... just Laura

School Albums: An Updated Look Inside

Today, I wanted to share an updated look at my girl's school albums. I have done many posts about their school albums over the years, starting back in 2009. You can find any and all blog posts related to these albums HERE, or by clicking on the "my school album system" image on the blog sidebar. I have kept with pretty much the same basic system over the years, and have changed very little of how I go about putting these albums together and adding stuff in each school year. 

Keeping with the same system, and approaching each year in the same was as the previous years, makes it really easy to keep up with this project year after year. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to keep these school albums simple and easy. They're really meant to hold all of the "stuff" that goes along with school. Mostly memorabilia, and not so much photos and/or stories. Those can be saved for layouts. My goal for these albums was to contain the "stuff" that comes from 13 years of school.

I think the last time I shared a look inside these albums, I had shared Alyssa's freshman year of high school. So I figured I would share her sophomore, junior, and senior year's for today's post. I should really be fair, and share Sarah's at some point. I haven't added anything in to her senior year yet, which is why I pulled out Alyssa's album. 

Each school year starts out with an envelope page. I'm using an older Kit-Of-The-Month school kit from Becky Higgins, from back in the Creating Keepsakes days. They came with these awesome envelopes that had the grades printed on them, and little pockets across the bottom. While these aren't something you can buy any longer, Becky Higgins does sell 12x12 envelope pages that would totally work for this.

Inside the envelope pages, I keep a sampling of their work from the year. Once they got to the higher grades, I saved mostly writing samples, journal pages, maybe a test or two, any cool reports, and anything else that felt interesting enough to save. Even in high school, I was able to find a few drawings they had to do as part of their classwork. 

These envelopes came with little pockets along the botttom. I usually stick their school ID in there, if I have them. Sarah seems to hoard hers somewhere, so I hope to track them down at some point and add them in. 

After the envelope page, I add in some 8.5x11" page protectors. When they were younger, I would put their class photo in first, followed by their final report card from the year on the backside. Since they stopped having class photos around 6th grade, I usually start out with the final report card from the year. We have state tests they have to do each year here in CA, so I'll add those test results on the backside. 

I then add in any awards and certificates. I don't necessarily use one page protector for each certificate, or even put just two in each page protector. Depending on how many they've received that year, I may stick 3-4 in each page protector. While it would be great to be able to see them all, it can bulk up the album more. They're easy enough to pull out of the page protector, so if I need to add a few extra in, I'll do that. I still usually end up with 3-4 page protectors just for awards and certificates. 

Once the girls hit high school, we had high school sports to work into the albums. While I have separate sports albums that I'm working on for them, those contain city sports. I wanted to keep the high school sports within their school albums. I use 8.5x11" page protectors for this as well, adding in their team photo, their individual photo, any awards and certificates, and the season's schedule if I kept it.

At some point, I started adding in 6x12" page protectors to hold any band concert or drama performance programs. They're almost always these smaller programs (an 8.5x11' paper folded in half), so they work nicely this way. I simply staple them to a piece of kraft cardstock, stapling them on inside of the program and only at the top - this makes it easy to open them, as well as turn them over to see the back of the program. I will add these to both sides of the protector if needed. 

Next up is their official school photo. The school kit that I'm using came with these 12x12" pages, with the grade printed on and an embossed "box" to hold the photo. I add in their 8x10" photo each year. For the younger years, where they did spring school photos in addition to the fall school photos, I just added a 5x7" of their spring photo into the envelope page. 

Alyssa was in the county honor band for 3 of her 4 high school years, which had a much larger concert program. I added that into the envelope page, and tucked her patch into the pocket on the front. 

I ended up with several different ID cards during their high school years. They had a lunch ID, an internet ID, and their regular ID card. I saved whatever cards were given to me, and tucked them into these little pockets. 

I followed the envelope page with several 8.5x11" page protectors, adding in her final report card from the year, as well as any awards and certificates. I must not have photographed them, but they're there. 

Followed by high school soccer. The team photos (or even class photos from their younger grades) are 8x10", so I always just adhere them to a piece of white cardstock before slipping them into the page protector. 

I usually don't get an 8x10" individual photo, so I'll add the 5x7" individual photo in. But this year, I had an 8x10" photo, so I used it. 

Again, a 6x12" pocket page to hold band concert programs. I also added in a 8.5x11" page protector, since I had one program that was larger in size. 

After her school photo page, I added in an extra 12x12" page protector to hold newspaper clippings. At some point, I hope to do something with them, even if it's just trimming them up if needed and adhering them to cardstock. But for now, they're all in the album where they need to be.

Senior year. It happened so fast! I haven't looked in these envelope pages for a while, so I can't be sure if I have anything unique in there, as opposed to previous years. I know there's another county honor band concert program in there, since it's a larger sized program with many pages. I know there's also some senior year stuff related to scholarships and college acceptances.  

There's a part of me that wants to do something with the girl's patches, varsity letters and sports patches (Alyssa also lettered in music and scholastics), etc. Since they didn't get letterman's jackets, it would be fun to do a shadow box or something. Someday maybe. 

The envelope page was followed with some 8x5x11" page protectors. First up, as I did with all the prior years, was adding in her final report card from the year. Then I added in any award and certificates. Alyssa ended up with a ton of those her senior year, so most of these page protectors have multiple certificates in them. 

This was the only year they took a band photo for the yearbook. I love it. But it makes me wish they had taken these photos the other years too. Alyssa received some band awards, which I added after her photo, along with some concert programs. 

I think this was also the first year they had an official photo for county honor band. I made sure to go online and purchase one, so that I could add it in her album. I think it was originally 8x12", but I knew that I would trim it down to 6x12", since the top of the photo was all white. I also added her high school graduation program into a 6x12" page protector. 

On the backside of the graduation program, I added in the program from the Senior Baccallaureate, tickets from graduation, and her senior announcement that we sent out to family and friends. 

And of course, her official senior year school photo. Which senior year, they take in the drapes and tuxes. At a photography studio. This school photo cost me a LOT more to add into her album. Lol.

I also added in an extra 12x12" page protector to hold newspaper clippings from the school year. Again, at some point, I'd like to pull these out, see what I actually have to work with, and then do something with them. But in the meantime, they're contained and where they need to be. 

And this right here is 13 years worth of school memories. School "stuff". When I first started these albums, I was so sure it would all fit in just three albums. Four albums worked out much better, since the envelopes themselves can take up a decent amount of space. I think they contain a great overview of their school years, and all of the important stuff is added in and easy to find. I'm sure I could go thru some of the envelope pages again and pull out some papers that don't really need to be saved. But if you ask me, I'd rather have a little too much and pull something out down the road, than save too little and regret not keeping something. 

There's so many ways to document your child's school years, and I think it's really up to each of us to decide what we think is important enough to save. Or how much time we want to put into organizing what we decide to save. For me, this worked. Like I said, I started these albums back in 2009, and I have kept with the system that I set up at that time. Very little has changed, which is kind of crazy to me. I'm the kind that usually changes my mind about things a lot.

But this system, for me, was easy. Easy to set up, and easy to maintain. It's the one larger project I've started, that I kept up with every single year. And with Sarah's high school graduation only 5 weeks away, I'll be able to get her senior year in the album completed and finished up as well. 

School Albums: Incorporating School Art Projects

Hey everyone! I'm here a little later than planned, but wanted to do a super quick share with you today. It's related to my girl's school albums, and how I finally got around to incorporating their larger art projects that have been stored away in my closet forever and a day.

I have done many posts on my school albums over the years, as they're one of the projects that I have managed to keep up with on a very regular basis. You can see all of my blog posts related to school albums HERE - just scroll past the first two posts, as those were about my own high school days album I put together last year. I did just notice that the last time I really shared anything on the girl's albums was over three years ago. Seeing that Sarah is about to graduate from high school in a few months, maybe I'll do another post, as I finish up her albums. 

One of the things that I never managed to tackle was all of their larger art projects, or pretty much anything that was larger than a regular piece of paper. I've had this huge pile of projects in my closet for years. We're talking from back when they were in elementary school, so a good 10+ years. 

  

I pretty much knew what my plan would be for those projects all along, but it took me those 10+ years to actually get around to it. I believe it was last summer when I finally took that pile out and tackled it. I knew that I wanted to simply take photos of the projects, and then I would incorporate those photos of the projects into their school albums. 

I laid a panel of white bead board on the floor, and simply laid each project on the board and took a photo with my phone. I'll be honest, in that when it comes to photographing certain types of projects, my iPhone does a better job then my actual DSLR camera. And it's easy and convenient. 

I then edited my photos right on my iPhone (using the PicTapGo app), and then uploaded them to Dropbox, thru the app on my phone. Once they were done uploading, I was able to simply grab them out of Dropbox on my laptop. I then cropped them to either 3x4" or 4x4", depending on what worked best for each photo.

It took me several months to get around to ordering the photos. Mostly because I had uploaded them to a site I don't order from that often, but that I had credits for. I finally placed an order in January, and was excited to be able to check this project off my list. 

I started by sorting them out - figuring which belonged to Alyssa and which belonged to Sarah, and doing my best to figure out what grade they created them in. One of the biggest tips I can give, regarding memorabilia and school work, is to write your child's age and grade (or the year) on the back of any papers you save. You think you'll remember it all, or keep it organized and in order. But you won't remember it all, and stuff gets out of order and disorganized when you're not looking ;)

I knew that I wanted to keep this super simple. Because truth be told, that's how the girl's school albums are. They're simple, with little to no fuss, because I knew that's the only way I would be able to keep up with them. I thought about slipping the photos into pocket pages, and adding those pages into their albums. But some years had only a few photos, so that didn't really make sense. 

I finally decided to just adhere the photos to black cardstock, trimming the cardstock down to whatever size worked with the amount of photos I had for each year. All of the pages are 12" in height, but they have varying widths. The ones above have 4x4" photos, so they're 5" wide.

Some of the years only have photos on the front, and some also have photos on the backside. Just depends on how many photos I had that year. And these pretty much cover Kindergarten - 4th or 5th grade. I didn't really have any large projects once they hit 6th grade. They most certainly did do projects after that, but they were usually posterboard or presentation board type projects. And I was pretty good about taking photos of those projects over the years, so those will be included in the albums as well. 

To keep things simple, I die cut the word "art" to add to each page. I used the Weathered Door alpha kit from Kerri Bradford Studio, and die cut them from white graph patterned paper using my Silhouette Cameo. I was originally thinking I would die cut the grade as well - so that it would read "first grade art", "second grade art", etc. But since I had adhered the photos first, without knowing the rest of my plan, I really only had room to put "art". 

These will all get inserted into the girl's school albums, right alongside the rest of the memorabilia from each individual grade. Easy peasy, right? 

If you happen to follow Becky Higgins on Instagram, she just did a ton of Insta Stories last weekend, as she was doing something along these lines for her kid's albums. I know those little snippets of videos are no longer there to view, but I do believe she'll be sharing a blog post soon about the subject (or maybe she's doing a Facebook Live video - I can't remember), and usually, those Insta Stories videos do end up on her YouTube channel at some point. Lots of good advice, and a lot of it really does line up with my way of thinking as well - so I always enjoy hearing about the "why" and "how" of her process. 

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. 

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!

Scrapbook & Cards Today: Sharing My School Albums

Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know that I've shared a few blog posts on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog this week, in case you want to check them out. I'm talking about how I organize my girl's school stuff, set up their school albums, and giving you a peek into what a school year looks like within those albums. Some of you long-time blog readers of mine might recognize a lot of this, as I've blogged about my school albums several times over the year. But these are new posts that I wrote, and they do include a bit of new info along the way.

On Monday's post, seen HERE, I shared how I organize all of the school "stuff" that we collect during a typical school year. I also mentioned some of the supplies I use for my albums, such as the albums themselves and the different types and sizes of page protectors that you'll find within those albums.

And on today's post, seen HERE, I am walking you through a single school year, as seen in one of Alyssa's albums. I find great joy in gathering up all of the school "stuff" at the end of each year, sorting it out, slipping things into the albums, and then tossing everything else (there are exceptions, and things that do get kept and stored elsewhere). It always feels very freeing!

And since my girls go back to school next Thursday (can i get an "eeekkkk" and a "whoohoo" all at the same time?!?!), I guess it's about time I get last years stuff all organized in the albums, before the new school years stuff starts piling in ;)

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.

school albums . . .

i promised to have a post about my school album progress ... and this is a big one with lots of pictures. i spend some more time on friday night and saturday night working on these. i got so caught up in this last night, that i was up until 2:00am working. lol! i actually didn't want to stop. but here's what i have to show for my work ... 4 albums.

 

so the facts up front. i'm using the becky higgins school KOTM for these. i got them a year ago ... and they are not actually available anymore. but you could easily do something similiar. in fact, my friend marissa shared these pocket pages with me that she's using ... they're the same idea. i have 2 kits ... and also 2 of the expansion kits that have extras i can add in. each one has preschool thru 12th grade. i'm not sure that i'm going to include preschool ... we'll see. i'm using 12x12 AC modern albums ... they're 3-ring style which i love. at some point, i'll add just a little something to the covers or put something on the spines to tell them apart.

once i got started assembling these ... i figured out that i can really only fit 4 years in each album. that seems to be the perfect amount ... without bulking it up too much. now, since there are 13 years total (kindergarten thru 12th) ... i'll have to try and get 1 extra year into one of those albums. so i have 2 albums for alyssa shown here. she's in 7th grade right now ... so her two albums are pretty full and have the 8 years that she's been in school. and i have 2 albums for sarah here. she's in 4th grade ... so one album is full and the other is just getting started with her 5th year of school. i do have 5 of these albums (i'm using the same color for both of the girls) ... so i'll just have to get one more at some point. 

so here's my basic set-up that i came up with. each year is set up the same ... and yes, i have them all done as of last night! these are in the same order you'll find them in the album ... so just imagine me turning the pages as you read these. and if anything looks crazy blurry ... it's because i blurred some of the school info on purpose. click on any photo to see it a bit larger.

 

i have the pocket page in front ... since it has a little tab on the side and the super large grade number on the front. this is where i put all their papers and stuff i wanted to save. this is the stuff that was in those bags i showed a few days ago. you could really stuff a lot of papers in this pocket page ... but i didn't want to fill them too much. the pockets themselves are pretty bulky ... so i have a decent handful of papers. pretty much everything that was in those bags. and these have 2 little pockets on the front. i realized i had all the girls student ID cards ... so i stuck their ID card from the year in the little pocket.

 

this just shows you a sampling of what's in that pocket page. this is from alyssa's 4th grade year. some of her stories and writing, a homework packet, some drawings, her mission report, etc. it actually doesn't look like that much here ... but it's a good stack of stuff. i still have the larger projects that i'll be taking pictures of ... and then i'll work those into the album in some way.

 

next page. that's the backside of the pocket page on the left. then i inserted some 8.5x11 page protectors in the album. i'm using these WRMK ones ... mainly because they're great quality and a good price. all these next items were in those expandable folders that i had with the bags of papers. i just pulled out the stuff from each year, and added them to these next few pages. i have their class photo ... which i mounted on a piece of white cardstock. and why they always have this bright blue background, i have no idea. is everyone's that way? our school colors are green .. you'd think they'd use that. whatever.

 

next page. on the backside of the class photo ... i slipped in their final report card for the year. we get a copy each trimester. but the final one shows the grades for the entire year ... so i'm only keeping the last one. it's a long paper ... so i just folded over one end and tucked it in the page protector. then i added a second 8.5x11 page protector ... and put their awards in there. i didn't want to have them all seperate ... figured that would be too many page protectors. so if they had 6 awards for the year ... they're all in this one page protector. honor roll awards, acheivement awards, perfect attendance awards, and other special awards. however, i did have to start adding an extra page protector once alyssa hit 6th grade ... because she just had so many awards.

 

next page. the left shows the backside of the awards page. forgot to mention i added their STAR testing reports in there too (some california standard tests required each year). now the kit came with the stuff to make 2 double page spreads. but i think i'm just using 3 pages instead of 4. the first one has their offical 8x10 school photo. the paper came with the grade printed on there. i did add a small strip of pattern paper (from the expansion kit) ... just to add a bit of color. might add something else to this page later ... but at least i have all the photos on there for now. and just a funny sidenote. i never hang up or display their school photos. and i really have a hard time paying the prices for them ... since i can usually take better photos myself for a lot less. so last year, i didn't order any extra photos. then i realized that this kit is made to hold a 8x10 photo ... and i suddenly regretted that i didn't have their photo. after all ... it IS their official school photo. so now i order them! and i was able to still do last year ... since i was able to order the spring photo.

 

next page. this is the 2page spread that came for each grade. i put the papers together (hard to tell, but that cream paper is ruled) ... and added the chipboard grade circle. this it the part that i'm going to have to work on later ... and figure out exactly what i'm putting on there. but these are all assembled and in the albums ... so they're all ready for me.

   

next page. i'm planning on leaving the backside of that last page blank. the back of the paper on the previous layout is actually white. and i like that it'll be blank ... since the next page is the start of the next grade. kwim? but what you see in the left page is actually the sticker sheet that goes to the previous layout. these are the stickers to fill out and journal about their year. and i'm not sure if i need that curved pattern paper piece yet. but i just slipped both in the page protector ... so that i could keep it all together and ready to use. i'll just pull it out once i'm ready to journal ... and then when i'm done, that will be a blank page.

and since i can't play favorites ... i have to share one of sarah's years too. lol! shows how i used the same ideas ... and same set-up. this is sarah's kindergarten year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i cannot tell you how good it feels to have these done. they're not totally done ... but they're really close! i want to keep going ... i didn't even want to stop. but i do have to put them on hold for a few days. i actually have some scrapping assignments due in 2 days ... thinking i should start those. lol! and i have 3 days to get my tax stuff ready ... i've barely started (and i have 3 small businesses to do paperwork for!). but for now ... how cool do these look all lined up?!?!

 

 

please feel free to ask any questions you might have ... if i didn't cover it. i like the plan i came up with ... but there are lots of different ways to go about this. i'm all about easy and simple ... so i'm keeping this pretty basic. that way, i know i can keep up with it!

finally getting to the school albums . . .

the kids are off school this week. someone asked alyssa today why they were off ... and she said "i have NO idea". lol! we've had year-round schooling for 7 years ... but this year we switched to a modified traditional schedule. i don't know what that means exactly. but i can tell you that they have an entire week in february off! since i needed something to keep me busy in between the kids and working today ... i dug out their school papers to sort through and organize.

 

although it wasn't in this neat pile, like the photo shows. it was literally all over the kitchen ... on the kitchen table, the island, the counters, and even the stove. this picture here actually shows what i got it down too ... after tossing a TON of stuff. the purple file thingie and the 7 bags of papers above it ... those all belong to alyssa (kindergarten thru 6th grade). the blue file thingie and the 4 bags of papers above it ... those all belong to sarah (kindergarten thru 3rd grade). the current years are kept in the kitchen cabinet ... i just stick everything they bring home in there.

i've actually been really good each year about sorting and organizing schoolwork and projects. by that, i mean that i narrow it down some ... and stick them in these large bags (each grade has a bag). samples of writing and homework, reports, journaling stories, artwork. and the expandable file folders are great for holding the important stuff ... school pictures, class photo, report cards, awards, student ID, special notes from teachers. each grade has a pocket and i just stick the important stuff in there as i get it. then they each have a large box that holds their file folder and all their bags of papers.

but i want to start getting this stuff into their school albums. i have the school KOTM that i got ages ago ... and would love to actually put them to use to organize everything. it would look so much better in a pretty album ... than in these bags! lol! so today, i narrowed stuff down even more. it's hard to get rid of some stuff ... but really, i can't keep it all. so i choose artwork to keep ... picked out my favorite stories that they wrote. it's still a good selection for each year. i'm not sure if i'll be keeping all of what i have here ... it may get narrowed down even more. depends what i can fit in the album without making it too bulky. and for the larger art projects and drawings ... i'll be taking pictures of those things and just including the pics within the layouts to go with each grade. 

so, there's part of my plan ... and something that felt really good to start today. granted, it may be another 4-5 months before you see me mention this again. after all ... that's sort of how i roll. lol! how many of you are still waiting for me to show the finished albums i made for christmas presents?!?! i know, pathetic. lol!

and thanks to everyone for their words of support on my last post. and fun to see a few people come by from the very spot that i found the inquiring questions. it's all in good fun ... and i never took it as anyone being mean or anything. just curious ... about why i do what i do and where i do it, i guess. i didn't take it too seriously. really, i didn't! truely hope that came across ... i always wonder if people "get me" and my humor!