Back to School Time Layout Ideas

Hi everyone! Practical Scrapper Alison here sharing a couple of ideas for scrapping those Back to School photos. I've been gathering photos, homework and artwork for the past 4 years (okay, maybe 6 if you count preschool years too) with the intention of creating scrapbooks for each girl of their school careers. I've created a few layouts but ... I'm terribly behind. Today I am sharing two more that will go into ... something, eventually. :)

This first example isn't technically a back to school layout, but it does involve my daughter with her teacher from last year so I'm counting it!

I had this photo on my desk with the original idea of doing a 'before and after' type layout but ... I realized the before photo (Marley and her teacher in September of last year) had been lost in my hard drive crash in December. So it sat on my desk waiting for inspiration. Enter Amanda Robinson. You'll have to go to my blog for all the details but suffice it to say, she is the creator of the printables on these two pages. Details of how to get them will be on my blog by late morning today.

You may notice that apart from the basic 411 information, there's no journaling. What?! I have a plan for this. I am going to get my daughter to write the journaling. She loves to write and I think it would be great to have her own memories, in her own handwriting in this particular album.

This next one IS a back to school layout. It's my middle daughter all ready for the first, rainy (oh, so rainy) day of Grade 2. 

More of the wonderful printables from Amanda Robinson plus some old school themed embellishments and a journaling stamp from Bella Blvd. Gotta love digging deep into your stash! The black paper came from a pack my kids bought me a couple Christmases ago with the intention that I'd use it for the school album. Well, better late than never, right?

I wanted to mention too, that while I have used some school themed supplies, I've also used regular supplies and given them a scholarly twist. For example, the patterned paper with the globes in the first layout is from Amy Tangerine's Ready Set Go line which is a travel themed line. But the globes and the colours worked really well here. In the layout above, I've used a notebook border punch. You may be thinking "yes, but that is obviously school themed" and it is ... and it isn't. It's probably one of the most versatile punches out there because it can go with school themed layouts, layouts where you've got a deeper, more "diary-esque" story to tell or any layout where lace, butterflies or bubbles wouldn't look right. It's also a really good border punch for masculine layouts where hearts or flowers would look out of place.

I hope you try mixing your non school themed products into your school themed layouts this week. If you do be sure to leave a comment here or share them on our Facebook Page - we'd love to see what you're creating! Don't forget to head on over to my blog to see how you can get these printables to scrap those photos of your own fresh faced, eager student!