High School Just Got Cooler

September of 2022 marked an official milestone in our home - both boys were officially high schoolers. It seemed to happen in the blink of an eye! No longer were we buying Spider-Man backpacks and Sonic the Hedgehog Lunch Boxes, and these two didn't really care about a first-day back-to-school outfit. I’m grateful they still let me take their pictures.

Scrapbooking Tips

I had fun pulling together this layout. I really wanted to stay away from any "cutesy" back to school papers and embellishments because these two were now high schoolers. I used Photo Play’s Brainiac paper collection because I felt it had a more mature color palette and graphics.

My starting point was an Allison Davis sketch that called for two different types of pattern paper, but I stayed with the one pattern I felt most embodied high school.

To create the border of school subjects, I had to fussy cut! One sheet of pattern paper in this collection was simply a list of subjects. I carefully cut out each subject, leaving a narrow white border. Then I stitched on each word before I adhered them with foam tape to add dimension. Because the pattern paper I used was so busy I did not want to add many embellishments, but I wanted to add more texture. Creating a stitched border was my solution.

For my title, I used a cut file from Cuts & Prints. I cut the words in white and glued them to a 8x6” paper that looked like a chalk board. It needed a little color, so I added some colored stars in the corners.

I really liked the more mature look for my high schoolers, but I do miss the bright, vibrant colors of back to school layouts past.

Supplies:

Cardstock - American Crafts and The Stamps of Life

Pattern Paper - Photo Play

Star Punch - Fiskars

Cut file- Cuts & Prints Silhouette Design ID 374915

Embroidery Floss - DMC