High school and college commencement season is winding down in my neck of the woods. The UW system held its graduation ceremonies a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, the majority of our city’s public and parochial high schools will complete their commencement exercises tomorrow night.
If your student already received his diploma, you might be in stage two of the scrapbooking process. Once you’ve captured all the pomp and circumstance with your digital camera, it’s time to move on to the tedious task of reviewing and editing the shots, and then selecting the best of the best to feature in your graduation-themed memory book.
However, before you start designing layouts, it’s a good idea to choose the type of commencement scrapbook that best suits your taste. For example, if you are looking to create a traditional graduation scrapbook, then you will need quite a few high-quality photos from the ceremony plus mementos and other souvenirs from the day. Conversely, if you are chronicling the entire year leading up to graduation day, then you won’t need as many photos of the commencement exercises. However, you will need pictures of each stage of the graduate’s life leading up to commencement.
Another option is to create a non-traditional graduation scrapbook in which you incorporate mixed media or combine a variety of different scrapping techniques in a single album. For instance, you might use mortarboard and graduation gown-shaped stickers to spice up layouts featuring photos from the actual commencement ceremony, then use rubber and digital stamps to include messages such as “Congratulations!” and “Class of 2011” on layouts that feature pictures from the graduation party. Other additions include graduation theme frames, poems, and journaling blocks.
If you are in need of inspiration for your graduation scrapbook consider visiting online resources, such as Craft Bits, which features instructions for unique commencement-themed albums. Or, head over to Cool Clips, which offers free graduation clip art.
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