School Album

Today, I wanted to share the boys' school albums. They're in 3rd grade this year, and I'm proud to say that last month, I was able to finish up their 2nd grade pages - bringing their school albums up-to-date.

I love these albums. Each boy has a set of Becky Higgin's school album kits. I bought these several years ago (2009?) and then set up all the albums from preschool through 12th grade. Each grade has a set of papers and elements plus an envelope page.

To get organized each year, I keep a file box with a folder for each boy where I drop school papers as they come home. I try to just keep the best stuff - because it does take a ton of time to purge and sort all those school papers at the end of the year if you keep everything.

Once the end of the school year is here, I just print my photos and then start on the pages. Each grade has the same format.

The 8x10 school photo opens each set of pages...

...with the class photo and "about me" pages in between...

...then a photo collage and the envelope page.


Each grade has a different color but the same set of unifying elements.

I so love these albums - seeing the boys change through each year of school is very special. I'm happy to be creating these now as they go through school. Once graduation rolls around, I'll have their albums all ready to go.

Silhouette Cameo Print and Cut

I have finally, FINALLY mastered the ability to create print and cut files with my Silhouette Cameo. This is something I've tried to do forever, and I just couldn't figure out how to get the Trace feature to work properly. Finally, after following this wonderful video from Julie Campbell, I got it to work.

It's like magic - start out with something like this, straight from the printer...

Send it through the Silhouette - pull up the outer sheet...

And end up with a pile of these...

So love these! Studio Calico has a ton of great printables each month that coordinate with each month's kits.

I've been creating print and cut files from my PNGs and PDFs like crazy. If you've had trouble getting this feature to work, you need to watch Julie's video. Thank you, Julie!

Project Life Journaling Cards

I'm having a lot of fun with my Project Life album this year. It's been much more of a creative project than in years past.

I played around my stamp sets from Studio Calico and Technique Tuesday to create a bunch of pre-stamped cards, ready for journaling.

I used a combination of mist colors on this set of cards...

And another set of colors on these along with a Crafter's Workshop template...

Can't wait to use these in my Project Life album.