lucky girl who received it. Wow, what a cool way to have all her newspaper clippings preserved!
Posted by: Natalie (QSOgirl) | May 29, 2013 at 03:48 PM
What a fantastic project! It is so fun! WOW!
My son has played baseball since he was 3 and he is now 16. Hmmm, maybe I should do this too.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Posted by: Cindee | May 29, 2013 at 07:32 PM
What an undertaking!!! You did a beautiful job. I think I would have been a bit intimidated by all the newspaper clippings and hardly any photos, but you worked your magic. Love the title pages separating each year. :)
Posted by: Mendi Yoshikawa | May 29, 2013 at 11:43 PM
Absolutely amazing!! The album is AwEsOmE!!! I love the words and phrases throughout the book and how they simply surround the newspaper articles. What a gift you made :)
Posted by: Leslie | May 30, 2013 at 12:08 AM
WOW WOW WOW!! This looks GREAT!! How sweet that they asked you to help do this for them. I like seeing the newspaper articles in here, really makes the album.
I should get started on this for Sam too, he's been in soccer & basketball since age 4 and is 11 now. This will be so cool to have ready for him at graduation.
My other plan in the works is saving all his sport shirts and having a lady in our town sew them into a blanket when he graduates. He can take it to college with him, a little piece of home.
LOVED your pasts posts too Laura, you never stop amazing me with your talent and ideas!
Happy almost summer break to you and girls!
Posted by: dawn | May 30, 2013 at 03:17 AM
This is so awesome! I am putting together an album of four years of marching band (and competitive drumline) for my senior daughter, and I was feeling uninspired by looking at the same subject over and over again. Your approach has inspired me again! Thanks so much for sharing!
Posted by: Stacy | May 30, 2013 at 09:00 AM
LAURA! This is truly an AWESOME album--way to go to the dad for saving all the clippings but GENIUS of you to put it together--it's SO fun to look at!
Posted by: Diana Waite | May 30, 2013 at 09:01 AM
Amazing album, Laura! This is such a treasure for their family. Love all the cuts and fonts you used.
One question about the newspaper clippings - did you put anything on them - archival spray, I think they call it? Just wondering about the long-term effect of age/yellowing of the newspaper.
Thanks for sharing!!
Posted by: Cynthia B. | May 30, 2013 at 10:33 AM
What a fantastic job Laura! And I loved hearing about your process for the whole album. Absolutely awesome!
Posted by: Nancy Jo | May 31, 2013 at 06:35 AM
This is *totally* awesome!!! I wish I had something like this for my high school basketball days. Thanks for sharing all the details of this!
Posted by: Stephanie | June 02, 2013 at 07:51 PM
You rock :)
Posted by: ShellyJ | June 03, 2013 at 01:43 PM
wow! what a wonderful project!! awesome job Laura..x
Posted by: Leanne | June 04, 2013 at 04:15 PM
Seriously awesome! Wow, that is one amazing album. Thank you for sharing. Take care. :)
Posted by: Kim Thomas | June 10, 2013 at 01:50 PM
What a special gift! This turned out amazing!!
Posted by: Krista | June 18, 2013 at 12:41 PM
Love this. Only 1 week? You just inspired me. My daughter will graduate next year so I have a year to do this. Think I will do a separate one for all of her years in dance too!
Posted by: Tammy Cappolina | June 22, 2013 at 07:08 AM
Looks awesome! Thanks for all the photos as I too am doing an album as a gift for a graduate. I work with her mom which is the only reason I agreed to do it. Unfortunately not only do I have lots of clippings from events I also have the typical homecoming, prom and various other event photos for all four years. Since she did the same three sports every year I was starting to run out of phrase ideas by junior year so looking at this is going to get me through the rest. I also loved having Kerrie's school kit and the BB sport collection from a few years ago to work with, it makes for a cohesive look with the die-cuts and some papers repeating.
Posted by: Monica | July 15, 2013 at 09:20 PM
OK, that was such an awesome experience for me to follow your process. I am so impressed with the professionalism and yet warmth of the album. Please help me understand the Kerri Bradford products...I love all the fonts and phrases but don't understand how you use them from a download to a die cut..can anyone explain in easy words?? Thanks sooooooo much for sharing your genius.
Posted by: EB | October 04, 2014 at 12:41 PM
Iam currently on the 3rd child of 4- highschool albums for my good friends children. Black and orange are the school colors. I get quite bored doing so many newspaper articles. I usually do a two page spread with both pages the same. Every year is not done the same but kinda go as I see it. Right now I am doing 2 orange 2 black 2 diff orange 2 cream and repeat. I will sometimes use the crosstown rivals school colors to change things up when there is a two page spread for that game. the first page of each new year has there picture for that year with the year/date
it is fun to see the articles as you see many people you know if i get bored I will do the fun pages homecoming, prom etc. to break up the boredom I do them on a full 12/12 and then adhere to scrapbook pages later.
Posted by: Julie Steffens | March 29, 2015 at 06:00 PM
This is amazing! I have been struggling for years with how I would organize all the paper clippings I've collected for years for my Junior son...this is absolutely what I needed to see to pull together the vision on how to organize his newspaper scrapbook for Senior year!
Posted by: Elizabeth Copeland | April 04, 2015 at 06:04 AM
I'm starting my daughters high school and college softball album and didn't know where to start because I have so many newspaper clippings! Thank you for giving me some ideas! What album cover did you use?
Posted by: Shelley Downes | April 27, 2017 at 06:49 PM
I love your work. It's amazing. what do you use to adhere the newsprint?
Posted by: Jenifer Schultz | June 16, 2020 at 12:00 PM
I have all of my sons newspaper articles and pictures I have wanted to do for him for years. What did you use to adhere the newspaper clippings with. I am scared I will damage them.
Posted by: Susan Walker | May 18, 2023 at 06:31 AM