After years of trying to find a good way to adhere newspaper articles (and believe me, the obvious ways don’t look so hot), I’ve finally found one I love. In fact, I’d say it’s probably the best way. Today’s episode for Paperclipping Members shows you step-by-step how to do it, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Below are the layouts from today’s episode…

On The Table
12×12 Layout

Historic Win
Two-page 12×12 Layout

Historic Win–In the album
with journal card and 8.5×11 insert

On the journal card I placed an article that demonstrates the changes in American perceptions over time.

I printed up the inspiring acceptance speech by President Elect Obama from election night on this 8.5×11 page.

To learn about how you can become a Member of Paperclipping to get access to all of the great tutorials, click here.

So Totally Ready For The Big Time

The journaling to Aiden reads: You wanted to go to the “big school” with Blake and Trinity last year but I told you you have to be 5. You talked about it all the time. And in March, on the day you turned 5, you were ecstatic because you thought you would go to kindergarten that day. I tried to explain it, but you asked me almost every day if it was time, from March 23 until your first day in Aug. And wow, were you ready! You had no problems adjusting to the full day, everyday, schedule.

And here you are…learning about your playground, learning where to put your backpack while you play, learning to get in line and stand in line when the bell rings. You also had a spy activity where you found all the places in your school.

You loved this spy activity! You found so many cool places and people and things in your school. And what a very, very cool school you go to! How many other schools have a tortoise habitat? You’re a lucky dude!

The Focal Point Photo Tells The Story

The picture I chose for the focal point on this layout is not a perfectly posed first-day photo. It’s an almost natural, caught-in-the-moment photo. Trinity looks like she’s just walked out the door, a few steps behind Aiden, her book bag pulling on her hair.

There is movement in the picture, as if Trinity and Aiden were just doing their thing, heading off to school, when Dad suddenly told them to smile. With Aiden closer to the camera than Trinity, and with the cocky little smirk on his face, I felt that this was the perfect photo to tell Aiden’s story about being so ready for the big time.

Size 5 Tag: A Great Story-telling Item

In the United States, no other number has as much significance with regard to school as the number, 5. 5 is when we start kindergarten. 5 is a big deal. So when I was pulling and tossing tags from Aiden’s new school clothes, it occurred to me to save this “size 5″ tag for Aiden’s back-to-school scrapbook page. Even though it isn’t a dominant part of the layout, it is one of my favorite parts.

Aiden’s Contribution And The Power Of Photos

There’s a funny story about how this layout came together. When I started working on it, I had placed the photos as you see them, using the magnets on the FRED. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to keep it this way or not, but Aiden made that decision for me. He climbed up on my chair, gazed at all the photos, including the color copies from his school “spy” activity, and finally exhaled, “Wow!” To him, this is an epic story.

I had no other paper or products in place at that point–just the pictures on the white background–and he began spouting his own ideas. “I want to draw a picture in that white spot! I’m going to go get my crayons and draw something there!”

At first I panicked. I didn’t want him touching my layout. But he was so excited about making a contribution to the story, I couldn’t disappoint him, either. I told him he could draw on a separate piece of paper that we would add to the page. Pretty soon he was adding paper scraps and insisted on drawing, not a school-related picture, but a drawing of himself with me at the movie theater.

Do you see all the seats? And the trash can? Pure five-year-old adorable randomness.

What stories are you discovering about yourself or your kids going back to school? Toni realized she had her own story to tell as she was commenting the previous blog post…

We homeschool and I did take pictures of the table and supplies for our first day. I also took some fun photos, like 6yo ds doing his Spanish lesson on the computer while 1yo watched with curiosity.

I have to put on a show on the first day to get them in the “switch gears” mode after having their house and mom back for the summer without school overtones. I do silly things like take roll call, point out who “ended up in the same class with whom”, etc. They giggle and think their mom is silly, but that’s the point. And now I’m thinking I have my story for journaling. ;D

As someone who doesn’t home school, Toni’s process of photographing school at home and helping her kids switch to a school mindset after the summer break fascinated me. We all have stories to tell. And they are interesting. We just have to recognize what they are.

Summer break is a great time to look back through your school-related photos from the previous year so you can scrap them before next year’s school events muddle your memory.

Scrapbooking A Child’s School Project

Journaling to Aiden reads: Today you brought home a dinosaur egg from school. Really, it was a rock in plaster. But not your your mind. For you this was the real thing and you were ecstatic.

You came at this egg very seriously, asking me for tools. I set you up with a screwdriver and hammer. You worked on it forever. So serious about it. My favorite part was the look of sheer unbelief when you first revealed the rock–ahem–dinosaur egg. A favorite day. For both of us.

The canvas:
For this page I used Photoshop to crop most of my photos into 2-inch squares. After print them, I arranged them in a stream, or a long canvas of their own. I love the story-telling quality of the linear progression: 1) Happy Aiden with his tools; 2) Broken pieces of plaster as he pounds with his hammer; 3) A surprised look as he makes his first break-through; 4) More pounding; 5) A look of amazement at his totally exposed egg.

Scrapbooking A Page From College

Journaling reads: It cracked me up to find that both Brandon and Nicole had fallen asleep while they were studying. Is that Gina and I making fun of them later in a sleeping dog pile???

My favorite way to place multiple items on a page (in this case, three photos and a comic strip) is to create their own square-shaped canvas, filling any gaps with patterned paper or journaling boxes. These spaces are a fun place to gather embellishments that support the story. For this story, I chose stickers with words that say:

* Due Date * To Do List * Little By Little the Time Goes By * Friends * Memories *

Note: Because I didn’t write down my roommate-story right away, I am no longer sure of the details. If that happens to you, don’t let that keep you from telling what you think happened. Share a detail as a question if you’re really not sure.

Whether you tell your story as a progression with a photo stream, or in the pockets of a mosaic square, creating a canvas within the canvas of your layout is a fun and interesting way to tell a tale.

Karen asked me if I’m naturally inclined to save things. I responded that I am the opposite. I’m a minimalist that likes to get rid of things and I’m not quick to buy stuff. Because of that minimalist nature, I have always used my current resources to fit my needs, so that is the natural part of me that makes it easy for me to re-purpose old items into something new.

I later realized I am a natural saver of a different kind of stuff. I have always saved LIFE-STUFF. Memorabilia. I remember being a little girl and discovering the mystery and wonder of other people’s leftover stuff. Letters. Diaries. Pictures. Things. I’ve always journaled, always saved everything from my life, always put them in books, binders, boxes, and photo albums, even if it wasn’t in the most organized and aesthetically pleasing manner.

Below are a few of my old pre-industry school-related scrapbook pages, which I intend to organize into a modern scrap album. You can see examples of the stuff I saved.

High School

In the midst of my funky photo collage is a dime. Do you see it in the corner of the colored picture? The story behind it is at the surface of my memory–I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually.

I was quite the socialite and loved receiving and saving flowers and balloons and happy-grams and other fun stuff from my friends.

On these pages are tickets to some shows I either attended or performed in, autographs from a skater band we saw in concert, the lid of a box of candy, a pass to attend another school with a friend for the day, stuff from a florist shop from which we regularly patronized for each others’ birthdays.

College

Obviously I didn’t do any journaling in my photo albums. I reserved that for my actual journals (which I also sometimes spruced up with memorabilia and the occasional photo). One of my favorite ways to tell a story in my albums was through comic strips that correlated with the event.

Calvin & Hobbes made regular appearances in my albums, but the Far Side shows up, too. On the above page I was telling the story of finding my roommate, Nichole, and my friend Brandon, both asleep when they were supposedly studying (top photo). That’s us in the bottom pictures making fun of them on another occasion.

I also saved letters and notes and scraps of paper on which we scribbled silly songs we wrote. On the pages above is a note some friends left on our door after we accidentally stood them up (oops), photos of our snow wars where we barricaded each others’ front doors, and an eviction threat the apartment posted afterward (or was that part of the joke?).

Other People’s STUFF

When I was in 5th grade, one of my teachers brought a box of gum wrappers from her childhood that she had folded and connected and turned into a chain. I remember being fascinated by the colors and design of the wrappers and realized that someday my children (or somebody) would be interested in the product packaging of candy and other stuff from my own childhood. Not only did I save some wrappers, I saved stuff from restaurants I enjoyed with friends, and other trinkets that would illustrate the styles and trends of my time.

What will our kids be interested in seeing from their childhood and schooldays twenty years from now? If you’re still in school, what can you keep that illustrates your life as a student? It’s amazing how even the fonts and colors you see on packaged items mark the time period. In the long run, things aren’t as mundane as they might seem.