For the past few months, I've been trying to work on my humongous backlog of scrapbooking. I've made some good progress on my own projects, but I recently took a break to make an album for my daughter covering the summer she spent as a Unit Director at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan back in 2014.
In 2013, she was counselor at the same camp and created an album about the experience. That album turned out so well that we bought all the supplies at the time to make the second album. But recently I could see that she just wasn't going to have time to make the album, so I offered to finish it for her. After all, I'm in the business of Getting Stuff Done these days! :)
This ended up being a very fun and interesting project. It was the first time I've made an entire album for something I didn't personally experience! That slowed me down a bit and made the journaling part harder, but it was still a very enjoyable and doable project.
Luckily I had the first album to look back on and I basically followed the same format, starting with a collage on the cover page. I kept the pages simple so I could finish it up quickly and fit as many in the binder as possible!
The first challenge was photos -- or lack thereof. After the camp season ended, I had ordered a set of staff photos as I knew we'd need them for the album. Otherwise, I didn't have any pictures other than the ones I'd taken when we visited for a long weekend.
To make it easier, Bailey uploaded her pictures from her phone and Facebook to a shared folder on Google Photos. She made a few notes on each image and sorted them into logical categories.
When I printed the pictures, I put them in the same order as her folder and used her notes to help with the captions. The album starts with the staff training at the beginning of the summer and then goes through all four camp sessions and breaks. I used tabs (Becky Higgins Project Life dividers) to separate each section.
I made several traditional pages for this 12x12 album and also used a lot of pocket pages of various sizes. Thank goodness for pocket pages! You can fit so many more pictures in an album this way!
Look at this caterpillar they found on a picnic table! Those are not stick-on googly eyes -- that's his real face!
Another challenge: Bailey had a milk crate full of memorabilia from camp which needed to be worked into this project. I sorted through it and pulled out a few (actually a LOT) of pieces to add to the album. This is a piece of artwork made by one of her campers.
You can tell she's her mama's daughter...she saves a LOT of this kind of stuff! She even pulled down the laminated signs from her cabin wall and I added them to the album, too, along with programs, notes, and music.
Working with these photos made it almost seem like I was at camp myself! Can you be homesick for a summer camp you never attended? I think yes!
This project ended up taking me a bit more time than I anticipated, but it was totally worth it to document this wonderful leadership experience. Making this album gave me the opportunity to reflect on how the skills she gained that summer have helped her get off to a great start in her career as a music educator.
I'm so glad to have this album done for Bailey to enjoy for years to come! :)
jp
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