The before photo on the right has a busy background. The after photo still has the same busy background but the background is blurred so the subjects pop in the photo. The process to create this effect is simple and consists of just a few easy steps involving a selection and a Gaussian blur in Photoshop Elements 10.

I have been in possession of all 16 personal yearbooks all year as the students completed their two pages monthly. I gave the completed books to Mrs. Moore last week so she could look at them and distribute them to the students. It was bittersweet when I opened Kara’s backpack today and saw her personal yearbook inside. I was happy that it has come home but sad that Kara’s preschool years are coming to an end.

There were a few tears shed when I hugged Mrs. Moore and we said our goodbyes today. I know I am going to be a wreck on graduation!

Best Friends Forever Kit, Best Friends Forever Chipboard Alpha and Best Friends Forever Mini Bead Alpha by Simply Kelly Designs | Keep It Even - Vol 2 Templates by Connie Prince

I used my Best Friends Forever Kit and Best Friends Forever Chipboard Alpha to create this layout. Both products are currently 50% off. The Best Friends Forever Mini Bead Alpha is my current Facebook freebie that you can find here.

Kara’s class hosted a Pampering In Paradise breakfast for Mother’s Day. There was a Hawaiian theme and Kara made me a bead and flower necklace.

Fun Run Kit and Fun Run Tropical Add On by Simply Kelly Designs | Keep It Even - Vol 2 Templates by Connie Prince

Kara answered some questions about me for the booklet that she made for me. She actually got all the questions right this year. Last year there were big discrepancies like she said I was 4 years old! My favorite question was “what does your mom like to do on the weekend?” Kara’s answer was rest!!!! I laughed out loud when I read the answer. She is such a silly girl but I love her to pieces!

What did you do for Mother’s Day?

15 Photo Layered Template No. 2 by Simply Kelly Designs | My Happy Place Kit by Connie Prince

Every kid has to enjoy a chocolate mickey ice cream bar on their first visit to Disney right? My favorite moments of the day were when my children were eating their ice cream bars.

What is your favorite Disney memory?

I assembled these 8×8 albums on National Scrapbook Day this past Saturday. The four black albums are for my children’s teachers and the purple and red albums are pre-K graduation gifts for my daughter’s best friends.  All six albums contain a total of 140 scrapbook layouts.

All the fun started with the arrival of the 8×8 photographic prints from Persnickety Prints.

I  only use Persnickey Prints to print all my layouts because of their great quality and customer service. This is how my layouts arrived. They were in plastic sleeves and taped securely to a cardboard container. I love the thank you tag that was attached to the prints too! I ordered a few 12×12 prints along with my 8×8 prints.

Next was the task of sorting and ordering the layouts so they could be place in the book. For this step I had a lovely assistant.

She sorted the layouts that were the same all together. Then I used my scrapbooking spreadsheet to make sure we put the layouts in the correct order. I do include the date on every layout but it was easier to look on the spreadsheet than at each individual layout. When the layouts were ordered by album, Kara would give me the pages back to back. I explained to her how we sometimes had to put pages out of order so the two page layouts could stay together. She picked up on that really well and would tell me that we had to do “something different” when we encountered one of those situations.

I had never used gate fold albums (Recollections from Michaels) before but I thought they were interesting because they stand up on their own and had all the fun photo spots on the cover. For the cover photos, I chose to include a photo of each teacher and my child, a title picture of the class name including the year and the remaining two photo slots listed the names of all the students in the class.

The last step was to make everything look pretty!

All the gifts are ready to go! We are going to give the scrapbooks to my children’s teachers because today kicks off teacher appreciation week at school. The graduation gifts will be given to Kara’s friends on graduation day.

I had so much fun doing the layouts and putting these scrapbooks together. I was flooded with good memories and I hope the recipients will like their scrapbooks!

Update: The teachers LOVED their scrapbooks!

You should have arrived from Digi Deborah Designs. Your next stop is A-liya. If you get lost, just go to the Blog Train Blog.

While you are here, check out my $1 National Scrapbook Day Sale! There are 47 items (templates, kits, alphas) all for $1 each through May 6, 2012.

Enjoy all the blog train goodies!

You read that correctly, 47 products for $1 each!!! Check the sale out here.

Now onto my new release! My daughter has been lucky enough to be in the same preschool class with her BFF for 4 years. That was the inspiration behind my new Best Friends Forever Kit. The photo in the preview of the girls.

There is also a separate coordinating chipboard alpha for your title or word art needs. My newsletter subscribers received this alphabet for free! If you are not a subscriber, sign up here so you don’t miss the next freebie!

Here’s a layout I did of my daughter and her BFF. I can’t believe how much they have changed! I hope that they will still be friends in kindergarten next year. They go from a school with 3 pre-K classes to a school with 17 kindergarten classes!

Best Friends Forever Kit, Best Friends Forever Alpha, Best Friends Forever Bead Alpha, Then and Now Template - all by Simply Kelly Designs

CT member Diane has this layout inspiration for you.

Best Friends Forever Kit and My Girl Kit by Simply Kelly Designs

I created a mini bead alphabet for my new FB exclusive freebie. The beads are 0.5 inches by 0.5 inches in size so they really are mini! The bead alpha is perfect for creating friendship bracelets or mini titles. I used it to create the best friends bracelet in the kit. Click here or on the preview to go to my FB page and snag the freebie!

Also in honor of National Scrapbook Day, my Best Friends Forever Kit and Best Friends Forever Chipboard Alpha are 50% off through May, 2012. Snatch this kit up now to scrapbook that special friendship in your life!

Project 365 Template Set 3 and Little Stacker Kit by Simply Kelly Designs

When I complete these layouts I always look back at the photos and feel like it has been months since they were taken. Life goes by so fast and I am glad I am capturing our everyday and extraordinary moments in this way.

The students are studying Europe and they painted their own versions of Monet’s A Bridge Over A Pool Of Water Lilies painting. There was French music playing in the background while the little artists used sponges to paint. Here are Kara’s two pages for April.

This is the stack of 16 yearbooks (a unique one for each student) that we completed this year.

Our monthly topics were:

August – all about me
September – dinosaur center
October – pumpkin patch visit
November – making pumpkin pies
December – Christmas program
January – making and throwing snow balls
February – manners tea party
March – rainforest animal rescue center
April – Monet paintings

The students are only in school half of May. The final page of the personal yearbook will be a photo of each student with their teacher. Kara’s teacher will write a personal note to each student on the last page which will be a nice surprise for all the students.

I had a wonderful time taking the photos of the kids and doing the pages with the kids in class. During my visits to class I got to know the kids, teachers and class dynamics better. I highly recommend this project to other parents. I would like to say a big thank you to Mrs. Moore (Kara’s teacher) who was very supportive of the whole process and to my friend Tammy (Kara’s BFF’s mom and my mommy partner in crime) who came to class to help me do the pages with the kids.

My 5 year old loves to read. She has been using tissues as bookmarks so I decided it was time she made some bookmarks of her own. During our crafty adventure my 3 year old son decided he wanted to make bookmarks of his own too.

Supplies:
Xyron X 150 and permanent adhesive
Xyron Creative Station 510 and double laminating cartridge
Cricut Expression
Life’s A Beach Cricut cartridge
Alphalicious Cricut cartridge
Paper for bookmarks and bookmark decor
- Kara’s bookmarks measured 6″ x 2″
- Colin’s bookmarks measured 8.5″ x 2″
crayons, makers, etc to color on the bookmarks

First I had Kara look through my Cricut cartridge books to see what cuts she wanted to use for her bookmarks.

She wanted to use the Alphalicious font to cut out her name and the #5 flower from the Life’s A Beach cartridge. Kara made sure the paper was adhered well to the Cricut mat by using a brayer. I think using the brayer is her favorite part of the Cricut cutting process!

After the letter were cut, we put adhesive on the letters using my Xyron X. The letters are cut in shadow at 1.5 inches. The X is wonderful for adding adhesive to smaller pieces of paper or even adding new life to existing stickers.

We cut the letters at 1.5 inches because I thought Kara would line them up horizontally but she surprised me by placing them vertically. Kara also decided to make sure the letters were stuck on the bookmark so she used the brayer.

I got out my scrapbooking markers and Kara started coloring. Right now she is in the phase where she wants every space covered.

At this point Colin walked in the office and asked if he could make a bookmark too. I asked him what he wanted on his bookmark and he said sharks! There is a shark on the Life’s A Beach cartridge so we cut 8 sharks at 1.5 inches. Colin liked using the brayer too!

Next we cut Kara’s #5 flower from Life is A Beach. I used the pieces feature and cut 3 of each color. We used the X to put adhesive on the flowers and then she placed them on the bookmarks and colored. Colin colored on his bookmarks too!

The final step was to laminate the bookmarks. This was done easily with my Xyron Creative Station 510 and the double laminating cartridge.

The final step is to trim the lamination to a little less than a quarter of an inch on all sides of the bookmark.

Hopefully the tissues won’t disappear as quickly around my house now!