{School Days} Project Life | Elsie's Preschool 3s - The Process

Confession time. Even through my little girl just turned 7 years old last month, I have yet to do anything with all of her memories from all her days of school. I know, it could be worse. I could be even further behind. She could be 17, right? You see, I have been documenting her everyday home life, holidays, and birthdays. I just had an issue inside my head that couldn't get past all of the school "stuff" that comes home. I really wanted to work on her school memories, but it just was so very overwhelming. 

In comes Becky Higgins Childhood mini kits. Lightbulb! With a mini kit and all the different page protector designs Becky has already on the market, I knew that was the route I wanted to take for both of the kids' school memories and all that "stuff" that comes along with it.

I decided to jump start this project of documenting school memories with Elsie's first year of preschool. Now remember, these mini kits can easily cover an entire years worth of memories for a child, not just school. I already have the "other" memories pretty much covered, so I am just rolling with school stuff for now.

So where did I start?

I have kept all the school stuff from each year for each child in an Iris plastic storage box. Mind you, not all of it fit in there... but it was somewhat contained by this. I pulled it all out and began sorting. Art pile. Homework/Written pile. Calendar/Paperwork pile (Yes, I even had each of the calendars saved that showed what they did each day. It actually came in very handy!). I even had a trash pile. Gasp! I like to save it all, but I knew stuff had to go. I took pictures of it all on a white board, just in case I feel even more adventurous some day and toss more of it.

Next step: Pictures.

I have all my digital pictures in folders sorted by year and then inside each year, months. I rename all my pictures with the date first... 2013.05.13-IMG_001.jpg ... so that I can easily see what the date is and they will be sorted correctly with all the various cameras that I use. What can I say, I am crazy. BUT it made it super easy to go back to pull all the random pictures I had taken pertaining to Elsie's first year of preschool.

{Clearly, I wasn't much of a deleter of duplicate pictures back in 2009. I am happy to report, I am much better at that now.}

Once I had all those pictures in one place, I went to town sorting the pictures I wanted to be printed and documented in her book. After whittling down the pictures to a manageable number, it was much easier to see "categories" I wanted to document.

The biggest category was her Art Show. I knew it wasn't going to be the start of her album, but it was going to be the easiest spot to start for me. I had already taken a lot of pictures that evening at her school of each piece during the Art Show. I decided to just start sizing those pictures down to 3x4.

I knew a Design F page protector would be able to fit the most on one spread, so I went with one of those for the art. On the facing page, I included a few extra shots from that evening. Design B fit the bill for that. Once I had a base to start with, I knew which design page protectors I was using and where I could add a new design. I simply worked outward from there.

I pulled out my envelopes containing all the various design page protectors, and working with my chosen pictures, I started editing and sizing pictures. I added the page protector I chose to work with for each spread, making sure to sketch out what the plan was for each page. There is nothing worse than getting a fresh stack of pictures back only to be clueless as to what to do with them. My memory is short. Sketches save me from doing the work all over again.

One thing that did save me...

The lovely ladies at my daughter's preschool, put together Memory Books for each child. LOVE that! AND I was able to scan in some of these pictures to include in her book. I am still keeping this book (of course!); I just wanted some of the pictures. I know that is doubling them up, but I didn't care. I plan on packing this back up in the original Iris plastic container along with a few other things. It will be safe from sticky hands, but the pictures will still be able to be enjoyed.

This is how I got started; one mini kit, stack of various design page protectors, pictures, lots of sticky notes, and a pen. Actually, I used a few different colored pens to add in some "funness" factor. Please come back tomorrow when I will share the finished pages!

Comments

[Ann Lehman]

Your children are so lucky to have you for their mother. They will treasure these albums someday and will share them with their children too. What a wonderful way to track family history.

[Fran Spooner]

You make the overwhelming seem so simple!!

[Heather Johnson]

This post is awesome, and so helpful! Thanks for helping me get "untimidated" to do the same thing! Up until now I had been scared to tackle this project myself--absolutely LOVE how this turned out!!