Scrapbook Layout: the Football Pages

Yes, I have been busy scrapbooking. Very busy, in fact. If you follow Cal football, you know the current season just came to a disappointing close. Let’s reminisce about a happier one, shall we?

Distilling an Entire Season

It was a real challenge to take on the mountain of stuff I had saved from my senior football season. Football was a big part of my college experience. It took a lot of thinking to figure out how to handle all the pieces and the 2-inch thick stack of pictures without the pages overwhelming the rest of the album.

Making it Cohesive

I unified each page of the season by creating a photo bar that repeated across the bottom of each page. Not only did it make the pages consistent, it was a great way to use up a lot of photos without making them the center of attention. I used the top half of the page to showcase important bits and pieces I saved.

The first two pages are general season pages that aren’t tied to any particular event. It is important to include the schedule and win-loss record to help me remember when I look back.

The remaining four pages are “themed.” They cover particular events, such as when I traveled with the football team, or important games, such as a triple overtime win over USC. The photo bar at bottom reflects pictures from that event.

Of course, pictures are not strictly relegated to the bottom of the page. I like to set a lot of rules then break them. Sometimes I took some of my favorite pictures and added them to the top.

More to Come

There is much more detail about these pages that I will share with you. Enjoy the finished pages for now and I’ll show some close-ups and instructions next week.

Tips & Ideas

• If you are overwhelmed with the material for a particular event, think of a unifying theme or layout.
• It’s not against the rules to have an “event” that takes more than two pages!
• Create small collages within the page to showcase more photos without being overwhelming.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving, wherever you may be spending it.  We will return to our regularly scheduled programming on Tuesday.

Cherry Blossom Box

This is my first adventure decoupaging. Let’s call it an experiment. I’ve come up with many grandiose ideas about what I could decoupage in my home, but I decided to start small. I frequently overestimate my crafting prowess, so this was a good choice.

Paper Bow Tutorial

I’ve seen several sets of instructions on making bows and was very eager to try this myself. I could never get the instructions to work quite right, so here is my own design with tutorial. My darling little niece turned 6 years old last week, so I jumped at the chance to make something for her.

Scrapbook Layout: School Days

The challenge with this page was a tall order: how can I make class interesting? I had a handful of exams and handouts in my shoe box. Since I suppose college is as much about taking classes as it is about having fun, I would be remiss if I didn’t include it.

But what to do? I thought a collage would be a cop-out. I perused scrapbook layouts online and happened upon this layout by Beth Proudfoot on Write. Click. Scrapbook. (original post here). It was the square headline that caught my eye. What if I expanded on the idea and created a series of squares in addition to square headlines? One really time consuming page out of simple items, coming right up!

I cut plain squares in various sizes to see how they would fit on the page. I finally settled on 2 1/4-inch squares.

Then, I set out to cut squares out of my school papers, making sure to get snippets of words to make me look really smart.

I backed each square in alternating colors of orange, navy blue and charcoal grey.

It took a fair amount of fiddling on Microsoft Word to get the font size and spacing correct for the headlines.

I cut out the headlines and backed them in one of my chosen colors.

Then oh-so-carefully, I used my grid rulers to mark the spacing between the boxes and glued everything down.

Well, almost everything. I assume you noticed the picture and the baseball ticket. What do those have to do with going to class? I wondered the same thing myself. My original intention with this page was to do 3/4 of the page about class, then take the last quarter of the page and show the picture and ticket from a Giants’ playoff game. The picture and the ticket weren’t enough to do an entire page out of. I was pretty stumped on how to make them mesh. Then I remembered: I skipped class to go to that playoff game. Presto!

I included the picture as one of the squares, then measured the width of two squares to make room for the ticket. I only have occasional moments of brilliance and I’m very pleased with myself here.

Tips & Ideas

• Inspiration for the headlines came from this layout on Write. Click. Scrapbook.
• To make similar square headlines, use a text box tool in a word processing program. Then play with font size and spacing for each line.
• Use an interesting layout idea to take otherwise boring items and make them look awesome.

Fall Leaf Wreath

This is my first experiment making a wreath. I used the instructions provided at The Red Thread. This is a great “starter” wreath because you don’t have to buy a wreath form and there are no special tools required. There are step-by-step instructions at The Red Thread and I’ve included the steps for my wreath below.

Scrapbook Layout: the Hands of Time

As we’ve covered already, I collect newspapers showing important events. I also take a lot of pictures (even back in the day of 35mm film that I had to pay to get developed). Right before my senior year in college, the Campanile, which is the bell tower on the Berkeley campus, underwent renovation. I couldn’t resist taking a couple shots of the steeplejack unhooking the giant hands from the tower. I’m really glad I saved these pictures because I ended up getting married there a few years later. But that’s another story.

I wanted to keep this page really simple and let the pictures and newspaper clippings speak for themselves. It would have been difficult to embellish and keep the articles readable. I threw everything on the page and moved things around like a puzzle.

I added very simple backings to the news clippings to give them some definition. I also picked up a couple of campus scenery pictures showing the Campanile that I had lying around. I was glad to finally have a page to use them on. I chose a close-up picture of the Campanile with no hands and added it to the top of the page.

Finally, I measured the leftover space on the page and printed a headline to snugly fit.

This was coincidentally the same summer I took a bunch of pictures of the turf installation at Memorial Stadium. I suppose I had quite a bit of extra time on my hands back then. This page has quite a few items on it, but still manages to be understated.

Tips & Ideas

• Sometimes it’s better to let your photos and other items speak for themselves.
• Do little things to enhance news articles, but don’t over-embellish them so they can still be read.

A Wedding Card for My Friends

You must be asking yourself, is there anything else I can do with my wedding pictures? People like looking at my wedding pictures, right? We’re on the same page then.

I came up with this idea when a dear friend of mine got married last year. I wanted something more special than a store-bought card. I’m a sap. The card turned out great but I didn’t take any pictures of it. I recently attended another wedding and decided to make it a thing every time a friend got married because I like to make more work for myself.

Giants Win the World Series

Where was I yesterday morning? That’s right, I was out buying a newspaper because the San Francisco Giants won the World Series! Last week I told you about saving newspapers for posterity and how I always go out the next morning after a big event in history and get a newspaper. This plan almost ended in disaster yesterday.

After the Giants won the World Series on Monday night, we headed into San Francisco and down to the ballpark to join the celebration.

Then we came home and had some orange champagne to celebrate and watched post game coverage into the wee hours.

Needless to say yesterday morning, I was fairly groggy and had forgotten all about getting a newspaper. It was only after watching the morning news and seeing players autograph copies of the paper that it hit me: I forgot to buy a newspaper! I was able to score one of the last copies of the San Francisco Chronicle after visiting two different stores.

I thinned out the newspaper to include only the pages about the World Series win and tucked it neatly away in my closet.

Saving Confetti

Today, I was lucky enough to attend the victory parade. I think one of my favorite parts was the police horses in their little Giants hats. But what does this have to do with my scrapbook (other than the 100 or so pictures I took)?

Barrels of confetti were thrown onto the parade and I immediately knew I would be taking some home. The husband, knowing me as well as he does, didn’t even hesitate: “you’re taking some confetti home for your scrapbook, aren’t you?” After the parade was over, he helped me gather up a few pieces (I suspect because he knew we weren’t leaving until I got some). It may seem overkill, but I only scooped up a tiny bit which now lives in a ziploc bag inside my scrapbook box with the newspaper. Really, how often do you attend big confetti-throwing events?

Tips & Ideas

• You never know what might make an interesting addition to your scrapbook (like confetti).
• Check back to my earlier post on saving newspapers for information on how to neatly keep them without letting them take over your storage space.
• Next time you are out celebrating, leave yourself a note to get a newspaper the next morning.

Scrapbook Layout: Welcome Week

I love how this page turned out because it has a little bit of everything:  a flyer, a handout, 4×6 prints, digital pictures and an overly-intricate headline.  Blending different forms of media is fun and I prefer it to only pictures or only scraps.  It makes the scrapbook look like a scrapbook instead of a photo album.