Monday, August 15, 2011

Back to School with Kerry Lynn Yeary



It's August 15th and in some areas across the country children are back in school!  If they are not in school yet where you live, they are surely counting their pens and pencils and getting ready to start soon.  Your children may even be young adults starting the next phase of their life in college.  You could be an auntie or a grandma to a cute little student.  Whatever the situation, we hope our Back to School with Jenni Bowlin Studio feature will be helpful and inspiring!
Today Kerry Lynn Yeary is sharing a great organizational tool for all those school papers.


I've been wanting to have a more organized way of documenting the littles school year experiences ever since the bean started kinder 3 years ago. Up until now I have just been writing notes on our family calendar and putting select bits of memorabilia and schoolwork and art projects into a box, not the best thing to do when you want to remember "when" they got that 100% in spelling or drew that family portrait.

This year I decided I wanted to make binders "Diary of a wimpy kid style" and have everything ready before school started. I got simple plastic window binders at target and then added some printables that I designed to the gorgeous JBS "group photo" paper. I printed the appropriate grade year for each & then cut the papers to size and slide them in the front window.
JBS products used : Group Photo pattern paper, Deco Chain pattern paper, Photographer's Mark chipboard buttons, mini Chalkboard Alpha stickers in black 

Since these binders are going to be sitting on the counter, near our mail basket & other home organization items I wanted to know who's binder was whose so I could select them easily when I wanted to add a layout, memorabilia item or write in the calendar.

To do this I cut a strip of kraft cardstock to size then added a slightly smaller piece of JBS "Deco Chain". Then I stamped the JBS medallion stamp on a tag, cut it out, added each name with the black "Chalkboard Alpha" stickers, and mounted it on a JBS "Photographer's Mark" chipboard circle before mounting it on the paper spine & sliding it under the window sleeve.

The interior pages hold the printable claendar that I created for the school year and I'll be adding memoralbilia, art, as well as layouts documenting pictures that I plan on taking over the year.

I'll have the printable of the outer "Diary of a" pages {preschool through highschool} as well as the interior calendar pages posted on my blog on monday if you'd like to download them to use for a similar binder.

Here's to another fabulous school year! 

x0 

kL


Thank you kL for a wonderful idea!