First Day of School

Last year I started the School of Life album for my oldest.  So when the first day of school rolled around I wasn't sure what to do with the pics.  I know that I will use them in the School of Life albom but I still wanted to document the day with a page.

Enter Crystal Wilkerson and her awesome templates!  She posted this one (and several other color variations) as free downloads over at Ella Publishing.  It took all of 5 minutes to add my photo and the date.  And DONE!  It's cute, it was quick, and it marks his first day of school.  Love that!
















What did you do to honor the first day of school in your home?  Ever used a digi quick page?  Ever wish you could go back to simpler times and be in elementary school again?  Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear all about it!

Hard 2 Wait

Every day when my youngest wakes up from his nap the countdown begins.  He doesn't want to do anything until brother comes home.

I took these photos the day I practiced shooting from the hip.  As soon as I took these photos I knew exactly what story I wanted to tell!

Design Inspiration: I just love Ella's sketch challenge!  Sketch #9 seemed perfect!  To make it work for my story I flipped the photos around and the title/journal blocks.  Simply love!

Color Inspiration: I've really been wanting to use this alphabet paper by Crystal Wilkerson.  I decided now was the time, but I didn't want to go digi so I just printed out this digi paper!  Love me some hybrid!

Isn't it cute?!?  And I love the notebook border punch for the paper strip!  So school-ish!

Added another border punch at the tip.  Total fluke that the yellow stickers had the same blue lines as the background paper.  But love how it looks!

Notebook pattern paper is perfect for journaling on.  Brilliant little tidbit right?  :)  But it was perfect for this quick layout!



















Ever printed out digi paper to create a hybrid layout?  What's your favorite digi paper out there?  Tell me something that's hard for you to wait for!  For me it's waiting for brownie's to cool!  ;)  Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear all about it!

Fun on the Farm

This spring both of my boys went on field trips to the farm.  Seemed like the perfect opportunity to throw a layout together with a photo collage!

This was one of those super fast, super simple layouts.  I got the idea from a fellow LOADster.  You can see her version here.

I made an 8.5x22 canvas in Photoshop Elements and filled it with images and digi papers.  I used the process I posted about here and here.  Then when I printed I cropped down to 8.5x11 on the left side, printed, went back up to edit/undo crop and then followed the same process on the right side.

I placed all the pics of my younger son on the left page and all the pics of my older son on the right.  Even though the trip is to the same place they were not on the same day.  I like separating them trips while still keeping them on the same layout.

For a bit of farmy fun I added this adorable pig from the Cuddly Animals Set over at SVGCuts.com.  Do you like the mud smudges I added on him.  :)  That's my favorite part.

So here's the deal with the title...I ran out of t and e in my sticker set.  So I had to improvise.  But "Down on da Farm" totally works for me!  :)

The digi paper fill spots were from a 4th of July set.  But all the denim seemed a perfect fit for a farm page, don't ya think?

Here's my pigs best bud the cow.  Also from the Cuddly Animals set!  And then while digging around in my brown color bin I found this bit of rope.  Loved the touch it gave to the page!

Hand written journaling was a must for this quick and simple page.  I had fun playing with comparing the two trips.  For every comparison I started with my youngest and followed it with a comment about my oldest.  Just like how the page has my youngest first (on the left) and moves to my oldest.

The journaling reads, "Two farm field trips full of fun!  One was wet and cold.  One was sunny and warm.  One with Mama.  One with Daddy.  One never made it past the playground.  One saw all the animals.  One with a small class.  One with many friends.  One with silly smiles.  One in a cowboy hat.  One afraid to feed the animals.  One ready to try.  Two boys having tons of fun on a field trip to Deanna Rose Farm."

We actually went back to the farm this last week (did I mention it's free!!!).  Here are a couple of my favorite shots from our recent trip.

Have you had two children go on the same field trip?  Try making a comparison page and link us up so we can see!

Graduation Cards

This week we celebrated 3 graduating seniors at our church.  About an hour before the party I realized I didn't have any cards!  Then I remembered this post over at Eighteen25 and knew I could throw together some adorable cards!

Cute right?!?  These papers are, of course, courtesy of Crystal.  Have I mentioned I love her stuff?  Oh, yeah...you probably knew that already.  :)

I'm thinking I did an awesome job with time to spare.  I was ready to print them out when...I discover I'm out of ink.  GRRRRRR!

So 10 minutes later I had these!  I grabbed some pattern paper scraps and cut them like a mad woman!

Wrapped them in some of this adorable twine from The Twinery! Love this stuff!

Cut some slits and add some cash!  And I had to handwrite the sentiment but at this point I was down to the wire.  Kids were already in the car and my husband was honking at me.  :)  But I left the house with 3 graduation cards!  (Thank goodness for the garage sale cash sitting in kitchen!!)

Have you had to throw together something crafty at the last minute?  Link us up and let us see!

School of Life ~ Life at School

I've been sharing my son's School of Life album with you this week (here and here).  Next up is the Life at School spread.

I am so totally in love with the full two page spread.  I know this template will work year after year!

I enjoyed going back through photos of the school year and choosing ones to highlight what life is like in Kindergarten.  The many journaling blocks give plenty of space to tell the important stories.

I love this woodgrain paper from Crystal Wilkerson.  Her spring/summer collection is so perfect for this project!

I still have a Life at Home layout to complete along with a pocket page to hold school papers.  I can't wait to finish the layouts for my son's Kindergarten year, get them printed up and put in the album!  I can't wait to see how each year unfolds through the eyes of my son!

How have you scrapped an element of your child's school day?

School of Life ~ Highlights Page

As I mentioned here I have been working on my son's School of Life album.  I will be using a 3 ring album to house these pages.  There will be a combination of 12x12 pages and 6x12.  Today I wanted to show you the two 6x12 pages for this year.

The Kindergarten divider page is fairly self explanatory.  I used this fun stripe because it contained the blue, orange, and green colors that I have used on several of the layouts.  Originally the stripes were horizontal but since this is digital paper I could twist it to make the stripes diagonal.  I love the way it turned out!

On the back side of the divider page is this Highlights page.  I love the opportunity to pull out just a few of the major events from this Kindergarten year.  Something I know we will look back on for years to come!

Have you scrapped a highlight from your child's school year?  Be sure to leave a link in the comments so we can all see!

School of Life

I've been working this past week on my oldest son's School of Life album.  I can't remember if I heard aobut these templates at stacyjulian.com or on Paperclipping Roundtable.  But once I did I couldn't resist downloading the whole kit.  I'm so excited that I stumbled upon this while my oldest was still in Kindergarten.  Now I can start at the beginning!

This is the title page for his Kindergarten year.  Since this collection is made up of digital templates I've decided to make this an all digital album.  Which means I'll need to find a place to print these 12x12 layouts.

I was excited to see the contents of this page.  I had actually already done the favorite things interview with him planning to make a different page (which I still may).  It was a perfect addition to the title page.  One of my favorite parts about this page is the area where he will sign his name (once it's printed).  I had some digital handwriting paper and I knew it would be perfect for that block.

I'll share more of my School of Life pages throughout the rest of this week.  What do you do to document your children's school year?

An iPod Generation

As I've mentioned before I've been thinking more and more about scrapping the everyday.  This was one of those moments when I saw my son doing something and a layout idea popped into my head.  I grabbed my camera, snapped a few pics, put him down for a nap and scrapped away.

My son has actually learned to spell words from an app.  It's called Pocket Phonics.  The app says a word then will sound it out.  Each time it makes a sound you have to touch the appropriate letter.  In the end you have spelled a word.  It sounds out each sound one more time and then says the word.  My son LOVES it.  And because of that app he has started writing words too...at 3!  I was blown away!

It's easy for me to spread lots of pics across a two page layout.  I find it very difficult to only use 1 or 2.  How do you fill the space?  Ephemera was the key on this layout (although patterned paper would have worked too).

My layout inspiration came from Brenda Johnston here.  I loved the idea of using the edges of a...what shape is that?  Bracket square?  Well whatever it's called :) I like how it is split on the two edges of the layout.

On the inspiration layout Brenda used a great white patterned paper.  I loved the look but had no paper like that.  I tried many variations but nothing worked.  So I grabbed two sheets of white cardstock and my pack of graph paper.  By layering the graph paper around the page it gave me the design I wanted and it goes along with the school-y theme.

When I started taking the pics I knew I wanted to use this ephemera (ephemera: items designed to be useful or important for only a short time, especially pamphlets, notices, tickets, or in this case school papers).  I didn't want to cut up my son's actual school paper so I scanned it and printed two copies.  If you look close you can even see the wrinkles from where he had stuffed the paper in his backpack.  Now I have his first page of written words honored in our scrapbook, and I have it digitally so I don't have to keep the actual paper.

The all white layout was a bit bland so I grabbed some ink and smudged it on the corners and around the edges of the paper.  I like the messy, 3 yr old look it gives my layout.  :)

This photo was perfect for splitting across two pages.  There was an empty spot 1/3 of the way across the photo that was an ideal spot for the split.  To make the picture stand out I also inked the edges.  This time with turquoise to match the rest of the layout.

Since part of my son's writing was a fun blue color I decided to mimick that with a blue edge to the...what should we call it this time...pointy square?  :)  I cut the...let's just say shapes, with SCAL on my Cricut.  I just made it as big as I could so that it would go as close to the full 12 in as possible.  Since I was splitting them across two edges I could do 6 in wide on the left and only 4 in wide on the right.

I cut a bunch of 1 1/2 in circles in a variety of pattened papers and lined them up across the two pages.  Gave the layout some much needed color.  And the perfect way to use up scraps.  Love that!

Since this layout is all about learning from the iPod I thought I'd do a very Apple-esque title.  I decided to just use letter stickers for this one.  Super simple!

Isn't it amazing how technology has changed so much in our lives?  It can even teach our children to spell words!  Who would have thought it?!?  The saying is true, whatever it is...there's an app for that!

Pre-School Graduation

I've been working on finishing up my 2010 pages.  So recently I pulled together a spread of my son's pre-school graduation.

I lifted this layout almost exactly from Double Page Design from Ella.  Can't show you the inspiration page but you can buy the book for yourself for just a few bucks!  Definitely worth it.

I love that all of the photos are 4x6!  So easy!  I had these blue border strips in my color bin and they worked perfectly on the page.

I don't usually include ephemera on my pages, but this tassel was a must!  I tapped in an orange brad and hung the tassel from that.  It works perfectly on the page.

To add a little bling I stuck on these three gold stars.  Loving that!

I thought that the box of crayons made the perfect accent to this page.  Just love how simple it all is!

I cut this speech bubble with my Cricut and then printed my journaling on it.  Such a great memory page!

Back to School

I finally found/took some time to finish up my son's first day of school layout.  I made the photo collage and found my layout inspiration months ago but never found the time to finish it up.

I am so glad to have this layout completed.  It's not my favorite one I've ever made but it's done and that is a beautiful thing!

I was given this paper that is called "Kindergarten Defined" and thought it was so cute.  So I decided to use it as a oversize mat for the quintessential first day of school photo.  :)

I don't usually hand write on my pages, but I've been listening to Paperclipping Roundtable Podcasts and I'm rethinking things.  They keep talking about the power of having handwritten items from those you love.  So I decided that, for this special occasion, I would write out my thoughts rather than typing them.

I loved tossing together this photo collage for this page.  It allowed me to easily use all the pictures I loved from my son's first day.  For a tutorial on creating a photo collage in Photoshop Elements see this post.

I often embellish with my cricut.  But today I wanted to create a quick and easy layout so I grabbed some cute glitter stickers.

I love to scrap, but life has gotten so busy lately it's been awhile.  And this layout represents the fact that your layouts don't always have to be perfect or your favorite.  What's most important is that you're done!