The Making Of My Own School Album

School albums. How many of you have dedicated albums, or some other set-up, to keep all of your kid's school memorabilia together and organized? I've done quite a few posts over the years sharing the school albums that I have put together for the girls (you can read all of those posts HERE). I set up all of the albums in 2009, and it's been so easy to keep up with them over the years and add to them a few times during each school year. 

But what about creating a school album for yourself? It's probably not something I would have though to do. That is, until I came across a good amount of memorabilia from my school days, forever and a day ago. I don't have much of anything from my younger years. My parents may have some stuff, but I don't. One thing I do have here is my baby book, and inside I came across all of my school report cards and some class photos. And way back in the day (like when I was in high school), I had "scrapbooked" all of my school awards I had received over the years. If by "scrapbooking", you mean taping them down on papers in a binder. 

  

About a year or so ago, I took all of those class photos, awards, certificates, and report cards, and sorted them out by grade into an 8.5x11" album. I literally just slipped things into page protectors, thinking that at some point, I would do a little something with it all. And a few weeks ago, I finally got the motivation to work on this album. 

To get myself started, I decided to die cut each grade with my Silhouette to create dividers in the album. I used the School Years kit and School Years: Add On kit from Kerri Bradford Studio for the grades and cut them all from black cardstock. For these cut files, you can also cut the actual year on it's own. Like "second" from "second grade". So I cut the actual year from white grid patterned paper, and layered them together. 

  

For my divider pages, I decided to use the Confetti Clear Cuts from Bella Blvd. They come in 14 colors, and I needed 13 (for Kindergarten thru Senior year), so I just took out the gold and used all of the other colors. I quickly learned that if you're making a divider page for an 8.5x11" album, you do NOT cut your transparency (or whatever you're using as a divider) down to 8.5x11". Duh. You want to measure your actual page protector and make it that same size. Once I had all of the Clear Cuts cut down to the right size, it was time to adhere my die cut grades to the transparencies. 

I debated on a few ways of adhering them, but finally decided that the easiest, and most secure way, would be to run them thru my Xyron machines. This covers the entire die cut with adhesive and it's my go-to way of adhering die cuts. You do tend to get a good amount of adhesive "boogers" once you remove the die cut from the backing and adhere them in place. What I usually do, is after I've adhered the die cut down, I go back and use this little erasure type thing to rub any excess adhesive - aka "boogers" - from around the edges of the die cut. 

I quickly learned that it doesn't work like that when you're adhering to a transparency. Those "boogers" don't wipe away. So I took the time to clean up all the edges of the die cut grades before removing them and adhering them. A little time consuming, but I like using the Xyron since I know my pieces will stay in place and not fall off. 

  

Once I had the dividers finished and added into the album, it was time to get to work on the rest of the album. I happen to call my mom, as I was hoping she had some photos from my 8th grade and high school graduation that I could add into the album. I ran over to her house and she pulled out a few albums for me to take home and go thru. I was thrilled to find all of my official school photos in those albums. You know, the ones taken at school that cost way too much. 

I started sorting my school "headshots" into the right years. Some didn't have the years or grade written on the back, so I would match them up to the class photo, as it usually includes the exact same photo. I even pulled out a few high school yearbooks to make sure I had the high school photos in the right years. I had a drawer in my scraproom that had some additional school years stuff, so I pulled all of that out as well. 

The photo up there on the right shows the basics that I had for each year. My school photo, a class photo, and a final report card. 

  

For most years, I also had some awards or certificates in there as well. For a few years, I also had a spring school photo and decided to use it, since those same years were my junior high years, where the class photos officially stopped. My high school years had a little more "stuff" to them, as I was a little more involved. OK, not really that involved, but I did some activities ;)

I'll be back in a day or two to share my completed album with you!

Comments

[deneen]

Oh my gosh I am in love. I need to do this with mine too :)

[Karen H]

Can't wait to see your album!

[Carolyn E]

Love this! I do scrapbook school albums for my two kids, well the youngest gets his started this year being in PreK, the other, I've got that one pretty well caught up (finishing up last years' now). I thought about doing something for mine (not sure if hubby has anything kept), I know I've got a few things here and there... might have to start pulling stuff out to see if I've got enough to pull an album together!
Thanks for sharing this process Laura!