Scrapbooking: A Summer Crafts Solution to School Papers

If your child's school is anything like mine, you get papers and pictures sent home all through the year, but when the school year ends your child comes home with bags full of papers and projects and you're left drowning in a sea of school memories.

A lot of parents simply box these papers up and put them into the attic only to throw them away in the future, or sort through them and only keep the best; but what if there was a simple and fun craft that you could do with your child that would keep all these papers neatly in one place? Scrapbooking these papers and projects is the perfect way to save these memories and to keep the job from being too overwhelming, you could set up one night a week to work on the books with your child.

On the first night you'll need to simply sort through the papers, separating them by subject. Then each of you go through each pile and pick out your favorites, then go through the discard pile again to make sure you haven't missed any papers you want to keep. Now you have some idea of how many pages you'll need in your scrapbook; you can either go all out and get whole scrapbooking kits and supplies at a crafts store or you can go to a discount superstore and get less expensive supplies but the most important thing you will need is your child's imagination.

Allow your child to control this project with you as assistant and supervisor, after all, these are his or her memories and he or she will be the one who ends up with the book; as with any project, the more input a child has in it, the more interest he or she will have. Spreading the work out over a few weeks will also keep your child's interest fresh instead of burning it out in a day-long marathon of work.

Give your child total creative freedom and make sure there are plenty of decorative supplies to choose from; small foam shapes, paper to cut borders or shapes from, buttons, rhinestones, crayons, markers, glitter and plenty of glue. If you are a truly ambitious parent, you can make a party of it with a few of your child's friends; if each parent sends over different supplies then there will be more options for the children to choose from. You could even make it a traveling party and have it at a different house every week; not only does this make the project more enjoyable for the children; it takes the entire burden off of one parent.

At the end of a few weeks you will have a lasting memory of your child's school year and your child will have a lasting memory of making the scrapbook. You may even start a yearly tradition that your child will then carry on with his or her children. Not only will those precious memories be safely and neatly preserved, but you'll get rid of all those boxes in your attic