Big Project Made Easy: Summer Camp Album

 Hello, Memory Bound friends!
In today's post, I'm going to share an album project my daughter completed over Christmas break. By all accounts, this was a big undertaking, with tons of photos, memorabilia, and journaling to do. But the right tools from Memory Bound -- including a sturdy 3-ring binder, pocket pages, SN@P cards, and more -- made it fun and easy for her to finish this album. I hope that seeing how she approached this project will inspire you to scrapbook your big memories, too! 

When you're ready to get started, stop in to Memory Bound and we'll help you plan your project. We've got everything you need to create an album you'll treasure for years to come!
Janet

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This album details Bailey's summer as a counselor at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. She had a fantastic time, and I think the album truly reflects that! One of the best things about her project is that she took the time to write all of the details about her experience, while the memories are still fresh in her mind. Journaling truly helps your photos come to life!

We started planning the album when she was home for a very quick week at Thanksgiving. She chose a Doodlebug Storybook 3-Ring Album as it matched the camp colors perfectly!

Bailey completed the cover page last, when she was almost ready to head back to school at Indiana University. She chose a few favorite photos and put them into a collage using Picasa. A photo collage is a fun and easy way to create a cover page for your project.

 Her album starts out with "formal" camp pictures from each session, including the large professional pictures shown below. She also made sure to take a picture with all of her cabin girls for each session.

 

In addition to the formal photos, Bailey had a ton of great "everyday" shots to use in her album. She added a few SN@P cards here and there for color and to fill in some of her pocket pages. Here she used one ("Best Family Ever") as a title. These little cards were fun and handy!

 

 Over the summer she took pictures all around the camp. This layout features details about her unit. I love how she wrote so much about it!

 Bailey mixed up the page sizes in the album, using a few 8.5x11 and 6x8 page protectors here and there for variety. A 3-ring binder makes it super easy to do that! The canoe trip page below was going to be a small one but due to a cutting error on my part, the completed page didn't fit the page protector. (So much for Mom's help! LOL) So she mounted it on a larger background and now it's one of my favorites! (I always tell folks there are no mistakes in scrapbooking...just opportunities for creativity!)

I love how Bailey incorporated her handwriting along with computer journaling on her pages. It gives the album a fun, casual feel.

 

I'll never forget the day Bailey called me from Michigan, screaming and crying incoherently. Turns out she had encountered a snake while alone on security patrol in her unit! I've always stressed to her that journaling is the most important part of scrapbooking and I guess she has taken that to heart, as she wrote out all the details of that terrifying tale! :)

 Throughout the summer, Bailey took pictures of the little details in her cabin, including the signs on the wall.

 

She kept all of the drawings and notes from her campers and worked them into the album. The purple piece below was created by one of the art students. We copied it at Memory Bound so it would be safe to include in her album. I hope she frames the original for her future home!

 Bailey made good use of pocket pages. They enabled her to use a TON of photos in the album. Read more about them HERE!

She also made sure to take a photo with the camp sign! Here you can see another pocket page with a SN@P card in one of the pockets.

These mustache stickers were perfect for Mandatory Mustache Monday pictures!

Bailey kept a consistent color theme throughout the album. Her page backgrounds were mainly kraft and blue, with a few very simple patterns thrown in. She wanted the color scheme to reflect the colors at camp -- blues, browns, and greens.

We looked for ways to incorporate the artwork which hung on her cabin walls. We copied it at Memory Bound and used it for page backgrounds. I love how all of those pages turned out!

These are photos from one of the art shows which I got to attend during my short visit to camp. Students created an "undersea" world from fibers, shown in the photos at the left. It was truly amazing! To create her title, she die cut letters and used the negative part so the background color would show through, tearing around the opening of each letter.

 

Music was a big part of the camp experience. I'm glad she remembered to take a few photos to represent that aspect of the summer!

 The counselors recently met up for a reunion at a music educators' conference, so Bailey added those photos to the album. She doodled her title and wrote her journaling on a SN@P card. Fun and easy!

By the end of Christmas break, Bailey had a completed album documenting her wonderful summer camp experience! We carefully packed it in her carry-on bag and she toted it back to Indiana where she has had the opportunity to share it with her friends. I'm so happy she took the time to make this great project! It will be a treasured keepsake for years to come.