The latest CK Kit of the Month is an amazing baby kit designed by Becky Higgins that includes everything you need to document the first year of your baby's life. It is all set up so you can use the pieces to create a no stress complete album starting with the first month and continuing on through each month.
However, if you are like me and you like to mix things up... and you don't like to do things in order... you can also just play around with all of the elements in the kit and create pages that you can insert into your current album(s).
The thing I love the most about this kit are the different page protectors that are included. Ali Edwards is a master at using divided page protectors and I have always wanted to incorporate some of them into my albums. (See examples of Ali's here.)
So, naturally I was drawn to these from the kit and they were the first thing that I wanted to play around with. There are a few different styles of page protectors in the kit. I used the ones with the square spaces and I printed a bunch of different photos of Emily from the same "shoot". Often times I take a bunch of photos of my kids in one sitting and then I have the hardest time choosing just a few to scrapbook. This is a fun way to print all or most of them! I love how it shows so many different expressions of her and shows her in so much more detail! I created small blocks to scrapbook and journal on for a few of the squares. Some of my embellishments are inside of the page protector and some of my embellishments (like the big flower and the "month 7" circle) are on the outside.
I also wanted to print one of the photos in 12x12 format to showcase in one of the normal large page protectors. This is also something that I often want to do but for some reason don't do as much as I'd like. I love the large scale and the focus on the photo. Sometimes an image is all you need and the larger it is the more impact it has. Because this is an enlargement and nicer quality, I didn't want to stick anything right on the photograph. I decided to place it in the page protector and then I adhered my embellishments (the long border stickers and buttons) right on the outside of the protector.
I also love the tall narrow page protectors from the kit with the journaling cards that are made to fit. What a great idea and a way to write in more detail about the happenings from that month. The reverse side has the days of the month so you can write in specific things that baby did or experienced that month. Once I got writing, I realized that I had even more to say than the card would hold... and I also knew that I had already blogged about all of these important details in Emily's life (the blog post is about 4 pages long). So, I decided to simply print out my blog post and I have included it right in her album in regular 8.5x11 page protectors. I love that I now have the entire detailed story/events right alongside the fun and pretty scrapbook pages -- makes my album feel more meaningful and complete to me. I think this is something I will continue to do - merging my blog with my scrapbook albums and combining the two into one.
I also created a traditional 12x12 scrapbook page with the kit, with many more to come. There are so many cute papers and embellishments in this kit that I still want to use!
Most everything is from the kit with the exception of a few items - stamps by Hero Arts and from another CK KOTM, Making Memories paint and flowers and a rub-on.
On printing the square photos -- If you don't already have your photos printed and you want to save photo paper and money you can do this: I opened all of my photos in photoshop and cropped them into squares. Then I created a new blank document (I believe I did 2 12x12's and 1 8.5x11 to get all of these photos) and I dragged and arranged the squares onto the new documents until they were each full. Then I flattened each of the images and I was able to just order 3 larger prints that had all of my small photos on them. When I got them back, I simply cut out the squares and slid them right into the page protector. Instead of printing 25 4x6 prints and then cutting them down, I was able to just print 3 larger prints!
Phew, that was a long one... if you are still reading you are a trooper!! Hope you have a great day and a fun weekend! I am working on scrapbook projects and gearing up for the busy holiday photography session! I am also shooting a wedding tomorrow... so excited!
