My kids got out of school last week and the insanity of having three at home all the time is creeping into my head. I’m learning that there isn’t much I can do to alleviate the chaos of that many little people. I have discovered something I can do with the chaos of all the projects they bring home on the last day of school!

Do you wind up with piles of schoolwork and projects that you want to save? What do you do with them?

One year I tried putting everything into each of the kids’ albums. I was completely unhappy with the results. There is too much and it takes over the album.

Next, I bought each of my kids an accordion file and stuffed everything into those. Aside from the fact that they filled up quickly, viewing their work was a chore, not a pleasure. It was a horrible idea. I want their projects viewable.

Finally, I’ve found the solution that works for me: alter a file-folder and turn it into a viewable book of schoolwork!

My daughter loves her book. And my nine-year-old son keeps asking me where his is. Time to start on Blake’s pile.

To create the cover, I use the same method I gave for the Father’s Day minibook. Because file folders are not as strong as chipboard, you may also want to layer Modge Podge over your altered front (before you add ribbon) to seal it and make it sturdy.

Create sections for your child’s schoolwork. The section topics will vary with your child’s age and school. Trinity’s book has the following sections:

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic: This is for her basic schoolwork. I compared her name-writing from the first day to the last and showed some math. Don’t be afraid to crop schoolwork down the way we crop photos. If you can crop excess off a picture, you can do it off of schoolwork! Crop down to the most important parts you want to highlight and adhere them to cardstock.

To keep the book from over-filling, and to create interest, I made the book interactive by stapling smaller pieces of work over larger ones and adding lift-tabs to the top pieces. There is a lot of lifting and pulling to see what is underneath or inside.

I also made a pocket for her report card at the end of this section.

Artwork: Some of Trinity’s artwork had funny stories behind them so those were the ones I highlighted. For example, after spending a few days reading, learning, and creating projects about pirates, Trinity asked me if pirates were now extinct.

For artwork with stories, I cut them out, adhered them to cardstock, and added my journaling.

I created a pocket for the rest of the artwork to fit into.

Writing/books: My kids’ school has what they call, Writer’s Workshop, everyday where they spend a lot of time writing their own stories and poems. They create books out of their stories and every year they come home with a pile of completed books that they’ve “published.” In the first two years, the books are just folded and stapled papers; small books.

I punched holes into them and added them straight to the file folder in their own section.

Be creative with your section dividers. I used some extra pieces of decorative transparencies that I had leftover from previous projects. They were about 6 or 7 inches wide and I cut the length down from 12 inches to 11 to fit into the altered file folder. I stapled tags or ribbon to the outside edge to use as pull-tabs. I titled each section by adding sticker letters to the fronts of the transperancies.

If you look carefully at the second and third photos, you can see the transparency dividers.

By adding all kinds of pull tabs and ribbons extending past the front cover, you create a lot of mystery and visual interest; it makes a person want to open the book to see what’s inside.

Wouldn’t you have loved this as a child? Knowing that Mom wanted to create something beautiful to contain all your creations would build confidence.

Creating a book like this shows how much you value all that they did the previous year. It’s the perfect summer-time project.

The who, what, when, and where of the photos on this layout fit perfectly underneath the two bottom pictures.

Who: Aiden, Trinity, Nicole, Blake, horse
What: Feeding and petting horses
When: February 2007, after school
Where: Nichole’s house

The “why” didn’t fit. That’s okay, because it would have been…dumb:

Why: Because Nichole’s mom invited us to look at their animals for a while when dropping Trinity off to play.

Okay, there really is more to the “why” than that, which is what todays’ posting is about. Why did we spend so much time at Nichole’s house? Why did I bother bringing my camera? To me this was an important event. Why? Because my kids are growing up in suburban America and unless I go out of my way to show them where milk and eggs come from, they’ll never know.

The journaling on this layout goes beyond the five w’s. It tells a story about my children and their lifestyle. It also tells a story about me, as their mom:

You may be City Kids
who go to museums instead of campouts…
who prefer Chess Club over basketball…
who use laptops, who write books, who like sushi and Gruyere Cheese…

But this is proof that you get to see and touch the country life as ofen as I can possibly give you the chance.

What do your events and activities say about you and your family? Think about it. Write it down. Tell your story.

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Products: Cardstock (Bazzill); Patterned paper (Creative Imaginations); Stickers: 7 Gypsies, Creative Imaginations; Letter stickers (Creative Memories); Rub-on’s (Art Warehouse for Creative Imaginations); Ink (Stampin’ Up); Brads (Making Memories); Fibers (Bazzill); Pen (American Crafts).

We drove an entire hour to the other side of Phoenix to stay in a hotel and visit Grandma Gertrude for three days! These are my husband’s favorite types of vacation…close and easy. The best part, of course, is hanging out with the Grandma. For me, she is no different from any of my girlfriends; still young and alive.

Here are a few highlights:

Trinity admiring Grandma’s collections. She spent so much time looking into this cabinet.

Aiden showing me where Arizona is.

Blake and Israel watching a DVD on the lap top. I love pictures with family interacting.

Trinity playing Chess with Blake. Blake won.

Dancing. We love lots and lots of singing and dancing.

Israel following Grandma’s lead.

Pretty unified, no?

Swimming in the pool.

Playing with my camera.

I’ll be back with more Paperclipping postings really soon! I promise!

Father’s Day is coming soon. Have you figured out what you’re getting your husband? Your father? Your father-in-law? Here is a simple template for a mini-book that also works as a photo display; perfect for an office shelf or desktop.

Begin with an accordion mini-book. I used one from 7 Gypsies.

Choose four pieces of patterned paper that work together. I chose four very different colors for contrast.

Create Your Cover:

Choose one piece of the patterned paper, cut it just larger than the size of your cover, and adhere.

There are numerous ways to adhere paper to a mini-book cover. I’ll share my current method with you.

I trust Creative Memories’ photo tape because I have not found any other adhesive quite as strong. After running the tape around the four edges, I go over the edges, corners, and some of the middle with a glue stick. This is because the I don’t line the photo tape up perfectly with the edges of the paper. I want those edges and corners to stick as long as possible.

Trim away the excess paper with a craft knife.

Sand the edges of the paper to make it feel a part of the book.

Cut a strip of a second pattern to about half an inch wide, and just longer than the height of the cover. Adhere toward the left side of the book, about three-quarters of an inch from the edge (just “eye-ball” all these measurements).

Trim excess and sand the edge.

Adhere your title so that it extends toward the lower right corner of the cover and add an embellishment to the upper left cover for balance.

As an aside, that dragonfly was part of the patterned paper, which I arranged to go exactly where you see it. This creates a visual triangle between it, the title, and the embellishment with ribbon. You may want to add an embellishment, such as a rub-on, in that same spot if your paper doesn’t have something already.

Inside pages (the front side of the accordion):

Because I have three children, and there are six pages on the accordion, each of my children got two pages (in other words, a two-page spread) on the front side. My instructions are based on that format. You’ll need to adjust your book if you have fewer or more children than I.

For each of the three children (or for every two-page spread, as shown in the photo above), choose three from the four patterned papers you picked for this project.

Cover one page (the page with the photo) entirely with a piece just larger than the actual page in the mini-book. Adhere and trim away the excess with a craft knife.

For the page opposite the photo, cut the second pattern to be is a little larger than the height of the page, and almost one-half of the width (see the blue paper on the photo above or below). Adhere it to the edge of the page.

Take your third patterned paper, cut it to fit just larger than your page. Tear about one third off of the width and adhere over the rest of the page.

Trim away the excess. Lightly sand the edges.

Embellish and repeat for the other two pages.

Add a 4×6 photo to the pages that have only one piece of patterned paper.

The Back:
Attach four 4×6 photos to each page of the backside of the accordion. Remember to leave the two end pieces blank because you will adhere them to the chipboard cover and backing.

If your photos for the back are busy like mine, leave the pages as they are, or adhere one type of simple paper. With busier photos you want a simple, unified background. If your photos are not busy, you can continue with the four patterns you used on the other side.

Adhere the accordion pages to the chipboard cover and the backing. You may cover the inside parts of the chipboard cover and backing as well. I liked the naked board with my paper choices, so I left mine as is.

If your husband is like mine, he doesn’t keep photos in his wallet. At best, he has some on his phone. Let him show off his gorgeous family to his co-workers with an accordion mini-book instead!

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Products I used: Mini-book (7 Gypsies); Patterned paper: My Mind’s Eye, Crate Paper, Cross My Heart); Chipboard letters (Amy Butler for K&Company); Letter stickers (Making Memories, Crate Paper, Creative Memories, K&Company); Stickers (7 Gypsies); Photo corners (Heidi Swapp for Advantus, 3L); Ribbon, from own stash.

The starting point for this layout is what I call the Mirror Concept. And in this case, I flipped the reflection.

Do you see the mirror image? It is the darker patterned paper to the right of the photo. It’s not a literal mirror image. It is a reflection of both size (although, not exact, because I tore the edge) and of overall color.

How is the mirror image “flipped?” Do you see that red area in the upper right corner of the patterned paper? That red mirrors the red boots in the photo. By arranging the red part of the paper to be at the top, I flipped the reflection. Setting two similar elements at a diagonal from each other (in this case, the color, red) is one of the many ways to balance elements on a layout.

Be aware, the mirrored image does not necessarily have to contain the same colors as the photo. It could be a journaling block, or something else completely. It’s the size that makes the mirror. Color reflection is just an added element.

The final touch in the mirror concept is to bridge the two images. In this case, I created the “GO” embellishment to connect the photo with the patterned paper, and added the word-strip stickers.

As a side note, I designed this layout for a new challenge blog, called, One Little Word. The team who created this blog based it on Ali Edwards’ One Little Word challenge for the new year. The new blog’s first challenge was to begin a layout from the word, “Go.”

Those red boots, so inappropriate for the activity my daughter is playing, along with the command version of “go,” inspired the hopes I expressed to my daughter in the journaling:

You go girl…with your red hot boots-flinging mud as you go-transforming deflated basketballs into soccer balls-7 yrs. and shining.

Keep going…Exhaust your resources-Leave your mark-Make Your statement-LIVE YOUR LIFE-Go.go.go. Be you.

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Products used: Patterned paper (Basic Grey, s.e.i.); “Go” embellishment (I used a dotted circle from part of a Stampin’ Up stamp, used solid paper from Creative Memories, and Rub-on letters from K.I. Memories); Word strips (K&Company); Bling (Heidi Swapp for Advantus); Pen (American Crafts); Acrylic paint (Grumbacher); Thread (from own stash).

Do you notice the lines that objects make in the background of your photos?

Diagonal lines can create visual interest, lead your eye to the subject, or in a desired direction, and give your photos a sense of movement.

Lines should rarely extend from corner to corner. It just doesn’t look natural and it cuts the image in half.

Notice in the photo above where the two major lines start and end. When framing your shot, if the diagonal is strong enough to meet both corners, position the lines just above or below the corners.

In this photo of Blake, the bottom of the tree trunk actually meets the bottom corner on the left. The photo works because the dominant line that we “see” is the top lit part of the trunk, which lands above the corner. Also, my son’s leg merges with the trunk and gets the attention because it is a lighter color (lighter shades stand out, darker ones recess). His leg becomes part of the diagonal.

In other words, the line is not the part of the trunk that meets the bottom corner. It is the line at the top of the trunk and my son’s leg.

A great way to lead the viewers eye directly to the subject is to position your subject at the end of a diagonal:

If you’ve never paid attention to lines, take your camera out to practice photographing diagonals without people. Once you have an eye for them, you’ll be more likely to pay attention to lines the next time you are photographing someone.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo

Okay, so this isn’t really scrapbook-related. It won’t help you with your designs. But it will sure make you smile.

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Via Izzy Video

Do you see how the circular text stamp inspired the circular journaling? Repetition provides continuity to a piece. It makes it flow.

I created this layout for Ali Edwards’ newsletter challenge:

Create a layout that celebrates the beautiful person YOU are today - right now. All you need: (1) one photo of yourself - if you don’t have one grab your camera, take your own photo by holding your arm out in front of you or take a photo of yourself in a mirror and print at home.

For your journaling, name 3-5 reasons why you are beautiful.

Even when writing papers in school, I’ve always had more to say than is required. So, yes, I exceeded five reasons. Here is my journaling:

Beautiful because…

Because I enjoy life the way I enjoy a good Creme Brulee.

Because I’m a member of the “Happy People Club.” Happy is my nature.

Because I think. I think about life, the world, the arts, connections…I’m always thinking and assembling life’s puzzle pieces.

Because I thrive on learning. I love learning how the universe works, how humans evolved to this current state, how history brought us to where we are now. I love learning what science can tell us about nature, why we think some things are beautiful and some are not, why we cringe at others’ pain and cry at others’ sorrows. Why we connect with music.

Because I think questions are good.

Because no matter what anyone else wants me to be, or what society claims is the “right” or “trendy” way, I like myself. I don’t change to meet anyone else’s standards.

Because I am confident.
Because I have integrity.
Because I work hard.
Because I love life.

This is me.

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Products I used: Cardstock (Bazzill); Patterned paper (Basic Grey) Stamps (Ali Edwards); Ink (Stampin’ Up); Letter stickers (Creative Memories); Rub-on (Basic Grey); Pen (American Crafts).

My Mother’s Day Gift

Originally uploaded by Noell.

I love having a gazebo. It made sitting outside in 100 degree weather totally doable.

Yesterday we put the sprinkler on high, let it fall over the waterproof top, and it provided a light mist where we were sitting.

We played Jenga in the afternoon under the gazebo, ate a fantastic dinner of cheese, olives, grapes and wine that evening, and now I’m sitting under it for breakfast.

I love Mother’s Day. Tell me about yours.