Scrapbooking School Photos (Part 1)

Good afternoon!  Earlier this year our oldest two kids had their annual school photos taken.  I though I'd do a series on how I scrap these photos, because I read in one of the Facebook Groups I'm in that people often find them hard to scrap. 

One of the reasons given was that school photos are often "awful".  This may be for a number of reasons, such as difficult colours of uniform or backdrop, bad poses, or just plain difficult photos.  I've found the opposite for school photos, and I think thats due to the uniform being navy, grey (for boys), blue and white - very easy colours for the scrapbooking Mum to embellish!  It also helps that our photos are taken outside.  (All credit of these photos goes to Des Ellery Photography).

For this photo of Azaria I used my March Hip Kit, and started with the beautiful Crate Paper (Craft Market I think) floral, which was begging to be watercoloured.  Being a beginner painter, I chose a small number of the flowers to paint with watercolours.  Of course I had to use my new notebook edge punch on the vellum, then layered another paper under my photo.

I kept my embellishment very simple and to a minimum to let the water colouring feature and let Azaria's photo shine.  The cluster below includes an exclusive flair badge, exclusive die cut ampersand and a cork heart.

I layered some paper under the "Beautiful" wood veneer to help it stand out.  The "^" shapes are made with a punch I've been neglecting.  

I absolutely love the Crate Paper Craft Market mini words - yes you heard me say that after I've been struggling with word stickers for months!

So the rules I've applied on this school photo layout are the following:

• Keep it simple.
• A non-themed selection of products works well for a non-themed scrapper like me.
• Use one main beautiful piece of paper to assist in keeping it simple.
• Keep embellishments to a minimum.
• Gold accents in three places help provide continuity.
• Vellum helps soften the paper layers, and assists in integrating the photo with the page.
• The notebook edge from the punch adds a "school" feel.
• The doily provides some relief from the very liner square cuts of paper and horizontal design.
• A kraft cardstock helps tie in the natural feel of the photo - being shot outside.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back again with another school photo layout soon!