By now, most of you know that our oldest is graduating from high school in just a few weeks. It is such an exciting time at our house…watching her play her final season of softball, choosing her senior prom dress, attending awards ceremonies, planning her graduation party, and getting her ready to head off to college in the fall!
Of course, all these memories are being captured on film. I am an avid photographer…my camera is always with me! All those photos are being compiled into a senior scrapbook for her, starting with the first day of kindergarten.
I’m sharing my process of scrapbooking ALL those memories today. First, I must admit that I save EVERYTHING…report cards, projects, drawings, certificates…you name it, I save it! It’s a lot of paper, so I use these storage containers from The Container Store to keep it all organized. Each container has one school year of memorabilia in it. Since it’s all organized by year, I can easily pull out what I want to put in the scrapbook.
As far as storing the photographs, I use photo boxes to keep our family pictures in once I have them printed. I label and date the outside of the boxes.
As with most projects, the prep work is the most time consuming part. Once everything is organized, it is much easier to complete the task…the SCRAPBOOK.
The first half of her scrapbook was started years ago…long before digital photography. I was (and still am) a big fan of Creative Memories products then, so I purchased a CM scrapbook in green (school colors). I finished grades K – 6th just before her sixth grade graduation, which is a fun milestone in our school district. When it was complete, there were enough pages to fill two scrapbooks.
Some gold embossing personalized the albums.
The pages of the scrapbooks tell the story of her school life…first days of school, field day activities, class parties, valentine cards that she created for her classmates, patriot lunch day, school pictures and class composites, self portraits, vocabulary parade day, choir concerts, author’s academy, field trips, safety patrol duties, and sixth grade graduation festivities, among other things.
At the end of each grade, I created a pocket page to place all the extra papers for that year…report cards, certificates, programs, etc.
The end of the elementary years had a page of sweet sentiments from her elementary teachers. I provided card stock to each of them, and asked them to write a message to her. What wonderful memories for her!
So now it’s on to the junior and senior high years…I must confess that I hadn’t touched her scrapbook since sixth grade. I have been working on it since just after the holidays, and it’s starting to come together.
I decided to use black CM scrapbooks for the the junior and senior high pages.
The pages are filled with memories of all her school and extra-curricular activities…softball, volleyball, varsity letters, artwork, a class trip to France, the musical, awards ceremonies, Model UN, and school dances.
I’m currently working on the page for her junior prom pictures…
Her senior scrapbook has truly been a labor of love…I count even begin to count the hours I’ve spent creating this for her. I know she will love it and treasure it, so it makes every minute spent on it worthwhile.
**You may have noticed it’s been a tad quiet here…I’m busy working on this scrapbook! I’ll be off the blog for a few weeks while I enjoy these final weeks of my daughter’s senior year. I’ll be sharing snippets of the graduation party planning on Instagram (I’m polkadotsandpicketfences)…hop over there to see some sneak peeks. And I promise I’ll have some fun graduation blog posts to share when I return!
Beth, this is amazing!!! so nice for Audrey. You’ve got mad organizational skills!!!!!
Thank you! I think she’ll love having all those memories documented someday…she wasn’t a fan of her junior high pictures (the awkward phase, as we call it).
Oh Beth, you shame me. You’re scrapbooking is beautiful!! I like the pocket page idea, I am going to try it …
Those pocket pages are a great way to keep all those year end papers organized!
I swear we could have been twins in a previous life. We have the same scrapbook style and even a lot of the same supplies lol. You did an awesome job on the books and I’m sure they will be treasured. I am not nearly as far along in mine but I do have everything just as organized thank God. My daughter will graduate college next year and I hope to give her her albums as a gift of all that she has achieved. My son will also graduate high school in 3 weeks (EEK!) so I know all the hoopla you are in right now. I’m glad you are taking the time to enjoy every minute of it!
Aww, we really do need to “meet” sometime! While I’m almost finished with this scrapbook, I haven’t even begun to think about doing one for my middle daughter and she’s finishing her freshman year…YIKES! Enjoy your son’s graduation, and best wishes to him!
So, I’ve been scrapbooking Patrick for years — he is 10 in scrapbook years. I had to stop and jump to high school…and he doesn’t graduate until next year. I love Creative Memories books the best, and most of their other products.