100 Days

Today is the 100th day of school for my child.  To mark the occasion she and her classmates were asked to bring in 100 of their favorite items. Yes, the assignment that parents from coast-to-coast dread each year. It’s even more dreadful when your kid reminds you that she needs said items two hours before they’re due. So, you run around like a nutcase looking for 100 what to cram into a Ziploc bag? Cheerios, LEGOs, coffee beans… blood, sweat, tears? When all is said and done, hopefully you remember to snap a photo of your kid holding up his … Continue reading

Homeschool Blog Focus: Brighton Park

  Brighton Park is a 2012 Circle of Moms Top 25 Homeschool blog, a Siemens Top 50 Farm Blog, and was recently featured in the Jan/Dec 2013 issue of Hobby Farm Home Magazine. Meet Katie Katie is the face behind Brighton Park.   Katie is a pediatric speech language pathologist.  Her homeschool curriculum is a hybrid of Catholic/Waldorf, or as her kids call it “Crafty Catholic”. She is a mom of five beautiful children, including twins with special needs. In addition, she is a yoga teacher, crafter, gardener, decorator, and backyard chicken keeper.  She loves inspired homeschooling and artful homemaking. You … Continue reading

Capture the Holiday Magic

It took nearly six years for me to capture a photo of my daughter with Santa. I can’t remember a time when my daughter wasn’t deathly afraid of the holly, jolly, chubby guy.  She’s not a fan of skinny men with facial hair either, but I digress. My daughter’s exceptional fear of Mr. Claus made it impossible for me to snap a picture of the two of them together, so when it finally happened, I crafted a double page scrapbook layout commemorating the event. Two pages for a single trip to see a mall Santa may seem like overkill to … Continue reading

Over 40 Holiday-Themed Scrapbook Title Ideas

  “Holiday Hoopla” is the title of a scrapbook layout I made last year.  It features photos of three generations of my family cooking together.  I was going to use “Organized Chaos,” but decided to go with the seasonal title instead. Coming up with page titles is a passion for some scrapbookers, while others see it as a pain.  I like to ponder page titles while I am figuring out the placement of my photos, memorabilia and embellishments.  Often, a title will pop into my head as I survey all of the materials I am featuring on the layout.  However, … Continue reading

Holiday Time Crunch

Do you wait until January to craft holiday-themed layouts? I used to stock up on festive Christmas-themed embellishments, papers and memorabilia throughout the month of December, and then go into hiding during the first week of January to complete a marathon scrapbooking session.  However, my pages never turned out as well as I would have liked given my time crunch.  I felt pressure to slap together holiday memory albums just so I could cross it off my to-do list.  What’s more, I was extremely bothered by the idea of working on Christmas scrapbooks when Valentine’s Day was just around the … Continue reading

Holiday Gifts from the Heart

The holiday season is an ideal time to teach kids about the importance of giving.  This year, though, consider doing one better by giving your children the opportunity to take a hands-on approach to gift-giving. There’s no need to break the bank purchasing expensive holiday presents for loved ones when you can use your creativity and other talents to craft a slew of special treats.  Show kids that by putting their heart into making a personal present for a loved one they will be giving a giving a gift you can’t put a price tag on. Some simple ideas include: … Continue reading

Documenting the First Day of School

The first day of school brings out the inner paparazzo in nearly every parent. Moms and dads often try to capture every moment of their child’s return to the classroom. That goes double for parents documenting their son or daughter’s very first day of kindergarten. Depending on how snap happy you are, you could be sorting through hundreds of images at the end of the day. Be careful when sifting through the photos, as you don’t want to delete a picture that could be used later. Once you’ve selected your best shots, showcase them in a scrapbook along with records … Continue reading

Last-Minute Father’s Day Scrapbooking

Time is running out for all of you slow scrappers. If you are looking to craft a memory book to gift to your Dad this Father’s Day, you can’t afford to procrastinate any longer. By now you should have all of your materials together, including the album, paper, embellishments, photos and mementos. To further expedite the construction process, it’s a good idea to have some general notes or sketches detailing how you want your finished layouts to look and what order you plan to display your page designs. When it comes to piecing together layouts, I typically work off of … Continue reading

Every Day is Mother’s Day

Don’t we wish? Mother’s Day 2012 has come and gone, but if you are like me, then you are just now working on phase 2 of the holiday—scrapbook layout design. After all, you can’t create a memorable album or layout without relevant photos. I just got back a slew of photos snapped last week during our Mother’s Day celebrations. A lot of them were taken at the hotel where we had brunch and the park we strolled through after our gorge-fest trying to burn off some of the calories we downed at the all-you-can-eat Mother’s Day buffet. I grouped the … Continue reading

Memorable Memorial Day Layouts

For most people, the long Memorial Day weekend means picnics, road trips and beach time with friends and family. While cookouts and camaraderie are memorable components of the holiday, the real reason for the three-day weekend has to do with hard work and heroes. Thanks to the men and women, who comprise this country’s military, we are able to enjoy a litany of freedoms. Their selflessness and bravery should be honored, and there’s no better way to do so than with a scrapbook layout or an entire memory album. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an advanced scrapper to design … Continue reading