Blog Archives
2008: Adoption Day Party
2008: Adoption Day Party
I shared yesterday that I created a digital scrapbook of our adoption day so that I could share copies with our friends and family. But – I still needed to create a page to showcase the ephemera from the day.
This page has no photographs on it, and only ephemera. The left hand page background is actually a helium balloon that we were given and I cut it carefully and folded it around a piece of 12×12 cardstock and taped it to the back. I also included cards that we were given on that day, and some tokens and tickets from Chuck E Cheese. Chuck E Cheese’s also usually have a photo booth where it will create a line drawing of you and put the date on it. it usually only costs one token (25 cents) and is a great way to have a date stamp on your ephemera.
I do not usually do this, but in cases where there is a good collection of ephemera from an event or trip that don’t fit on other pages with photographs, I create an ephemera only page. Here are some other examples:
Thoughts on Adoption: I really can’t leave out a plug for adoption here. Adopting my son has been the best thing that I have ever done in my life. It is better than all the trips I have taken, and more rewarding than the degrees that I have earned. While it is not easy, and can challenge often, I would not trade this experience and my son for anything in the world. Please take some time to visit the adoption sites listed below:
Find out More about Adoption:
Related articles
- 2008: Adoption Day (mascrapping.com)
- Wallpaper wars: is ephemera the new scrapwood? (decoratorsnotebook.wordpress.com)
2008: Adoption Day
2008: Adoption Day
Our Adoption Day was a wonderful experience. We were joined by family and friends at the courthouse, had a picture day at Coronado Island, and then ended the day celebrating at Chuck E Cheese. Our good friend, Tira Young, of Tira Young Photography, joined us for the day and took many wonderful pictures. Tira created a slideshow of the pictures that you can view HERE.
I created a digital scrapbook from these pictures so that I could give copies to friends and family, but I also wanted to create a single spread for our scrapbook album. I was able to find the adoption background paper from the left hand side, and the adoption poem transparency on the right hand side on Ebay.
2008: Adoption Day Closeup
The transparency has a poem about being a father on it, and I created a closeup of it to the left. If you click on the photo you should be able to read the poem. Unfortunately the plastic transparency combined with the plastic protector sheet created a reflective glare on the picture.
I placed the picture of us on the page first, and then placed the transparency over the top of the picture and affixed the edges with sticky tabs. Since you could see the sticky tabs through the transparency I then used torn paper to create a boundary around the page, which also helped tie the color scheme to the left hand page.
Thoughts on Adoption: I really can’t leave out a plug for adoption here. Adopting my son has been the best thing that I have ever done in my life. It is better than all the trips I have taken, and more rewarding than the degrees that I have earned. While it is not easy, and can challenge often, I would not trade this experience and my son for anything in the world. Please take some time to visit the adoption sites listed below:
Find out More about Adoption:
Related articles
- For 98 kids, Sunday ceremony gives them a family (azstarnet.com)
- National Adoption Month blog link up (littlethingsbigstuff.com)
- Adoption Meeting (kellysumner.wordpress.com)
- Judge Turns Into a Fairy Godmother at Halloween Adoption Ceremony (people.com)
- Adoption Awareness Month (wakingupinfertile.wordpress.com)
2007: Our First Birthday – Chuck E Cheese
2007: Our First Birthday – Chuck E Cheese
One of the things that is cool about our family, is that my son and I have the same birthday! So, when it came time for us to celebrate his first birthday while living with me I thought it would be perfect to celebrate at Chuck E Cheese. Now – I never had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese – and had always wanted to – so maybe this was a little selfish of me – but I think we all had a great time!
The background pages from this spread come from a pre-packaged Chuck E Cheese scrapbook kit along with the “My Party” and Mouse cutouts at the top of the left page. I took advantage of the cheap photo booth in the arcade to get some fun “line drawing” pictures of the two of us. I also made sure that I kept an arcade token and ticket for the scrapbook, which you can see on the right page.
Related articles
- A Place To Be A Kid! (playingbakersfield.wordpress.com)
- Anti-Gambling Laws Affect Chuck E. Cheese Games? (now100fm.cbslocal.com)
- Chuck E. Cheese (choitingy.wordpress.com)
- Chuck e Cheese Discount codes 2013 (enfamilcouponsinfo4.wordpress.com)
- Mias’ First time at Chuck E Cheese (momeefriendsli.wordpress.com)
2007: Swimming
2007: Swimming
When my son first moved in with me I was besides myself trying to figure out how to keep him entertained. I have a wonderful friend, Stephanie, who was in an apartment complex with a pool, that invited us over often to spend time in the pool. As you can see from the pictures on this spread, he loved being in the water.
I purchased the background paper at a scrapbook store and I thought it made a perfect setting for these pictures. I rounded the edge of the photographs with a scalloped corner cutter to make it feel like shells, which always reminds me of the ocean and swimming.
I cut the title “We Love Swimming” use my Sizzix Big Shot and letter dies. I will be honest that it is much easier to cut letters using a Cricut Machine as it takes a fraction of the time.
Find out More about Adoption:
2007: Our First Weekend
2007: Our First Weekend
After several days of visiting my son on a daily basis, I was finally allowed to bring him home for an overnight stay for two nights – our first weekend together.
At the time I was working at Point Loma Nazarene University and on our first day of the weekend, had opportunity to take part in their graduation ceremonies and support some of our friends who were graduating. It was fun to have pictures taken with my son in my academic robes, and he took great pleasure in taking pictures of me and friends with my digital camera. Later that day we had opportunity to get out and skate a little. My son loves hockey and skating, and one of my friends gave him some old equipment that fit him perfectly. It was the perfect gift.
For this spread I used maroons and greens to tie the two pages together. The green background on the left is structured and formal and “serious” – like graduation, while the swirls on the right are much more “fun”. I kept the edges of the photographs on the left page at 90 degrees and added formal borders, while the pictures on the right have rounded corners and are more informal with no border.
Find out More about Adoption:
2007: A New Start
I am about to begin a new series on a new start. Before I begin sharing scrapbook pages from this new start I have to share the story of our family.
I am a single person who felt the call to adopt many years ago while I was in college. After beginning a career and finishing advanced education, I felt that I was finally at a time when I could start to fulfill this call on my life. I was living in California at the time, a State that allows single males to adopt, and had gone through 11 months of training and 4 months of waiting for a match.
Then, one day in April 2007 I got the call that I had been waiting for for a long time – there was a child that they thought would be a good match. I heard his story over the phone, and then agreed to go in to the agency to hear more, and at that point in time they shared a picture with me of the wonderful person who was to become my son. And that picture is the highlight of the page below:
2007: First Picture
In order to protect my son’s privacy you will notice that I have blocked out his name in this series. This picture is very special to me, since it is the first picture I ever had of my son, and every time I see it I am reminded of the great love I felt for him and that very moment.
My son is the reason that I scrapbook, I want to capture all of our memories together for him, so that as he grows older he can look back and remember all of the things t
hat we have done together. In fact, many of the first 150 posts in this blog have all been about the amazing adventures that we have had together.
So, naturally because this is some of my early independent work (My mother assisted me with my Europe Vacation albums), you will notice that my skill level is at beginner stage, and that I have greatly varied technique and style, as I try to discover what my own unique style is, and my preferred methods.
For this page I tried a new technique of embossing a pattern on the border of the picture using a Sizzix Big Shot machine. Basically you feed a piece of paper and an embossing pattern card through the machine and it presses the pattern right into the paper.
I also used several store bought stickers, and I did this as I had not yet figured out how to fill space better. I probably would not do this page this way again, but I do like the playful nature that the stickers and sayings bring to this page.
Find out More about Adoption:
Related articles
- A Change of Plans: The Schrader Family’s Story (adoptedbydesign.typepad.com)
