Friday...More on Memorabilia

Thanks for all your great comments and e-mails on my memorabilia post. I by no means have a comprehensive system, but it's working for now (we'll see when we have a second baby - that poor child will probably have no record of its childhood!) I wanted to show you a few more pictures and also a few more ideas for how I memory keep (outside of scrapbooking).

This is the folder I keep all of Charlie's memorabilia in before it either goes in the storage book, gets laminated and goes in the scrapbook, or gets tossed.

This is another snapshot of the storage box, and his itty-bitty newborn diaper. It was fun taking these photos yesterday and going through all the stuff I'd already forgotten was tucked away in there. I also have all the newspapers and magazines from the week he was born (this box is big, so it's the perfect size for all that stuff!)

Something else I do is every night before bed, I write in this book. It's usually something Charlie did during the day, something I'm thinking about. It's easy. And it's a great reference too when I am scrapbooking, say I'm doing a page about when he was 8 months old and I can't remember a detail, I can go back to this book and look back at that point in time.

Lastly, I have all of Charlie's photos developed in wallet size. I don't scrapbook all of them (the ones I do plan on scrapbooking, I usually print in a larger size), but the ones that don't get scrapbooked get put in these baseball card holders. They fit perfect into my album from American Crafts.

I hope this gave you some ideas for things you aren't already doing to save some of your memorabilia...I'd love to hear any ideas for what you do too. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Laura

Storage Solutions for your Memorabilia

Slightly sentimental? Check!

The memory-keeper’s son. That’s what I call my one year-old, Charlie. I don’t know if someday he’ll appreciate the newborn-size diaper in his memory box, or the hat he wore home from the hospital, but I like to think at least his wife will.

If you are at all sentimental, the memorabilia and photos from your child’s first year of life (and on) can become overwhelming – fast. I also thought some of my nostalgia might fade as my hormones evened out, but if anything the desire to remember my son just the way he was each day has become stronger as I’ve seen how fast he really does change.

Here are some things I’m doing in my life to help me reflect on Charlie, and hopefully someday have him look back on. Or his prom date.

We took 227 video clips the first year of Charlie’s life. Now what? Burn them to CD and stick them in one of these adorable sleeves from Owlbot. I punched holes in my CD sleeve and put it in my three-ring album (these are some other sleeves I had):

Invest in a good laminator. Might seem silly, but it will help those monthly checkup sheets from the doctor or random notes from the babysitter age well.

A large storage box. I figure at the rate I’m going, this will hold enough memorabilia until Charlie turns five. So I bought two. I try to put a tag on each item (for cards, I bundle them together with twine by occasion – all of his first birthday cards are together).

I hope this post gave you some ideas for how to handle the memorabilia in your life! Have a great day.

Laura

Design Team Layouts Inspired by..."Design Workshop" by Lisa Dickinson

I've long been a fan of Lisa Dickinson's clean, elegant style. Needless to say, I was excited when we decided that for July's kit, the Studio Calico Design Team would use inspiration from Lisa's book, Design Workshop, for one of their layouts. This e-book is full of color and classic designs. It was hard to choose just one concept to be inspired by!

For my own page, I was inspired by Lisa's concept of achieving unity through a grid. I've always been a fan of grids - they sound pretty formal, but you can make a grid out of anything - from circles, to lines, to butterflies! Here is my page, which I used a simple circle punch to create:

Kelly was also inspired by the idea of using a grid, which she achieved with cropping her photos and the more "decorative" square. Her page is quite different than mine, so you can see how inspiration can transfer from one style to the next! I love this kid's smile, but Kelly's page is just awesome:

Another of my favorite ideas Lisa had was to cluster accents - a favorite technique of mine, and one that Joy used so well on this page (and seriously, could this photo BE any cuter?):

Stephanie W. was also inspired by Lisa's idea for clustering accents, as well as her ability to layer items on the page (I love the page AND the shoes!):

Finally, one of my personal favorite design tips of Lisa's was to use memorabilia on your pages. This is such an important aspect of scrapbooking to me, and I love it when other's encourage it as well. Emily did just that, incorporating a piece her son wrote for school on her page (I love how his paper takes up the entire left page of this two-page spread):

Stay-tuned for more Design Workshop inspired layouts this week!

Don't forget to be inspired by other Ella eBooks, including the brand new Eight is Enough which features Studio Calico designers.

Partly Sunny Favorites

I completely forgot that I was supposed to blog yesterday. I'm really sorry. I went hiking in Boulder with the family then we had friends over for swimming and kabobs. It was a delightful day, completely void of any thought that I had a job to do! So I hope that perusal through the Partly Sunny gallery will make up for it. :)

Also I'd like announce the winner of Sasha's rub on challenge, it's Rimna! Please send your information to info@studiocalico.dom stating you're the winner of Sasha's Rub on Challenge for the week of May 24. Congrats! Here's her layout:


And now the DT gallery favorites, through my eyes. I decided to go backward through the gallery this time. So enjoy!

I had a hard time picking a favorite from Waleska's gallery this month, they were all fun and happy, but I think this one won because of the banner. I love how she stamped underneath it and then added the fabric swatches over top. And those faces? How could you not smile at them?

Not Tina's typical style, but it is totally fitting for the topic she journaled about here. I think that's why I love it. Her journaling is absolute joy on paper. Everything on this page has a reason of being there. Love how she chose her title too, it's a fun way to use the strip.
I wanted to pick Airplane Alert for my favorite, just because I loved it in Susan's sneaks, but come on, how can you not laugh and smile at that picture? I thing Susan's happy selection of papers and embellishment perfectly highlight an adorable baby. :)

I love the way Steph W. captures her 6 years with her sweetie. A fun way to look at things that can seem so day to day. I love hwo she used the MM flowers, the perfect little touches to a beautiful layout. And the paint and stamping balance so nicely with the K&Co paper lace, pretty.
Hee hee, Steph H. made this before she knew about twins and I think that's part of the reason this one is my favorite this month. I just LOVE the stamped starbursts around the circles, brilliant, but the journaling is the best part. Well, that and how she turned the 8 into an S. Um, cool.

I love how Sasha took a couple of different papers and used bits and pieces of them to compliment the Jenni Bowlin Coredinations paper. What a fun finishing touch to add the stitching. I love the "Impossible Nothing" she added with the MS punches. Very cool.

By no means is this kind of layout unique. Lots of scrappers have captured whole season on a page before, but the way Nicole S. has designed this one is so beautiful. Her strips of paper between the photos and the center so nice and clean allow the photos to shine.
This one by Nicole H makes me giggle for a couple of reasons. First, I'm at the bottom of the technology latter as far as it comes to phones. And I know when I some day convert as she has, I'll be the EXACT SAME WAY. Secondly, it's green. Could that be any more perfect? I also LOVE the look of the bubbles punched cardstock over the striped MME paper from Front Porch. Lovely.

Bright colors popping against the fun Cosmo Coredinations is one of the things that I loved about this layout, but then I noticed the green stitching and that won me over Maggie!

See how easy it is to bring momentos from your life into your scrapping? I adore how Lisa used the tag from her son's birthday/mother's day trip to a cupcake shop in her layout. It's front and center, but doesn't take away from the fabulous photos. Great way to use that stamp too!

I love how Laura can capture so much in such few supplies. Her stitching and type always pull me in to study. and then she does the cute little heart over the top of the yellow and it just makes me smile.


Yep, I was right. I knew I'd love this one by Kelly. The colors just POP on the dark cardstock and combined with those hilarious pictures of Brady, well this one went into my favorites pile pretty quickly. I love how Kelly used the banner stamp too.
Although she had a bunch of masterful layouts in her gallery this month, I REALLY LIKE Joy's idea. Pre-make a summer fun album and fill it in as you go. What a clever idea for capturing your summer before it slips away. You can tell this is a momma who's good at planning ahead. Since summer officially starts for me this weekend, I'd love to slap something together, now i have a template to copy. :)
Always one for her happy combinations of paper and color, Jenn did not disappoint this month. I love how sh used the cloud paper tucked into all her strips of color to represent a rainbow. Beautiful!

I knew when I saw her sneaks I'd like this layout. I was even more pleasantly surprised! the way Davinie brought in the fabric swatches with the Jillibean flowers from Front Porch makes this layout sing of summer.
Celine's album was so beautifully put together, I really loved how she combined the green/yellow/browns in the kit and made a fun album about her friends.
This alphabet set was the reason I bought Front Porch as my add on this month. I love how April took hers a step up and colored them. It's absolute genius! And what a fun look at her 9 years of marriage, congrats April and Greg!
Finally we come to Mou Saha's gallery. I love Mou's style, probably because we're both inot handwriting your journaling. It always pulls me in on her pages. I love the perspective on this photo, and the planes are just fun.

scrapping memorabilia : pocket page

Woohoo, it's the weekend!! =) I'm getting ready to spend my day at the ball field - Alex & Ben both have their first Little League games of the season this afternoon. But first, I wanted to share an easy way to get your memorabilia into your scrapbooks.

I've had this stack of cards on my desk since Alex turned 9 a couple weeks ago. I was going to throw them into the drawer with his other keepsakes when I had an idea for a quick pocket page.



I started with a base of 12x12 cardstock. I attached the card that I'd made for his birthday to the center of an 8.5x11in transparency, and then added a Sassafras banner sticker and some stars punched with my medium and large Fiskars twinkle twinkle punches. I added a few gems and a strip of patterned paper and then stitched the transparency to the cardstock. I love that all of the cards are contained, but that you're still able to get a peek at them without taking them all out of the pocket. This would also work well for other memorabilia - I know that I have a lot of brochures and the like from trips that are too big to incorporate into a layout, but that I'd like to have on display.