Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Back to Scrapbooking School: Electives

Hello! Jenny Larson, here to share the last day of school (sort of!). Today will wrap up the week of scrapbooking inspiration coming from school. This time we'll be looking at the subjects that are often not required but that people instead choose to take: electives. Here's the list of ones I thought of:

1. World Language
2. Physical Education
3. Technology Education
4. Home Economics
5. Art
6. Music
7. Theater
8. Computers
9. Business
10. Computer Science

There are more electives, I know, but this was the preliminary list I came up with. Where do you see these subjects in your life? Here's some pages dealing with a few of these subjects:

Since I took up running, I have loved scrapping it. Here I scrapped the Turkey Day 5K last year.

Christine Newman also runs and also celebrates the activity in this amazing page.

Sport takes many forms. Here my son combined his practice of the Jedi Arts with baseball.

On to Industrial Arts: Sue Althouse created this stunning page about her husband's woodworking hobby (the wooden buttons are a perfect accent). I love how she is scrapbooking her significant other's interest, something I love to do too.

Christine also delved into industrial arts with this page about her significant other's home improvement project.

I was never good at Home Economics, particularly sewing. I can do it, but not happily. The takeaway? You can scrap your dislike of a subject as well as a like!

I like cooking much better than sewing. This page, which I made years ago, is one of my favorites. In a book I had been reading, the main character said she'd taken a home ec cooking course called "5 Good Things," which is what you learned to cook in that course! It made me think of my 5 Good Things, and these were my 5 at the time. What are your 5 Good Things that you cook?

Sue also shared her other craft, knitting, in this page. The blocks of photos and colors looks lovely, reminding me of another fabric craft, quilting.

Art is something my son loves. He's always been drawn to bright colors, and he loves tracing and drawing books. I scrapped his love of art in this page. I tried to get a little arty, pulling out the mist, the paint, the stamps, the thread, and the paper.

My son also loves music. He's played the violin for a while, so I made a pocket page to store his recital programs. I did something similar for both of my boys and their taekwondo certificates.

Christine shares some music in this page celebrating a musical icon: the Mix Tape. I still have a few, even though I don't have a tape player anymore. I love how Christine used lots of blocks that reflect the shape of the tape.

Finally, something that is not quote an elective, but an area of study which many students take, including my son: Special Education. I scrap his disability seldom (once a year in April during Autism Awareness month), but I scrap his small victories often, which is most important when things are not going well. He loves looking at his old pages, so I hope it heartens him every time he sees a page that celebrates the steps forward.

Thank you again for sharing this week with me! I hope this gives you scrapbooking ideas and allows you to have some fun in school.

Back to Scrapbooking School: Social Studies

Jenny Larson once again taking you back to school with a very big subject: Social Studies.

This subject area encompasses so many particular subjects, but they all deal with the history and study of people, all of which can inspire your pages. Here's some ideas I came up with:

1. History: Scrap important moments in your family's history, visit and scrap famous historical events from your hometown, scrap significant historical events you've lived through, scrap your favorite historical time periods/ones you would like to visit, record important dates from your life.
2. Geography: scrap places you tend to visit/have visited/would like to visit, use a map on a page, scrap the weather where you live.
3. Sociology: This is the study of human patterns and behavior, particularly in groups, so scrap the groups you or your family belongs to and their behaviors, language, and beliefs. Think about the ways you interact with groups you do not belong to: do you volunteer? Do you travel? Explore similarities and differences.
4. Psychology: This is the study of the individual, so explore your personality--your could even scrap your Myers Briggs type!--your fears, your obsessions, and your quirks.
5. Government and Politics: I know this can be a dirty word for some today, but think about the ways you have participated in government and politics and scrap them if you haven't.
6. Economics: What are your beliefs about money? How do you economize? Do you run your family budget? How do you teach others about money?
7. Pop Culture: I include this subject because it is a popular (pun intended) course taught in my school. Think about the parts of pop culture from your childhood that were important to you in childhood (*cough* Shaun Cassidy!) and scrap them. How about now: what movies/music/TV shows/fashion/games do you love? How about your family members?

Here's some projects to give you more ideas from the subject of Social Studies:

 

Maps are maybe the easiest way to be inspired by Social Studies is to use a map. I'm not too literal--if I am documenting a place, I use map paper, like I did in this layout. It doesn't have to be a map of the actual place.

I love how Sue Althouse used a map not just as decoration but to journal the route of her trip. Brilliant.

I kept my "I Voted" sticker after the last election and took a picture of me with it. The journaling details my participation in the democratic process since I could first vote.

My son's one-time obsession with flags inspired me to break out the patriotic colors and symbols.

I have a lot of landmarks nears where I live--cherry in a spoon, anyone?--but I rarely document them. Heck, I am an English teacher, and St. Paul is bejeweled with landmarks to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I have never documented the landmarks in the state I live in. I should. Christine Newman's landmark layout reminds me of the importance of documenting our places.

Aliza Deutsch shares historic places on a page as well, but this time pairing them with a person--her husband--linking the past to today. Such a great idea.

Aliza also scraps the opportunity to see an important historical document, the Bill of Rights. This gives me so many ideas--even though I haven't seen many important historical documents (the Bill of Rights, the Gutenberg Bible, Shakespeare's First Folio, King's Letter from Birmingham Jail), I can still scrap the impact they have had on me and the world.

Documenting trends is documenting history. Documenting disappearing trends is a part of growing up (or growing old? Sigh). Inspired by this typewriter sticker (remember what those machines were?), I made a general observation of how times have changed. If you need further inspiration of how much times have changed, read the Beloit College Mindset List, which they update every year. Here's 2013. Big sigh.

In this page I grabbed random receipts I had been slow to throw and documented my personal economics.

Yes, I have scrapped the weather. Many times. I live in Minnesota, so it's easy to do so. (Did I mention it snowed in May this year?) I made this page to document my weather junkie status.

Here's where I delve into psychology: I scrapped my biggest fears, which are mostly spiders and heights and people breathing on my face. This spread is in a mini book where I documented a word a day online with some friends. When I shared this spread with them, I got some serious street cred for taking a close up photo of a spider.

I hope you have lots of ideas for subjects to scrap that take inspiration from social studies! PLease share your own ideas in the comment section.

 

Back to Scrapbooking School: Math

Jenny Larson again, sharing inspiration on what may seem to be an unusual subject to draw inspiration from: Math.

I always tell people that I have gotten much better at math when I started scrapbooking. I can eyeball measurements now, and I understand percentages much better as well. Other elements of mathematics may give you inspiration as well. Here's some of my ideas:

1. Numbers: This is the easy one. Use numbers as a design element on your page, use a number to inspire your subject, or use it to organize your journaling.
2. Equations: Think about describing a photo is terms of an equation. What plus what equals what?
3. Math tools: Use a ruler, a protractor, or a compass to design the page.
4. Shapes: Think geometry and take design inspiration from a shape. I also remember long ago a Creating Keepsakes article that showed ways of using the Fibonacci sequence as a design tool. Here's a link that shows ways it's been used as a part of design outside of scrapbooking, and here's a link that explains how to use the golden spiral in design.

Here's some pages that use math as an inspiration.

Numbers are an easy way to take inspiration from math. Here I cut numbers from patterned paper and used them as the title on the page.

Here I used number patterned paper, stitching over one to highlight a birthday.

Birthdays aren't the only number inspiration. Here I highlighted the number of miles I ran last summer. Christine Newman also used numbers both for design and inspiration:

The way this mimics three-dimensional shape is also pretty cool.

 

In my gallery this month I used a compass to trace the interior circle. And before you think the ruler is something just for ordinary scrapping purposes, check out what Christine Newman did:

The sunburst she made by tracing it with a ruler. Just amazing.

I like using a formula as the journaling. It's simple and fun. In this case, I had a ton of photos to use, so the equation was quite big. Hopefully I got the order of operations right. I don't think I needed the parentheses, for example, but I had them and wanted to use them up, so I did.

I love circles in general (you'll see them on a lot of my pages this week), and on this page I did a lot with circles in patterned paper, embellishments, stamping, and misting. There are lots of geometric shapes to try, but if you want to be trendy, try triangles too. Those three-sided beauties are the next hot trend.

I hand cut a curve--not a parabola, but still mathematical--to highlight this page about how we taught my son fractions: through cut apples, of course.

I hope this gives you some ideas for incorporating math into your pages beyond measurement. If it did, please share your inspiration with everyone in the comments!

Back to Scrapbooking School: English/Language Arts

Hello! It's Jenny Larson, here to share some school related inspiration on Labor Day! Labor Day in the United States is traditionally the last day of summer before students head back to school. Times have changed, and some students have been back in school for weeks now, but I took inspiration from school and thought I'd share some of those ideas for scrapbooking.

In particular, I took inspiration from traditional school subjects. Here's what the week will look like:

• Monday (that's today!): English/Language Arts 
• Tuesday: Math
• Wednesday: Science
• Thursday: Social Studies
• Friday: Electives

That's the plan for the week! This will be going to school again, just for scrapbooking, something I would love to do! Let's start with the subject dearest to my heart.

1. English/Language Arts*

I am an English teacher by day, so naturally this was the first subject that started giving me inspiration. I think the study of language arts (language and literature) is a natural pairing for what we do as scrapbookers--heck, we record stories! Aside from that comfortable inspiration, here are some other elements of language arts that can inspire you:

1. Letters: Use big letters on your page, journal in an acrostic, use letter stickers/rub-ons/stamps as a background
2. Handwriting: Include someone's handwriting on a page, either for journaling or as a design element
3. Definitions: Define the roles in your life (spouse, scrapbooker, reader, parent, etc.) or the life of a person close to you. What does it mean to be that person?
4. Grammar: Which part of speech are you? Diagram a sentence that conveys your life. List words that characterize and describe you for each part of speech.
5. Books: Tell a story in your life. list books that you love or scrap about a favorite book, take inspiration (color/quotation/story) from a favorite book, describe your reading life
6. Speech/Words: Scrap your favorite quotations, journaling only using words and not sentences, take inspiration from conversation

Here's some projects that take inspiration from the subject of English/Language Arts:

This first project uses leftover letters from a sheet of rub-ons as the background--and the subject is the quotations I surround myself with in my creative space.

A note from my son in his own writing is always terrific, especially when he is young and trying his best to express his feelings. I'm glad I'm a good day. This next page incorporates his signed name in the title:

I love me a good play on words too, like I did with his self-appointed nic-name.

Interestingly, I have two projects that use parts of speech as inspiration. This first page says it all: my son is a verb. Most children are, I suppose.

 

I made this mini album as a creative challenge: for each part of speech, I came up with words and phrases to describe and define myself. I am actually going to use this idea in my classroom this year to review parts of speech. Here's the inner pages:

(Please ignore that one of my conjunctions is actually a preposition. It should read, "Because I am married to Derick." Epic English teacher fail.)

Next project:

I love books, so I am so pleased at how much my boys love books too. I collected reading pictures from a period of time and put them together on a page. Christine Newman also shared a favorite childhood book:

I love so much about this page: the creative layout design that takes inspiration from the book, the contemporary photo that ties in to the childhood read, the bright, cheerful colors. And I also love that my son falls asleep reading Shel Silverstein at night! Here's another book layout Christine did:

I love the idea of this. It inspired me to scrap a page about the books I read this summer, which, as a teacher, is my main new-book reading season.

One last page from me:

This one made me laugh. That one time I used the word "whom" and my son told me that it wasn't a word. This English teacher had to record it.

Thank you for returning to school with me on this last day of summer in the Northern hemisphere! Please return tomorrow for some inspiration from math. If today gave you ideas, please share them and inspire others!

*I know that for many of our readers, English is not their native language, so think of today's topic as being "Language Arts" instead, the study and refinement of one's home language.

School Year End Part II

As promised, we are back with another day of school memory keeping. Do you ever feel like you have everything here and there but not all together? And even though all the memories are all preserved, sometimes it is most fun to have them together. 

Last year, I made this little album for my middle little.

And while I know the easy thing to do would be to reuse the same one, that seemed far too easy!! So I made a new set. (This year, I made them journaling cards that are the size of Project Life pockets, in case that helps you want to use them, too!) I am excited to have my kids fill them out and then I will bind them together, with rings and ribbon, of course!!

If you would like to download them, please do so here and here! I hope you like them and that they make it fun for you to record your child's school year!

Thank you for stopping by! As always, I adore you and can't thank you enough for your loyal visits! Amy will be here tomorrow with some journaling tips. Join me in a visit? :)

School Year End

Before we get too far down the summer path, I thought we could spend the next two days finishing up some school layouts! I find that if I get too far into June, then I don't do them until September when I am back in the mood for school. (Summer sinks in easily for me!)

 

I fell in love with first and last day layouts when Jody Wenke worked her magic years ago! Paula, Kathy, and Christa made their own terrific versions here. I am happy to be a lemming when the idea is good! Here is the one I made for my baby this year!

I hope you have fun putting your first and last layouts together! Please join me tomorrow for one last tip for finishing off our school year layouts!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Welcome for our final day of teacher appreciation. I hope that you are having fun remembering your own school days and that you are having fun making pages for your childhood or that of your children.

 

LAYOUT IDEA: TEACHERS IN COSTUME

For today's layout idea, we are going to take a minute to remember, applaud, and memorialize those teachers in our lives that go by other names: coaches, instructors, mentors. My kids all do sports and they have terrific relationships with their coaches. My little Lavender spends 15 hours a week in kindergarten, and 9 at gymnastics. It would be foolish of me to not understand the impact that her gymnastics coaches have upon her.

Having a boy in middle school, I have been reminded of the importance of having good coaches. Men (and women) who encourage our children to be their better selves. Adults who can mentor and cheerlead. Who demand improvement. And work to earn respect and who encourage your children to gain their respect. I appreciate the back up for early bedtimes, good sportsmanship, and healthy lifestyles. Then, you get to go to a game and watch your son determinedly earn the respect of a coach; it's a proud parent moment indeed.

(This layout was totally inspired by Lisa's layout design from her Digging Deep week. Thank you, Lisa!)

 

Other relationships you might want to remember are sunday school teachers, primary teachers, day care teachers, after school class instructors, student teachers, regular substitute teachers, and youth group leaders. I feel a whole new set of layouts coming on!!

 

TEACHER APPRECIATION GIFT IDEA: BOOKPLATES

We are blessed with an amazing school system. Our teachers have filled their rooms with books they own. I thought that perhaps a few bookplates would be helpful for them. They could stick them in the classroom books so that they don't get lost in kids' book boxes.

Here is the book plate I designed.

I am going to print them on this sticky back paper. I can get 9 to a sheet so I think I will do 3 of them.

Once I trim them, I can stack them up, and tie them with a ribbon. Poppy is going to pick out a book for her teacher to finish off the perfect gift for Mrs. Johson. I will put it in a brown paper bag and tie it with my favorite red and white twine! Perfect!!

 

Thank you for spending some time with us this week! I hope we have given you some useful ideas for celebrating the teachers in your lives. As a parting gift, let me leave you with two other gifts you might print.

First, if you need a little something to frame, I found this lovely lovely print.

It was made by Megan from the Balancing Home blog. They have it as a free download. So gracious of them. Be sure to leave a bit of thanks--I'm sure they appreciate thanks for freebies as much as we do!

 

Lastly, this one made me laugh out loud. In ways I can't even tell you!! It comes from SkipToMyLou.

Seriously, so very funny!!

 

Happy Friday!

Teacher Appreciation Week-Photo Tips

Hey there, I am happy to be posting about some photo tips for capturing your child's relationship with his or her teacher. I was a teacher before I had my sweet children, so I have plenty of experience both as the teacher and the parent.

First, and foremost, make sure that you ask or let your child's teacher know that you are going to be taking some pictures. They expect that you are going to want to capture some of your child's school experience, but it's always nice just to make sure.

• If you are looking to get some candid, action shots, do your best to do so during a classroom party or another time that the teacher is expecting parents. Try turning off your flash so it's not going off and disturbing the activities.
• If you want some posed shots, try emailing the teacher and asking when would be a good time to do so. Parents always want first day of school photos, but that is usually a super busy and stressful time for not only the children, but also the teacher. It might not be the best time to ask the teacher to stop what she's doing to take a picture. Nobody will know that you waited until the 2nd week of school to take your child's first day photo. :)
• Classrooms usually have wonderful, natural light, so make sure you take advantage of that light when positioning yourself to get that great picture.

Here is a photo from Francine, which is too cute! Francine said, "My tip is just to be brave enough to ask! I really wasn't sure if she would agree (I was the only parent with a camera! lol) but she was fine with it. I'm really happy that I got these since he changed schools just two months later when we moved. So when in doubt, ask!"

Layout Idea: Capture the Action

These pictures of me reading to my students were taken by my assistant, and I love that I have a layout showing me at work.

Teacher Appreciation Gift Idea: Water Bottles

A couple of years ago, I made this gift for my child's teachers. They loved them, and they were so easy to make. I just purchased a cool water bottle, filled it with their favorite candy and added a tag.

 

I can't wait to see how you capture your child's relationship with his or her teacher, and make sure to let them know that they are truly appreciated.

Home Decor featuring The Twinery

All this week, our write.click.scrapbook. members will be showcasing projects, layouts, cards and altered items featuring baker's twine from The Twinery. I've had a sneak at what will be featured and you're going to love it all! 

 Hi, I'm Monika and today Kelly and I will be your hosts. You'll be seeing some amazing projects all this week from other write. click. scrapbook. team members all using baker's twine...a trend that has quickly become a go-to item for crafters, scrapbookers and card makers.

 

HOME DECOR

With the 22 colors of baker's twine available from The Twinery, it's not difficult to find a shade that coordinates perfectly with your home decor. Here, Kelly Jeppson has embellished a soup can with pencils, burlap, a book page flower and Mandarin baker's twine to add an extra splash of color. She also used a bit of Stone on the button.

 

As The Twinery adds new colors to their inventory, I add a new styrofoam covered twine ball to my vase. Looks like I need to add a few more balls and get a larger vase! Sometimes I display it in my studio and other times I move it into the family room for a pop of color. Either way, it makes me smile.

Here's the super-sized version, where I used Carribean and Marigold. It helped that I began with a styrofoam ball form, but be prepared to put a dent into your baker's twine collection with this project.

 

This is one of my newest projects and I kinda sorta have a crush on it. I wrapped bendable wire with Strawberry twine and added it to a painted canvas to inspire me in my studio. You can see my tutorial here.

LAYOUTS

Kelly also embellished this layout highlighting the fun birthday Luau for her daughter with a rainbow of baker's twine from The Twinery. I spy Pink Sorbet, Lilac, Honeydew, Mandarin and Denim. The pom pom's are just adorable and add such a festive flair.

For this layout about our youngest daughter's first days of Kindergarten last year, I used Cappuccino baker's twine to serve as lines for my journaling and to embellish the die cut.

AND ONE MORE

I adore how Kelly used the burlap scraps from her vase project and designed a rosette flower hair clip for her darling daughter.

Looking forward to a fun week and a super awesome give.away.day. on Thursday!

 

write. click. scrapbook. is pleased to have had the opportunity to team up with The Twinery in creating our projects this week. Connect with The Twinery on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Flickr. 

The Twinery's twine is made from 100% cotton, it's eco-friendly and made in the USA. Whether you're gift wrapping, crafting or tying up baked goods to give to a friend, their baker's twine adds a fresh, yet nostalgic look to any project at hand! Baker's twine from The Twinery comes in 22 delicious colors and is uniquely twisted against a bright white hue, creating an eye-popping burst of color and a creative embellishment! And all that color lends to a fun, candy-striped look.

PREPPING FOR A GOOD YEAR day three: school

Welcome back to our week of planning! Thank you for all your kind comments yesterday! I hope that yesterday sparked some ideas for you and helped you think of new ways to tackle repeating events, sporting or otherwise!!

Today we are moving on to another set of pages that could be preplanned: school events. My children's school puts out a yearly calendar that includes all the classroom, PTA, and extracurricular events added by date for the entire school year. As I was dragging and dropping said events into our personal calendar, I made a list of things that would be going on for my kids. Here is that list:

1. day one
2. meet the teacher
3. book fair
4. fall party
5. winter party
6. valentines party
7. spring concert
8. teacher appreciation
9. field day
10. last day

I know that I will bring my camera to these events, and that I will want to document their details. So I am going to build ten layouts that can sit and wait for their photos.

But how will I know what the photos will look like? Well, chances are most of my photos will be horizontal. And having been through a couple (or more!) school years, I have a pretty good idea of what the pictures will be. As for color choices, each of my kids has their favorites, which means their clothes are pretty predictable as well. Further, the parties will match the seasons. I think this gives me enough to get started, and I can make some some small changes or additions later if necessary. Of course, if I know the colors on the layout, I can always dress them accordingly, right? heehee!! (so not above that one. so not above.)

Now, I hear a few of you wondering why not wait for the event to happen and then scrapbook it with pictures in hand? Well, remember yesterday when I noted that event layouts are neither my forte nor my favorite? Well, I'm quite sure that without these ready to go pages, the photos will sit in well organized folders waiting for their day. And despite my good intentions, history has proven that fear of event layouts trumps intention. Nearly without exception.

Until now! Because I have taken this understanding of my weakness and embraced it and figured out a way around it! Hooray for me! Hooray for nearly done pages!!

Here we are! Ten layouts ready for their closeups, Mr. DeMille.

1. day one


2. meet the teacher


3. book fair - For this layout, I looked to Lisa's layout for basic design and structure


4. fall party - I created this one based upon an August Becky Fleck Pagemap


5. winter party


6. valentine's party - this one is from a layout of Deb from the same post as Lisa's layout I used in #3 (I love the weekend posts... You, too?)


7. spring concert


8. teacher appreciation - I recycled an old layout for this one! sneaky...





9. field day - This layout is based upon Valerie's page in our Summer Lovin' gallery





10. last day
    
    

How about your school year? Have you checked your calendar to see what pages you could make ahead? Feel free to copy mine if you would like. I'd be honored that you might want to! I would love you to be this excited for a school's year beginning!! And if you have no school kids, yet or no longer, perhaps just having 10 new layouts is reason for happiness??

I hope you will come back tomorrow for another day of planning and prep! Don't you love the feeling of success on the horizon??!!

A demain! (until tomorrow)