Rock n Roll Birthday

I love hosting themed birthday parties! This one was particularly fun! I tried to decorate like a 50's diner, we served hamburgers in paper cadillac boxes with bottles of Rootbeer. And I forced my boys to dress as Greasers! They were not to happy about the apparel but I informed them that I needed cute pictures, and it was all about the fun scrapbook page I was going to create after the party! :) So they stomped off to their bedrooms and changed and voila!! Exactly the pictures I wanted!

I used a black backgound paper for this page, although not much of it shows, I wanted a hint of black behind the pattern papers.  The stripe and blue at the bottom is from the confetti pack by My Minds Eye. The  black gingham is just some old paper I had.

For the "Rock & Roll" part of this title I went online and found a 50's font, printed it on black paper and cut it out with detailing scissors. I did the same thing  with the music notes. I wanted them to look shiny like a record so I embossed them with embossing powder and my embossing gun. 

The word "birthday" is done with bazzill chipboard letters I got from O Scrap. The records are actually from the streamers I decorated with, I got the streamers from a local party store. I embossed the records as well. 

The black ribbon on the page is from Wal-Mart. The black buckles are pretty old so I don't remember where I got them. I went online and printed the words from the "Happy Days" song on a transparency and put the strip along the bottom of each page.

I wanted a greaser on my page but I couldn't find any 50's stickers anywhere! Now that my page is done, I see them in every craft store around! Isn't that how it always goes? But, since I didn't have a sticker I had to paper piece my own. I found this image online. I even had some levi pattern paper! I had a great time making him! Don't be afraid to paper piece, you'll love the end product!

Preserving School Memories

I don't make one page layouts very often, but when it comes to school pictures and you only have one photo, there isn't really a good way to turn them into a two page layout.  Even though these two pages aren't part of the same layout, I used the same basic idea for both of them, so I decided to post them both.

I saw the idea for the little squares at a scrapbook store a long time ago. They were selling sheets of paper with the squares on them, but I realized I could make them myself and print them out for a lot cheaper, plus I'd be able to include any category I'd like for the kids to fill out.  I am so extremely happy that I did these pages when the boys were young!  The answers they gave, and their handwriting preserved forever make these pages priceless!

To make the pages for the boys to fill out, I just created some text boxes in Word and filled in the categories.  I left the black outlines on the squares and had them fill out the pages before I cut the squares out so it would be easier for them.  I actually love the misspelled word "tooth" with the extra h crossed out--it gives it more character.

The only thing I asked from them is that they write within the box--no input on answers or even suggestions--I wanted it to be their genuine responses.

The stickers for the red page came from Pebbles, Inc; the blue ones from O Scrap.  These pages were super simple--all I had to do was piece everything together to make it all fit and glue it on.

A lot of times I go overboard and make my pages complicated, so the fact that these are so basic but so fun makes them extra special.  I really love them, and in retrospect I wish I'd done this with my kids every year and created an entire album of just these school pages.  Sadly I didn't, and there is no going back.  If your kids are little, make the sheets for them to fill out.  Even if you don't do anything with them right now, one day you'll be glad you have them.