I've heard about the scrapbooking craze but have not been involved. My 13 year old son has been given a school assignment to create a scrapbook about himself. His instructions were to take each letter of the alphabet and give 2 words beginning with that letter to describe himself. He said the teacher suggested they use buttons "and stuff" to put on it.
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
There are tons of great things at crafts stores for scrapbooking. I have even found stuff at the Dollar Tree. You might find a kit in colors he likes that includes matching papers, stickers, etc. If you google scrapbooking, you will finds tons of resources. You could look at some samples and use those ideas with supplies you already have. Layered papers look nice, matting the words and/or pictures.
Check out this web site for ideas.
www.scrapbook.com/
Since it is something you certainly don't want to invest tons in, I'd suggest using an old 3 ring binder and construction or card stock paper.
I'm certain there are free images you can get off the web to print, as well as anything thing around the house. Use old holiday or birthday cards, pieces of ribbon or string, bottle caps, wrapping paper.
There are a ton of ideas on the web, but it may be overwhelming.
Good Luck!
If you have an old Scrabble game no longer used those little tiles make great lettering for scrapbooks.
Also, if you have a Big Lots in your town they carry a $1.00 line of scrapbook accessories.
What the teacher was trying to say is to use anything to accent your words and pictures.
Use buttons, bottle caps, pieces of fabric, scraps cut from magazines and newspapers, paper clips, post-its, velcro, playing cards, old valentines, etc.
Its for a school assignment so I would look for precut, large letters at the store - it will make it easier if all you have to do is glue and write for a younger child.
As Marta wrote, there are tons of cheap pages and items for scrap booking at the Dollar Tree. Another idea is to use your color printer and get graphics off the Internet. I usually do a search for "Free Email Sig Tags" and then copy them to my hard drive so I can print or paste them to my emails etc. He could even print a photo of himself at the top of the page that you've printed out from the computer.
I am just starting scrapbooking and have been collecting thing's forever. One thing he could do is tell a story about his summer. This is when picture's come in handy You can use pictures of him to tell the story makeing your own picture frames out of pinking sheer's and cardboard. Using colored paper you could make a cover for the story cut it in half to make it easier for you to use up the pages,tell a story with little sticker's as well as what the teacher suggested. And hopefully there is a Dollar store or AC Moore near by they will be quite helpful in finding the thing's the teacher suggested.
Otherwise if you have traveled by plane or have luggage that happen to have tag's on it those are the kind of tag's the teacher talked about, you can copy and make. Say he went to a baseball game you could stick the ticket (glue it) on to the tag and if he has any small thing's he save from his outing's use those. Also you can make slit's in the paper to pull ribbon through it like a weaving effect.
Say he went swimming at the beach or anywhere over the summer use blue colored paper to cut out as waves and in colored pencil's he could write about his time swimming. Write about the last year did he do sports say soccer it is easy to make a soccer ball out of plain paper use picture's of him playing his sport (AND maybe some friend's) using soccer ball's to decorate the page and in his writing and word's talking about it. Well good luck dar (I hope I have at least been a little help!)
Maps make great backgrounds, as do magazine pages (maybe from a playbill if he's gone to a play over the summer). It's easy to be creative with scrap booking; paper bags from places you've shopped on a vacation are good backgrounds too. And of course wrapping paper maybe to represent a birthday party page.
Other things you can utilize on pages may be business cards, post cards, magnets, stickers, etc. Like I said, it's easy to be creative with scrap booking, just pick up things along your travels and stick them on a page. It's tons of fun.
Hello, I hope I am not too late to offer a suggestion! Here's my two cents!! I love to use the Comic's from the Sunday (or any day!) paper. Your son can choose what he 'identifies' with, or just plain likes! If your newspaper still prints the 'funnies' in black and white on week days, they are cute as well. Gives a theme, with variation.
Good luck! I love to use the 'Funny Pages'. Try it. It'll turn out much better than it sounds at first glance!
Good luck, and we'd love for you to upload a pic when you are done. We'd love to see the finished product!
Jennifer
Some1Simple
Poor boy! There are things teachers should not be allowed to do to their students. This sounds to me like a little boy's nightmare assignment. I'm female, and quite creative, and I love pink and glittery stuff, but scrapbooking is way too "girly" for me. If I was this kid's parent I would write to the school and complain.
Other than that, the idea of buying scrapbook materials, scrapbook kits, scrapbook stickers, special scrapbook paper, etc (yes, I've seen them in shops too, and they're not exactly cheap) seems to me to completely miss the whole point of the exercise. The way I see it scrapbooking should be about taking whatever old junk you happen to have at home and turning it into something "decorative". That's certainly more creative than taking some predefined, colour-matched components, gluing them to a piece of paper and adding your name to it.
It's also a sort of thing that more or less requires that the person doing it is interested in it. Then there's the risk of a student's efforts not fitting the teacher's taste. It's the same risk as with essay writing (I've known several people who have got bad grades on essays because they wrote something their teachers didn't agree with).
It seems to me that scrapbook pages can be made of anything, just bind them, put in a notebook or something. One of the ones for reports will do. I don't think she's looking for anything fancy.
Cut letters from his name out of magazines and newspapers and pictures that go with the letters of his name that he feels represents himself. Like the big T from Toyota and a T-bone Steak or something for T but the important thing is that he feels they represent him.
As for this being a "girly" thing, I heartily disagree. It seems like a good assignment to help the teacher get to know the students, their likes and dislikes and more about each one. It also can show their creativity.
I think it's important that "he" does this assignment, so please don't do it for him. Although it may look prettier, that's not the point of the assignment.
Susan from ThriftyFun
I have found some new, interesting ideas to do my scrapbooking thanx for sharing ideas and hopefully your son's project turns out terrific but it has to be fun for him since its about himself but I have a 10 yr old grandson that loves scrapbooking and writing little stories to go along with the picture. Good luck to your son and hope he has fun. :0)
Leah,
This project can be as simple as you want it to be. From your instructions...two words from each letter a-z. You already have your words. Your half way done. That was the hard part. If you have internet and a printer, some colored pencils, markers, scissors & glue your all set to go. For each word make a search. See what comes up...I'm sure your son will identify with something he sees. Print it, cut it out next to the words selected...Photos that you have are a wonderful option to add. Ex: Letter "A" athletic, a picture of some sport he was in or simply likes. I just know once he sits down make his first two words it will begin to flow. And watch the creativity blossom as he goes. This is not a "Girly" thing. This is art. His artistic expression. If he draws by all means encourage drawing! Add color with colored pencils. Hit the dollar store for a few dollar items...Stickers, colored pencils, markers. Good luck and tell him to have fun! I think this is a great idea! He's going to show you a side you never knew existed! Lucky you!
Jennifer CA
Don't skip over the fact that it is to be about him. I would try to copy(photocopy would be fine I'm sure) pictures of himself that show the words that he has to use. For example, S for sporty would be a picture of him, any age, doing a sport. If he has sport medals or ribbons, copy them too (in color if u can)and cut them out to add as decoration to that page. As u can see by picture above, he could make potato print stamps too
I wanted to mention a few more ideas of my own to add to his one of a kind scrapbook. First of all every kids has piles & piles of artwork that accumulates through the years. Either you can use the actual artwork or color copy it & paste the copy onto a page with a sentence telling what age he was when he drew it & the title. That would make for great interest.
This idea is a gem to my senior citizen scrappers I co-ordinate, that is paint chips which are free from any paint store. You wouldn't want to take WAY too many but taking 15 or 20 paint chips would not hurt a thing & he could cut them into squares & then into triangles. The triangles can then be glued at the corners of his photos or photocopies for interest & added color! Also it is fun to just cut the scraps from those up into small bits rather like confetti & glue along the edge in random to make a border at the bottom & top of several pages.It really adds great interest.
Also if he has a favorite snack say like Cheetos, wash & paste in a bag from Mini Cheetos & put a title "Favorite Snack from age 7-10." That would be something to remember. Also let him put his hand in paint & make a colored hand print on plain paper,then do the same with his foot.That makes a great way to remember how big he is at this age. Also just like from a Baby Book a lock of hair would be great to display by putting into a tiny plastic bag. I used one of my son's Baby Socks on one of my pages just to remember that his feet were ever that small.
Try to encourage things like putting any badges he may have gotten from scouting. All you would have to do is lay the actual shirt with the badges face down on a color copier & it would make a good copy to display or either to cut out the badges to glue onto a page.
If he has 2 or 3 favorite friends & you happen to have photos of them then by all means add those on a "Friends" page.If you do not have photos of them then let him draw them & write their names! If you know the summer he learned to swim & perhaps have pictures from that summer then let him write a sentence saying that & add that picture. Then he can take construction paper & cut out a wave pattern to glue at the bottom of the page & draw a sun to put at the top of the page.
You may have pictures from birthday parties, Christmas photos, pictures where he once rode a pony, pictures with his Grandpa. There are to many ideas to mention.*One way to add some texture is to take metal drink tops, flatten them with a hammer, paint over them with either model car paint, house paint or even your finger nail polish. Then after that he can use a Sharpie to write words onto the caps to put on several of the pages.This makes a great little shape & does not look to girlie.
I know boys like to craft too. My son LOVED anything he could do with Popsicle sticks. So if you have him color some of those with markers, then glue them together he can make frames for several of the pictures on the pages or even the front cover. Also Pipe Cleaners bend into lots of nice shapes like a fish or bugs! Let him use un-wrapped crayons to make imprints of leaves by putting paper over the leaf. He can also do this on coins to show about his allowance or even how much he got from the tooth fairy. Children pick up on whatever opinion you have of this project so if YOU are helpful & enthusiastic about it,often bragging about his natural creativity & talent then he will probably really enjoy doing it to.
Only other thing is split up the work time on this project into many different sittings as his little attention span is not the same as an adults. If you have a card table, it may be good to leave this project out on the card table so that LOTS of time picking up & getting back out will be saved! That right there will make him dread the project much less! Best of luck to you! And enjoy these times while he is still little & home with you!
I'm not sure why you are doing all the work here. It's your child's assignment, and while you can certainly brainstorm ideas with him, don't you think it's up to him to do the actual production, such as the calligraphy which you propose to do.
Well folks, it is done...I just wanted to give a GREAT BIG THANKS to all of you who gave suggestions & comments. To Veronica, I didn't mind your "girly" comment because that is exactly how he was feeling, and I was concerned about the same thing. I also agreed with your thoughts about "old junk" on hand rather than the expensive kits, etc. To Susan, we made sure that it DIDN'T turn into a girly thing, and I used your words about his teacher getting to know him better as reinforcement to him. For those who mentioned food/snacks & the Dollar Tree, that helped!
Now to share the end product:
I spent about $5 on supplies ($2 for the 3-ring binder with clear cover on front to insert a cover page, $1 on hologram star stickers to add a little pizazz, $1 for clear conversation bubble stickers to put over quotes or comments, & $1 for a pack of assorted sized foam stickers in geometric shapes). We had clear page covers, construction paper, markers, wrapping paper, label maker (silver tape with black lettering), etc. on hand already.
For a few examples of the content:
We used his field day ribbons he won for "Athletic", a bracelet he'd made by drilling a small hole in a few pennies & a nickle with his dad's drill press for "Creative", Dollywood theme park tickets & shopping bag label for "Vacation", one of his drawings on graph paper of a cross with thorns & colored with colored pencils for "Artistic", a couple of Kool-aid packs & Ramen noodle pack for "K" & "R", and so on. He most enjoyed getting to make conversation bubbles to attach to photos (such as "I Do My Own Stunts" to a photo of him upside down in the air on the trampoline) and getting to show off those muscle car drawings he'd done ("Dodge" for the Dodge Charger & "Cuda" for the Barracuda, etc).
I must confess, however, that I put my 2 cents worth in on "Handsome" with a baby picture of him when he was about 9 months old. He was sitting up in his little white diaper wearing a black bow-tie on his neck, black & white sleeve cuffs on his wrists, & a black cumberbun on his waist (all props belonging to the photographer which fastened with velcro). She had also scattered dollar bills around him, making him my own personal Chippendale. I then put a conversation bubble beside it saying "My Mom Said So!".
Once again, THANKS to ALL for your input! We had fun and now have a great keepsake!! Maybe when he gets it back from the teacher, I'll be able to post some pictures.
Leah
Well, Marilyn, obviously you were writing your post while I was writing my follow-up post today. I can say that you certainly know how to put a damper on a good thing. I hope you have read my follow-up post now. I think you missed the point of my request (which was for SUGGESTIONS of what materials to use such as a binder instead of the expensive items)! This happens to be part of the brainstorming you so generously mentioned. I think you ASSUMED some things, and I hope you know what they say about the word "assume". For starters, my son didn't even know what a scrapbook was. Thanks to all these WONDERFUL folks and their suggestions while brainstorming, we TOGETHER have made something we can cherish. I guess there has to be one in every croud, huh?
Leah
Good For you GoneCrazy Mom! Sounds like the two of you produced a great child friendly project you will always remember having made together. My prediction from how you describe it is that his teacher will think it is a HIT to! Sounds like you have a great kid!! I was a very hands on mom to and my boy is about to turn 18 and a wonderful young man. I have never been sorry for a minute of time spent with him. And I still treasure every memory we make together. I just try to keep the camera clicking and my own scrapbooks going! Congrats to you!
I purchased several Miss Elisabeth scrapbooks at a Dollar Tree in Orlando, but have not been able to find the plastic sleeves to fit it.
Can you help?
Dollar Tree Sells the PHoto pages for scrapbooks for a $1.00 as well - can't you find them there?? I get them there all the time
Purchase a scrapbook from Target ($9.99) or Walmart ($14.99 or $19.99). My daughter has to do a scrapbook describing herself using 9 words. They also had to find ten quotes that describe the 10 pictures that they choose. If purchasing a scrapbook is not an option, I am allowing the students that are unable to purchase a book, to make their book out of construction paper.
Add your voice! Click below to answer. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
