Trevor at 18

Time for my annual Trevor At layout!

Trevor at 18 (affiliate link)

I really like how this masculine page turned out. What's funny is that the papers I used came from collections called "Her Birthday" (candle background paper and fussy-cut cake) and "Baby Boy" (blue diamonds). It's an important lesson not to be restricted by the title of a collection. All these elements work well for a young man.   

I'm so lucky to be the mom of such a smart, responsible, creative, ethical, calm, logical, trustworthy, honest, funny, hardworking, quiet, generous, kind, and talented guy. And I'm lucky that my 18 year old still cooperates with the birthday photos that are so important to me. I love you, Trevor!

Trevor at 17

 Seventeen. How?? Here is my annual "Trevor at..." layout. 

Trevor at 17 (affiliate link)

I am so proud to be the mom of this talented, honest, kind, trustworthy, cooperative, smart, reserved, clever, reliable, careful, calm, funny, level-headed, quiet, generous, and cautious guy. I love you, Trevor!

Trevor at 16

I can't believe I'm the mom of a 16-year old. Trevor is as wonderful a son as I could possibly want. As noted on my 'Trevor at 16' layout, he is creative, smart, trustworthy, talented, reserved, generous, kind, cautious, and responsible. And a whole lot of other great things. 

 

Trevor at 16 (affiliate link)

While I am really happy with this page, I am not at all happy with how it scanned. The background paper, which has a diagonal stripe, adds so much to the page. Only a tiny bit of it scanned correctly, just under Trevor's photo. The adjectives are on strips of paper glued on top of each circle; the little bit of dimension didn't scan well either. The title is glittery, but it doesn't look that way in the scan. 

After some debate, I used this page for the Circles space on my BASH-O card. It would have worked for Stars or Glitter. 

Trevor at 15

Time for my annual "Trevor at" layout! This time it's Trevor at 15. 

Trevor at 15 (affiliate link)

As always, I didn't look back on the adjectives I used to describe him until after I'd scanned the layout. Of course, most of the same words appear year after year. This time, I described him as kind, dependable, smart, curious, talented, quiet, trustworthy, steady, funny, and happy. I should have added awesome - he's a really great kid.

Trevor at 14

As always, I made the annual "Trevor at" layout without looking at the previous pages. I like knowing that the adjectives I choose to describe him are how I see him now, without influence from the past. Of course, most words don't change from year to year. He's been smart, generous, trustworthy, and reserved since birth. 

Trevor at 14 (affiliate link)

I always buy Trevor a new shirt for his birthday portraits, often a polo that he can then wear to church. (He hasn't had much opportunity to wear that shirt since his birthday, since going to church is not a thing during the pandemic. Since March, we've been on our couch each Sunday morning watching church live via YouTube and joining the fellowship hour after church via Zoom.) 

Anyway, I started the tradition of having Trevor wear a new shirt for his birthday portraits from the beginning. During his first year (when we took monthly portraits), it was a fun way to 'debut' the many gifted outfits and hand-me-downs he'd received. Fourteen years later, it's tradition. In looking back at his previous photos, I realized he is wearing the same shirt at 14 as he is at 8. Not the exact same shirt, as he has grown significantly since then, but the same shirt in a bigger size. No big deal, just something I noticed. I'm just thankful to have such a cooperative kid to do these portraits every year. 

Trevor at 13

Time to share my annual "Trevor At" layout! I'm now the mama of a teenager. 

Trevor at 13 (affiliate link)

As always, I chose the words to describe Trevor without looking back on what words I chose in previous years. It's always fun to see what words I pick year after year, versus which ones make a first time appearance. This year: smart, generous, happy, flexible, funny, optimistic, helpful, polite, trustworthy, kind, easy-going, cooperative, clever, reserved, confident, reliable, well-liked, and honest. I'm one lucky mom.

Trevor at 12

Here's my annual "Trevor at..." layout. It's crazy that he's 12!

Trevor at 12 (affiliate link)

This was the third of three layouts I recently finished away from home. I somewhat like it, but I would have chosen a different font for the title and a different way of highlighting the 12 if I'd had my entire stash at hand. Still, I am very happy to have finished it and pleased that I was able to do something I'd never done before. 

Trevor at Eleven

As promised, here is Trevor at 11. As usual, I made my list of adjectives before looking back at previous layouts so that I wouldn't be influenced by how I'd described him before. Of course, the list is pretty similar year by year.

Trevor at Eleven (affiliate link)

Trevor mentioned the other day that we need to have Grandpa make us more numbers. (He originally made 1-9, then made us a 0 and an extra 1 a few years ago.) I love that Trevor thinks we'll still be taking his birthday portraits at 22, 33, 44, etc. I'll count myself lucky if he cooperates through age 18! 

Trevor at 10

Every year, I create a birthday layout for Trevor using adjectives to describe him. When I made Trevor at 9, I thought it would be fun to use a word cloud for his 10th birthday that incorporated all the words I'd used to describe him each year. So that's what I did!

Trevor at 10 (affiliate link)

I made the word cloud using wordart.com/. I typed in my list of words from each layout, then chose the font and balloon shape. The words that appear the largest are the ones that I repeated the most over the years. Once I was happy with the design, I printed it and cut it out. It was so easy and I'm really happy with the layout. 

And yes, Trevor is 11 years old. This has been sitting on my desk 3/4 done for a very, very long time. In fact, I finished up the Trevor at 11 layout right after this one. I'll share that tomorrow. 

Trevor at 9

Trevor's annual birthday layout:

 

This time I described Trevor as smart, happy, creative, trustworthy, hardworking, cooperative, neat, talented, helpful, careful, responsible, cheerful, patient, mature and generous. Six of those were on last year's layout. I wonder... how many have been on the list every year? One of these days, I'm going to have to go back and check. It would be cool to use my yearly lists to do a Wordle-style layout for Trevor at 10.

Trevor at 8

Time to share my annual layout with Trevor's birthday portrait! This year, I described him as smart, cooperative, flexible, kind, agreeable, mature, responsible, careful, honest, funny, trustworthy and loyal. I make a point not to look at previous years' layouts until after making my list of adjective because it is so fun to see similarities and differences over time.

I sure love that kid. Eight already? Where does the time go?!

Trevor at 7

Here's my annual layout with Trevor's birthday portraits.  I described Trevor as smart, kind, talented, mature, happy, creative, honest, curious, trustworthy, clever, calm, and responsible.

 

I make a point not to look at the previous years' layouts when I come up with my list of adjectives, which makes it really fun to compare from year to year.  Last year at 6, I described him as smart, responsible, honest, creative, funny, trustworthy, careful, curious, helpful, and adorable. (You can see that layout here.)  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I hadn't thought to add 'careful' to this year's list.  Trevor has always been extremely cautious, often to a fault, and it is wonderful to see him starting to outgrow that and beginning to take tiny risks here and there.

Despite that little change, Trevor's personality has basically been consistent his entire life. 

At 20 months, I described him as intelligent, happy, trustworthy, funny, cooperative, organized, helpful, careful, athletic, curious and affectionate... fairly similar to this year's list.  

I'm a very lucky mommy.

Trevor at 6

Each year on his birthday, Steve takes portraits of Trevor holding up his age.  Then I take a minute to list the adjectives that best describe him.  These are some of my absolute favorite layouts to do.  Here is Trevor at 6.

 

My layout is based on this sketch by Shannon White.

Here's a look back at Trevor's birthday portraits from ages 1-5.  One of these years, I want to do a 2-page layout with one birthday portrait from each year to show how much he's changed and grown.  Maybe I'll tackle that soon....

Trevor at 5

I am very lucky in that my husband is a talented and knowledgeable photographer with professional equipment.  Every year, Steve does Trevor's birthday portraits.

Here is Trevor at 5:

I used this great sketch from Shannon White:

It's so fun looking back to see how much Trevor has grown.

Time flies when you're having fun!

Using Your Handwriting

I wrote this post as a member of the Guest Design Team at Flamingo Scraps and wanted to share it here.

My grandmother was a scrapper (long before such a word existed!). She died in 2004, just six weeks before my wedding. I miss her very much and am sad that my son Trevor never got to know her. However, through her scrapbooks, Trevor can learn about the lives of his great-grandparents. Her scrapbooks are a true treasure- not only for the amazing pictures, but because she journaled in her own handwriting.

Your handwriting, love it or hate it, is unique to you. There is no better way to include yourself on your scrapbook page than using your own handwriting. I'd like to share a few tips to make it easier to include your own handwriting on your layouts.

Use a light box

If you have difficulty writing in a straight line, you could obviously draw or stamp lines directly onto your page and follow those. But there's another very easy way to get lines on the page that won't show and don't need to be erased. Simply put a lined index card (or any other lined paper) under your project, turn on the light box, and the lines will easily show through.

This picture shows how well the lines show through when the light box is turned on.

And here is the completed layout.

Journal on paper strips

I've heard a lot of people say they don't like journaling by hand because they're afraid of messing up their layout. The great things about using paper strips is that since you're not journaling directly on your layout, you can't mess it up. If you happen to make a mistake on a paper strip, you only have to rewrite that one strip.

By the way, this 2-pager has 33 pictures on it.  That's a new personal record!


Journal individual words

If you like the idea of paper strips, but want something even easier that you absolutely cannot mess up, try journaling individual words.

I hope you're inspired to try a few of these ideas.  Happy scrapping!