Easy School Books - A Quick Annual Tradition

I'm published! I might need to start planning ways to avert the paparazzi...

If you get Parent's Magazine, check out page 63 of the August issue that was mailed this week. That's me! I made it on the news and in a magazine in the same year. Who would have thought?

Last year, I wrote a post about an 8x8 scrapbook that I put together to document simple facts about each of my kids for their school years.

When I had the time and motivation, I sat down and constructed the guts of the 15-page album so that all I'd have to do is adhere some pictures and type up a few notes each school year. Once they can write their name, I also have them add that to the page layout.

I think this assembly-line process took me just over an hour: measure, cut, paste, measure, cut, paste...

I made them simple and streamlined, and the color pallet was all the same for each book. (blue, tan and chocolate brown for Ryan, pink, green, tan and yellow for Kaylin)

Well, I just finished updating the books for this year (and, ahem, last year...) and thought I'd share the final product to inspire some of you to follow suit.

* Even if your kids are older, you can go back and play catch-up to create something similar. It likely won't be as uniform because it wasn't planned in advance, but it will capture the main idea of a keepsake.

{Kaylin's first page}


{two page layout}


{Ryan's first page}


{two page layouts for each school year}






On each layout, I have the years, school and teacher's name typed in the upper left corner, a picture (that I take in the same spot) from the first (left) and last (right) days of school, a picture of the child and their teacher, a school picture, a typed up Q&A about them during that time and their signature.

As I gather the pieces that I want to put together, I stick them in the page protector for that year and assemble it when I have time. For instance, I finally made the time to do '08-'09 when I did '09-'10 last week, but I had everything I needed at my fingertips.

Tip: I planned on keeping the font size and style the same throughout the book but I've changed computers twice and lost fonts since I began, so I'm not stressing about it. If you like consistency like that, you may want to write the font size and other details on a sticky note and keep it in the back of the scrapbook. You always think you'll remember, but you probably won't year after year after year.