Laura Vegas

Kerri Bradford Studio: A Labor Of Love

April 13, 2016

I've got a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. I recently made a comment to my oldest daughter Alyssa about how I don't take that many photos of my daycare kids anymore, and she said "just all of your rocking chair photos with Derek". If you happen to follow me on Instagram, you'll know what this is about 😉 I said that I take so many of those because I'm stuck in the rocking chair with him all the time and I get bored, and then said that I should probably print them all out and make a layout about it. And that's exactly what I did, as I knew it would be perfect for my next layout for Kerri.

I started by collaging all of my photos together, using a template from Kerri's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit. I tend to take photos on my phone in the square format, for whatever reason, and I have also shared each one of these photos on my Instagram, so the rows of square little photos were just what I needed.

I knew I had quite a bit of color going in all of my photos, and yet when it came time to pick out my patterned papers, it was really quite easy to come up with a color combo that I liked. I had the red tone-on-tone dotted patterned paper in mind from the start. It's an oldie, but still goodie, from Scenic Route. I ended up finding the rest of my papers in that same section of my stash, as I thought the aqua tone-on-tone dotted paper, the black paper, and the grid paper were a great mix with the red. All super old patterned papers, but I knew I'd use them someday.

I trimmed strips of both the red and black patterned papers, to fit along the left edge of the page, knowing that my photo collage would go all the way to the right edge of the page. I used a border punch along the white grid patterned paper, and tucked the border strip under the black paper strip to break up the darker colored papers.

As I browsed thru Kerri's kits for a good title, I came up with several different options. I ended up going with "a labor of love", because I don't think I would be willing to spend so much time rocking this adorable baby boy, and helping him sleep, if I didn't love him a ton 😉 I sized it to go the length of my photo collage, and cut it from both the black and red patterned papers to layer together.

When I went thru my photos, to find all of the ones I've taken in the rocking chair holding this adorable baby boy, I ended up finding twelve photos. I arranged my photos by date taken, leaving three spaces of the template empty, which is where I planned up placing my journaling. I've done this several times before, and love the look of the journaling mixing right in with the photos.

I knew the layout needed a little something more at the top of the page, and I happen to have these fun little 2×2" cards from a Project Life kit sitting out by where I was scrapping. I dug thru them and found a few that would coordinate with the page. Once I pulled out that grey "date" card, I went and found a grey scalloped border sticker to add along the left side of the page to add in more grey. A fun little fact is that Kerri helped design these cards for an older Project Life kit several years back. So it seemed fitting to add these to this layout.

I also did a teeny, tiny amount of stamping with a few of Kerri's stamp sets. I added the "absolutely" from her Stamps: One Fine Day stamp set, to go along with my title, and the dashed line from her Stamps: Oh Yeah stamp set underneath.
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Project Sheet – Cute Baby Boy Collection

April 11, 2016

We've got the new April project sheet up on the Bella Blvd blog today. For this month's layout, I was asked to focus on either the Sweet Baby Girl collection or the Cute Baby Boy collection. Since I had already used the girl collection for a catalog layout, I decided to play with the boy collection this time. Plus, I've got an adorable baby boy attached to me five days a week, so I knew I had photos to work with.

I picked out this 3×4" card from the Daily Detail patterned paper to use for my title and tried it out against different patterned papers in the collection to find the best match. I ended up picking the grey squiggly lined patterned paper, which happened to be the backside of the same Daily Details paper that I got the title card from.

I knew my plan was to layer several patterned papers under my photos, so I wanted to keep the background of the page fairly subtle. Since I'm supposed to stay away from using solid cardstock for these layouts, I've taken to using the Clear Cuts transparencies a lot, paired with white cardstock. Adds some interest, but in a subtle way. Here, I layered the silver Confetti Clear Cut transparency over my white cardstock, after spritzing my cardstock with some misting sprays.

I printed my photos as 2.5" squares, and trimmed them leaving a small white border around the edges. I tried out several patterned papers, layering them in different ways, until I found a combo that I liked. The light blue dotted pattern, the polka dot pattern, and the green dotted pattern. I cut two pieces from each patterned paper, adding a half inch to the width and length of the second and third papers, to make them all layer-able.

I love using the border strips on my layouts, and added one along the bottom of the page, and one along the bottom of the grey squiggly lined paper on the top of the page. I added baby boy's name with some alpha stickers, and since they didn't stand out as much as I would have liked against the grey paper, I outlined them with a black pen. And since I outlined the alpha stickers, I decided I had better out line the other stickers on the page to match.

Each of my layered patterned paper strips were sized to hold two square photos. After layering the papers together, I machine stitched around each of the patterned papers. I knew I wanted to adhere the finished photo/paper strips at an angle, so I eyeballed where I needed to trim the papers so that I could adhere them right along the edges of the border strips at angles.

You can download a copy of the April project sheet, complete with full supply list and detailed instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Bella Blvd: Playground Antics

April 8, 2016

All this week, we've been introducing the new 2016-2017 Creative Team members on the Bella Blvd blog, and today's my turn to re-introduce myself. I'm coming up on my fifth year of working for Bella, as their Creative Team coordinator, so I feel like my introduction is mostly the same from year to year. I just change out how old my girls are, and how many daycare kids I'm taking care of. Not much else in my little life changes. Along with sharing a bit about ourselves, all of the designers are also sharing their first layouts as part of the team. Here's a little excerpt from my bio I shared today:

"I definitely have two different styles, depending what I'm working on. When I have free reign, with no particular guidelines to follow, you'll find my true style. Very linear and clean, lots of color, lots of patterned paper, die cut elements (especially titles), and simple embellishments. I love a good photo collage, and the layouts that I love the most have lots of photos on them and a story."

Yes. So, so, so very true. I've known for a while that I have two different styles. While I do enjoy both styles and the finished projects I come up with, the layouts that tend to mean more to me – the ones that I love more – are the ones that show my go-to style. And when it comes to that go-to style, I'm all about clean, simple, and not a lot of fuss.

So that's exactly the style I worked into my first layout for our introduction week. I knew I wanted to start out with a photo collage, as that's a huge part of my style. I happen to think about these photos of the girls from years ago, playing at the park a few blocks from our house. I had actually scrapped some of these photos for a project sheet layout for Bella back in 2012 (seen HERE), but the accordian pinwheel flowers I had included on the layout had literally fell apart shortly after. Obviously, I did not adhere them together that well. Lol. I've had that layout in a pile to fix for years, and just never got to it. As much as I really did love that layout, I decided I would just toss that layout and create a new one.

I collaged my photos together on my own (without using a template), and printed them out. From there, I started digging out some patterned papers to coordinate with my photos. I pulled out a few papers from the new The Zoo Crew collection, one from the Star Student collection, and my favorite grid patterned paper that I often use in place of white cardstock. Along the way, after adding in a yellow border sticker, I also pulled out the yellow confetti Clear Cut transparency to work onto the page as well.

I mentioned I love to use die cut titles, and one way I love to use them is by mixing them with chipboard alphas or letter stickers. I've always said that I love a good cursive font, mixed with a clean, simple font. My favorite Bella chipboard alphas are the Sienna alphas, and I just love the navy blue ones. I die cut the word "playground" with my Cameo from the brown woodgrain patterned paper. It put up quite the fight as I was trying to adhere it to the page, and there's one part I can now see didn't get adhered quite right (the "g" is on top of the "r"), but it's on there and I consider that a win in my book.

I usually do the patterned paper, photos, title, and journaling part of the page, and then see what I think needs to be added embellishment wise. It's usually not a lot. I've been big on using enamel dots, as they're pretty flat on the page and super easy to add on. I wanted a little something to add next to the title at the bottom of the page, so I ended up adding a few little chipboard words to finish it off.

I hope that you'll stop by the Bella Blvd blog, if you haven't been by this week, and get to know the other nine Creative Team members. They're a fabulously talented group and I'm excited to work with them over the next year.
Bella Blvd 2016-2017 Creative Team

April 1, 2016

It's that time of year at Bella Blvd, where we announce our new Creative Team, and today is the big day! While it's always hard to say farewell to the team of designers that I've worked so closely with for the past year, there's also the excitement of getting a new team of designers lined up and in place. We have some familiar faces sticking around from our last creative team, a familiar face that designed for us a few years back, and a few new-to-Bella designers that are just amazingly talented.

We've moved to a smaller team this time around, and have some exciting changes in the works for what you're going to find on the Bella blog here on out. We will be introducing each one of the ten designers, including myself, on the blog next week. I hope you'll stop by, starting on Monday, and get to know more about these talented designers! In the meantime, you can check out all of their blogs here:

Becki Adams | Leanne Allinson | Stephanie Buice | Megan Klauer | Gail Lindner | Krista Lund | Jamie Pate | Laurie Schmidlin | Laura Vegas - Creative Team Coordinator | Missy Whidden
A Quick Little Album For A Special Little Girl

March 27, 2016

Hey there! I know it's been quieter on the blog lately. I was doing so well for a while. I was creating more, which meant that I had more to share. Then I got a new three month old baby in the daycare, and the ninth month old baby decided he would only sleep if I'm holding him. And that, my friends, is when my life apparently fell apart. Lol. Anyways.

One of my little daycare girlies, Luna, had her last day with me this past Friday. I started watching her exactly three years and one week ago, when she was not quite nine months old. And now, just months away from turning four years old, she's moving on. Literally, as they are moving to another state.

I had this idea to make her a little album, so that she could have some photos of her friends to remember them. I actually had the idea for a few weeks, but it wasn't until the night before her last day that I decided to actually throw something together.

I had picked up a little 4×4" album from WRMK a few weeks ago, just in case I did decide to create the album. I knew that I didn't have a ton of photos, so I wanted something small. I also knew that I had a bunch of little 2×2" photos already printed that I could incorporate into this size album, with the little divided page protectors.

I started the album with one of those divided page protectors. I had some crochet hearts from Bella Blvd sitting out, that I had torn off of other projects. Since they didn't have the adhesive tabs on the back anymore, they were easy to slip into the pockets. I then machine stitched along the openings to close each pocket up so the hearts don't fall out.

I followed the opening page with the "lucky" 4×4" clear card that I found in my stash (from Heidi Swapp) and slipped into a full page protector. I honestly don't have many photos of Luna. One reason being that she was always part time, so she wasn't around every day. And one reason being that she didn't really like me to take her photo. But I did have this really cute one from when she was smaller, so it's the main 4×4" photo of her in the album.

I included just two 4×4" journaling cards in the album, and wrote my journaling by hand on both. Mostly because it was quicker, as I would always prefer printed journaling for sure.

I then printed out one 3×4" photo of each of the kiddos that have been her with her over the last three+ years. All of the 2×2" photos in this album were all phone photos that I had printed a while back thru the FreePrints app. I didn't have a plan for them at the time, so I just went thru the pile and tried to find two photos to go along with each of the kids.

I don't take that many photos of the kids these days. Not like I used to years ago, when I would have tons of photos of them, month after month. Abby here was one kiddo that I just didn't have many photos of, as she moved on a while back to preschool, and is only here during the summer. So I just included some random photos next to her photo.

When it came to filling the pockets without photos, I ended up turning to my Bella Blvd stash. While most of the collections do contain a few 2×2" cards that can be cut out from one of the patterned papers, some of the older collections had Candid Cards, which contained lots of smaller 2×2" cards to choose from.

Most of the cards, I simply slipped in the pocket and that was it. There were a few cards that I did add an enamel heart too, because they were simpler cards that seemed to need a little something extra.

Next to the 3×4" photos of the kids, I added a piece of star patterned paper. I actually cut 4×4" pieces of white cardstock for these pockets, and adhered both the photo and the patterned paper piece, and then machine stitched along the edge of the photo.

I found a coordinating tab to go with each kid's photo, pulling them from the Paper Pieces from some older collections. I tucked those under the side of the photo before doing the machine stitching.

I also added each child's name to their photo, using some alpha stickers. Easy peasy.

This is a super simple album. Like I said, I threw it together in just about two hours, start to finish. I kept thinking I should add more, to bulk it up a bit. But in the end, I decided it was just enough and that Luna would love it.

I snapped this photo of Luna, and three of the other kiddos that were here on her last day. These are the four older kids, and the ones she always played with the most. So it was nice that they were all together on her last day. I printed it out during their naptime, and slipped it in the last page of the album.

Luna's mom said that Luna loves her album. She told me that she was trying to get a photo of it, but Luna wouldn't let go of it, and that she even slept with it Friday night. So cute. I'm really going to miss that girl.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Beautiful Flower Girls

March 17, 2016

I finally finished a layout that has been in the works, in one way or another, for a full two weeks. Crazy how little I'm getting done these days, and that's not just referring to scrapbooking. I've got this new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today.

I mentioned this a few posts ago, but I recently re-organized some of my albums, and in the process I came across a handful of layouts that I pulled out with the intention of re-scrapping them. The original layouts were extremely bulky and took up a lot of space in my albums. While I don't feel the need to re-scrap each and every layout that has a little bulk to it, there were some that were just way too bulky for my taste now. And quite honestly, with the massive amount of albums that I have accumulated from 22+ years of scrapbooking, I really like to be able to squeeze as many layouts into each album that I can.

These photos of my girls, from 10 years ago when they were flower girls in my cousin's wedding, were on one of the layouts that I wanted to re-scrap. Well, not these exact photos, since my original layout was a two pager, with just three 4×6" photos. Anyways. I was browsing thru Kerri's cut files and came across the floral piece from her Life Additions #2 kit. It could be sized as a 3×4" cut, and I knew it would be perfect for this layout, since I could print several of my photos in the same 3×4" size and collage them all together in my favorite style – a clean and linear grid design.

I picked several patterned papers from Fancy Pants for this layout, and cut four of the floral pieces from three different papers. I picked out the word "beautiful" from Kerri's Something To Say kit, because – well, because I think my girls looked beautiful in their flower girl dresses and pinned up hair! The brown tone-on-tone striped patterned paper that I used for "beautiful" is also from Fancy Pants. I finished off my title with some simple white alpha stickers from Bella Blvd.

I knew I wanted to keep this layout very simple and clean looking. I added a few brown enamel dots to the centers of the floral pieces for simple embellishing, and at the last minute, I added a few chipboard words that were out in the open and caught my eye. I didn't feel the need to add any journaling, since I do have another layout with additional photos of the girls with the other flower girls, and that layout has journaling on it. Overall, such a simple layout, so I'm still trying to figure out how it took me so long to get around to finishing.
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Project Sheet – Sweet Sweet Spring Collection

March 7, 2016

Yesterday was the first Monday of the month, which means that a new monthly project sheet went up on the Bella Blvd blog. For this month's layout, I was asked to use the new Sweet Sweet Spring collection. I decided to go with some photos of the girls coloring easter eggs years ago, as I'm fairly certain I have never scrapped these before.

I printed my photos as 2×4" pics, which isn't something I do very often. But I had the idea of doing four strips of patterned papers and photos across the center of the page, with an extra smaller strip of patterned paper mixed in, so the skinnier and taller photos were in order.

I picked out several of the tone-on-tone patterned papers to use as the strips my photos would be on, and then picked one of the busier patterned papers to use on it's own. I also cut a strip of a aqua dotted clear cut transparency to layer over the aqua grid patterned paper, to give it a bit more interest.

I added a few border strips along the top and bottom of the page. The yellow dotted border strip and the "happy easter" border strip, both along the bottom of the page, and a thin piece of the aqua dotted border strip along the top of the page.

The new collections all come with newly designed Paper Pieces, which are filled with a variety of die cuts that are all ready to add to your projects. I knew I wanted to add several of them to the page, and pulled out the easter eggs, a few banner pieces, tabs, and flowers.

I didn't have any of the chipboard to work with for this layout, and I wanted something a little larger to fill the upper left corner of the page, so I fussy cut the cute little tree from a 3×4" card on the Daily Details patterned paper.

For the title, I used the purple alpha stickers from the Treasures & Text sticker sheet and some alphas from the Tiny Text alpha stickers. I went back and forth on what color to use for the "fun coloring" part of my title, and settled on navy blue, since there were touches of it in the busier patterned paper strip and my photos.

I added several of the die cut flowers down my busier patterned paper strip, and added some enamel dots to the centers of several of the flowers, as well as sprinkling them around the rest of the page.

You can download a copy of the March project sheet, complete with full supply list and detailed instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Bella Blvd: First Day Of School

February 25, 2016

After a two month break, we're back with the Spread It Out feature today on the Bella Blvd blog, focusing on two page layouts. I went back and forth on what I wanted to do for my layout this time. At one point, I was just randomly scrolling thru my Silhouette library, looking for a fun cut file to jump out at me, and I eventually found one. I've had this circle/star cut file for years (it's from Pink Paislee), and have never used it. I just knew it would be perfect for a school layout.

And I happen to have some first day of school photos in mind. These photos were scrapped on a layout I created for Creating Keepsakes magazine years ago. It was almost six years ago when I created the original layout, seen HERE, which was for an assignment that led to a very bulky and heavy layout. I actually had it pulled out and in a pile to re-create at some point, because it was just too bulky for my taste in the albums.

I was able to pull the photos right off the old layout, and use them as is. This saved time, since if I had printed these again, I would have most likely re-edited the photo a bit, or I would have wanted to include more photos than just these four. Any time I can just grab photos and start saves me a ton of time. This also helped with the decision making, as to where the photos would go on the spread, as I kept them pretty much the same design wise.

I sized the circle/star cut file to fit the left side of the first page of the spread, knowing that it would fill up a lot of the page. I cut it from black cardstock, and also cut out a few extra stars, thinking I would add them to the other side of the two page spread. Once I had most of the page planned out, and I knew where my patterned papers would go, I went back and cut out a few circles from the coordinating patterned papers to add to the large circle/star die cut.

When it came to picking out my patterned papers, I turned to the Star Student collection first, and pulled out the few patterned papers that would match my photos – the black text, aqua stars, and navy blue dotted patterns. I was pulling my colors straight from my photos, using the colors of the girls shirts and backpacks. So I also added in the green dotted patterned paper and the pink woodgrain patterned paper.

I also die cut the "first day" from black cardstock, for my title. I knew I wanted a mix of cursive die cut words and clean looking chipboard alphas. Once I had everything laid out, I realized the only way my "first day" really fit was to have the word "first" split between the first and second page of the spread. I don't usually cut things in half, between pages. But it had to be done. And just now, as I'm typing this, I realized that I forgot to dot my "i". Oops.

I knew I wanted to keep the entire center of my spread simple, so that the photos and the circle/star die cut would stand out, but I also didn't want to leave it plain white cardstock. I knew the typewriter Clear Cut transparency would work out great for my background.

That loopy part of the "y" is part of the reason my title had to be split between pages. I had to find an empty space in my photos for it to fall. Those extra stars that I die cut came in handy too, and luckily, my guesswork on the sizing worked out perfectly.

I used both green and navy blue Sienna chipboard alphas for the rest of my title. It was a great way to work in a little more green onto the page, since I didn't have much green elsewhere.

My original page had some large silver brads added to the center of punched stars. Since I had pulled them off that old layout, and had them out, I figured I might as well use them on this page as well. It was all the extra embellishing I needed for this spread.
Sharing My Own School Album

February 18, 2016



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 8.5×11" 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 8×10" photos for all but three years, and for those I had 5×7" 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 8.5×11", 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.

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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 8.5×11" 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 5×7" 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

February 16, 2016

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 8.5×11" 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 8.5×11" album, you do NOT cut your transparency (or whatever you're using as a divider) down to 8.5×11". 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!

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