My daughter had a wonderful pre-kindergarten teacher two years ago and we are fortunate that my son has the same teacher this year. Mrs. Moore is a caring teacher and she teaches her students all the skills they need for kindergarten and much more. Mrs. Moore had a milestone birthday recently. I always feel like milestone birthdays make a person reflect on their life and their accomplishments. I want Mrs. Moore to know what a wonderful effect she had on her students so I thought up an idea to make her an album with photos and notes from her students. This album would be perfect for a teacher’s birthday or to celebrate a teacher’s retirement.

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About a week and a half before Mrs. Moore’s birthday, I sent out an e-mail to all the moms of all the current and past students for whom I had e-mail addresses. In the e-mail I stated that I was making a birthday gift for Mrs. Moore’s birthday and that I wanted to involve both current and past students. I asked for a landscape photo of current/former students and also an optional 4×6 note for Mrs. Moore. I received an even number of photos from former students and current students that spanned 6 of the 7 years that Mrs. Moore has taught at the preschool.

You know I LOVE Project Life mini albums. If they ever stop making them, I am going to have to buy hundreds and hoard them. Here’s how I put together the album.

Supplies:

• Project Life Mini Album in kiwi
• 2 packages of Project Life “Celebrate” themed cards
• Becky Higgins corner rounder
• paper trimmer
• photos galore!!!

1. I gave out Project Life note cards to all the mom’s that I see regularly. For the other moms, I asked them to send me the note in the mail or drop it off at my house. I loved all the notes that the students hand wrote.

2. I edited all the photos I received and cropped them. I blurred the background if the photo had a busy background. Here’s my tutorial on how to do that in Photoshop Elements.

3. I added each child’s name and current grade to their photo using Photoshop. If you don’t have Photoshop, you could always do this with a photo-safe pen.

4. I looked through all my photos for more photos of each child so that Mrs. Moore could see more of her impact on the students. The Project Life Mini albums have 6×4 pockets and 3×4 pockets so I also combined two photos onto a 4×6 for the 3×4 pockets. I created one of these merged 4×6 photos for each student. Here’s my daughter’s merged photo.

For each student or set of related students (siblings) I had the happy birthday photo, plus two additional 6×4 photos and one merged photo.

5. After the photos were printed at my local photo lab, I used a paper trimmer to cut all the merged photos in half. Then, I used the Becky Higgins corner rounder on all the photos so that the corners would match the corners of the Project Life cards.

6. I added Project Life cards and wrote a note for Mrs. Moore for the front of the album.

7. I assembled the layouts so that each student or set of related students have a two page spread. Here is my son’s layout and closeups of my daughter’s layout.

8. I finished the album off by adding a Project Life card to the front of the album.

Mrs. Moore loved looking through the album. I know she liked all the pictures but she was especially touched by all the older students who submitted pictures and handwritten notes for her. I hope Mrs. Moore realizes what an enormous impact she has on all of her students through the years. I think this type of album would make a great gift for a retiring teacher as well.

If you liked this birthday album, you may also be interested in the Baby Whale Themed Album and 40th Birthday Guestbook that I made with Project Life mini albums. Happy scrapping!

Disclaimer: This post contains an affiliate link. I only recommend products that I love.