Sharing My Own School Album

  

So, if you missed my post from a few days ago (seen HERE), I shared a bit about how I decided to put together a school album of my own. And I promised I would come back and share the completed album. Actually, it's an almost complete album. I do have a few small things to finish. But I wanted to share what I do have done, in case I drag getting the last parts done. Be warned, I'm probably sharing way too many photos in this post ;)

I mentioned before that I was doing an 8.5x11" album. The one that I'm using is a Modern album from American Crafts, with the black fabric spine. I actually went to the same school, Fremont Christian School, for my entire thirteen years of school. So I was actually thinking of using my varsity block letter on the cover of the album, since it applies to everything in the album. The more I thought about it, I will probably just adhere it to the inside cover of the album. The photo on the right shows the little zipper pouch that contains the stuff I have left to work into the album. It's not much, which is a good feeling. More on that stuff at the end of this post. 

  

I gave a little look in my last post at the basics that I had for most of the grades. So a lot of these grades look pretty much the same. The flow of the album mimics how I do my girls school albums in many ways. In what order I have things arranged, and what I'm including. Of course, with my own album, I'm basically using whatever I was able to find. 

  

I started each grade with the divider pages I created (and I talked about in my last post). I followed that with my school photo, so you can see my photos thru the transparency divider pages. I think I was able to find 8x10" photos for all but three years, and for those I had 5x7" photos. 

  

I adhered my school photo to white textured cardstock, and added a few torn strips of washi tape to the top and bottom. I used the same black w/white polka dot thin tape though out the album to make it simple. 

  

On the backside of the cardstock with my school photo, I adhered the class photos. On these, I added a few torn strips of washi tape to the top and bottom as well, but I used a black and white chevron design. 

  

After the class photos, I added in any awards and/or certificates I might have earned. All of my certificates had been taped into a "scrapbook" of sorts that I made back in high school. So they all have some scotch tape on them that I can't peel off. Not a huge deal. 

  

Most of these awards and certificates were smaller than 8.5x11", so I adhered them to white cardstock and added a few staples to each corner of the certificate just for fun. And only once, did I actually staple thru a photo that was on the other side without realizing it. Lol.

  

Following the awards and certificates came the report card. I love that these things were saved! I think I was only missing one report card from thirteen years of school. The comments are funny to read too. Most of them were along the lines of "Laurie needs to learn to talk", as I was super, super shy in my earlier years.

I pulled out some older Bella Blvd patterned paper, with a hand drawn grid design, and matched up the colors to the color of the divider for each grade. I adhered my report cards to this patterned paper, and added some rough pen lines to "frame" the report cards. Some of the report cards had info on the backside that I didn't want to hide by adhering the report card in place, so I just stapled the inside page to hold it in place, and that allows it to be flipped up to read. 

  

And yes, while my name is Laura and that's what I prefer to be called, I was always Laurie to my family and that's how I was known at school as well. And my last name was ALWAYS spelled wrong, even on report cards and certificates. 

  

Once we hit junior high, they did away with the class photos. Kind of sad. I did however find some spring school photos that were taken, so I just added those in, in place of the class photo. 

   k

Why was the double photo thing even a thing? Two of me in one photo? So weird. Lol. I know at the time, it was new and trendy, and I'm sure we all thought it was so cool looking. Tell me some of you have these types of photos too? Please tell me that ;)

   

It looks like eight grade is where I started to have a little more going on, which meant I had more certificates and awards. Plus, we had eight grade promotion, which led to a few extra papers.

  

Good old high school. I played varsity girls soccer for four years (although my girls would make me point out that we only had varsity, as I went to a VERY small school, so there was no JV team for girls soccer), yet my freshman year was the only year I could find a soccer team photo for. That made me sad. Freshman year was also the year I got my varsity block, seen at the beginning of the post. 

  

And I would need to pull out my yearbook to be absolutely sure, but I think they changed the school colors at the end of my freshman year. Our colors had always been brown and orange. It was awful. We all hated wearing orange. Then it was randomly changed to maroon and gray. 

  

I had also taken piano lessons for years, and from what I could see, I started working that into school as well around the eight grade. So I had some piano awards, ribbons, and evaluations. The ribbons are just slipped in there, as they were snug enough that they're not going to move.

  

For a few of my high school years, I had two report cards. I didn't see one that showed grades for both semesters, so I just stapled both report cards together on the cardstock. 

  

All of these things, if they weren't 8.5x11" in size, were adhered to white cardstock before slipping into the page protectors. There's a few of these that open up, with more info inside, so I did those the same as the report cards, and stapled the inside part so you could still open them up and/or flip them over.  

  

So, here's a weird fact. We weren't allowed to dance at our school. They didn't believe in dancing, as they believed it led to things that shall not be talked about (what they taught should be saved for marriage, if you see where I'm going with that ;)). So we never had dances or proms. Yep. I have never been to a prom. Sad. 

But we did have JSB's, which were "junior-senior banquets". Where we got to dress up, had a nice dinner, and do something random like listen to a comedian. True story. Anyways. I had some wallet photos from friends of mine from the JSB, so I slipped them into a divided page protector. I love that we all used to write on the back of the photos to each other, before trading. I have some additional things to add in here, that are at the end of this post. 

  

Ummmmm. Yeah, I had big hair. What's it to you? Lol. The thing that makes this ok, is that we ALL had big hair, so I was in good company. It was just an 80's thing. 

  

For some reason, I couldn't find much for my senior year, as far as awards and certificates. Maybe I didn't do anything that year. I know I did more then just work on the yearbook (the one award I did have), but there's no proof to show here. 

I also had wallets for the JSB again, as well as senior photos from friends. So I included the ones that I could find in the divided page protectors. 

  

As for what's left to work into the album? I have an assortment of photos from eighth grade promotion. They're all different sizes, and some are good and some aren't. But I do want find a way to work them in. I might just collage them as best I can onto a sheet of cardstock and call it a day. We'll see. 

I also have JSB photos from both my junior and senior year. I have a 5x7" photo taken there, some candid shots taken before leaving the house, and a few photos with friends. I'll work these in somehow too. 

  

From senior year, I have quite a selection of photos from our senior trip, which was to Disneyland and Catalina Island. I have the program from Grad Night, as well as my ticket. I'm quite impressed that I saved those. I also have my senior announcement, programs from Baccalaureate and graduation, and some photos from graduation as well. All of these will get worked into the album in some way. 

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And I think that's it! All in all, this really didn't take me much time to put together once I had everything pulled together and organized. I spent a few hours last weekend getting it all put together and everything adhered and in place. It's a simple album when you get right down to it, but I just love that I have this album to look back on. All of those school memories in one place. A great reminder of why I take the time to keep my girls school albums organized, keeping all of the important things from each year and the things that I think they'll enjoy looking back on years from now. 

Comments

[Marcie L]

This is so cool that you got this done! I don't have much from my school years, but I could probably do something like this. Thanks so much for the inspiration and kudos on doing this :)

[Carolyn E]

This is such an awesome project!!! Now I definitely have the need to go looking for what I do have!
I so love the simplicity of this, besides the time consuming (if everything isn't together) task of collecting the stuff and die cutting the titles, it's really just adhering everything in order, LOVE!
Okay, going to start pulling stuff to see if I've got enough for an album or at least it'll be all together in one box!
Thanks Laura for sharing your process, and great job on the finished album! 😀💯

[Heather Crawford]

Love this Laura! I would love to do something like this for me too! By the way, I had HUGE hair too went to a school that didn't believe in dancing or rock music, etc either so we only had stupid banquets too! Bleh!

[staci]

This is an amazing accomplishment! It a lot of ways it is motivating me to dig through my high school stuff and get it corralled into one spot. In other ways it's motivating me to burn all of my big hair 80s pictures:) You carried it off...i looked like I was BEING carried off! haha. But seriously - this is a VERY impressive post.

[{vicki} in ga]

Thanks so much for sharing!

[Lynne]

Oh, this is great! I would love to do something like this sometime. I graduated in 1986 and my senior picture is amazingly similar to yours!

[Tracey]

What an amazing keepsake Laura! I think it is awesome that you put this together! And thanks for sharing - it's inspiring me to do the same thing! I have thought about doing one for a long time but never seem to pull it all together. I like your simple approach to it though.

[Kim]

love this! love your style. thanks for the inspiration :)

[Orlanda]

I don't know you but I've been a fan of your scrapping style for years. So fun looking through you're school album. I almost thought I had gone to school with you for a second there until I read that it was Fremont Christian, I went to different schools in Fremont, but wow what a flashback just looking back at those photos from the 80's, reminded me of me and my friends. Loved it.

thanks for the idea.

[Amy]

Wow I love this! I never even thought to make my own school album but then again I have not really dug into my photos yet from when I was little. So many of my girls that I have not done. Our school colors were black and orange so I feel your pain. I loved your big hair (class of 89 here) I could never get mine to work it was way to fine. After kids my hair turned into something else and I could certainly rock the big hair now. haha. Thanks for sharing this album it was really great.

[Carolyn E]

So I finally pulled what I have and had my sister go through what my mom has...I'll say that I'm surprised that I have all but my K-3 grade report cards! But what I'm lacking are actual pictures, my mom only has one 8x10 of me, I have some wallet and smaller than wallets for a handful of the grades :( I do have class pictures for K, & 4-6 (yearbooks for jr high and my senior year). So not sure where I'm going to go from here. But I am glad that I went through and seen what I did have! I might have talked my sister into doing hers (if she found enough) and maybe her doing one for my nephew! Thanks again Laura for sharing :)