Saying goodbye to summer and hello to the memories

We have had a wonderful summer so far filled with many special outings, both big (our annual vacation, this year to the Black Hills) and small (local playgrounds and swimming holes). I wanted to create a project that would record the memories while being more interactive so that my boys could enjoy it more, so I created my own game of Concentration, otherwise known as Memory.

Here's what I did:

1. Resized 18 photos to 2.5 inch squares. The photos represent 18 special places where we spent time this summer. (I think the game would work well with fewer photos--9-20 would work.)

2. Selected papers to back the photos. I chose patterns that were fairly geometric. Here's the papers I selected (I used the B sides for each, and I misted the yellow to make it more intense):


Vintage Birdie from Homespun Chic


Fauna Stripe Aqua from Animal Crackers for Boys


Chocolate Bunnies from Youthful Eggsuberance

3. Trimmed the green dot paper to thirty-six 2.5 inch squares, punched thirty-six scallop circles out of the yellow, and punched thirty-six blue circles to nest in the scallops.

4. Created Word documents for the 18 places we visited. I made six 2.5 inch square text boxes per page, then typed the place names in fairly large (30-36 point) font. Just for fun, I colored each word to match the papers on the other side.


5. Adhered the blue circle to the yellow scallop circles, then adhered that to the green squares.

6. Adhered the 18 place names and the 18 photos on the backs of the green paper.


6. Created another Word document with the title of this Memory Game: Summer 2011. I made the words small enough to be punched out with a circle punch.


7. Punched the titles out with a 1-1/4 inch circle punch. I inked the edges with red ink and adhered the circles to the front of the Memory cards.

8. Ran the cards through my Xyron to laminate them.

Here's what the cards look like:




(Just so you know, this is not a match! The photo is from Weaver Lake.)

As a scrapper, my first instinct is always to create a layout to relive the memories, but the excitement my boys showed me when they saw this game tells me that an interactive game is even more fun for my family to relive the memories, and I'm going to do this every summer!