Tuesday Tutorial: A Birthday Tradition

Hi guys! This is Pam here, sharing a family tradition and a little "how-to" for pulling this project together.

March is a birthday heavy month for us! My son turned 6 years old last week and it's become a tradition to do a little Q&A with him to capture little bits of life. So every year, close to his birthday, I sit down and ask him to answer these questions:

1. What makes you happy?
2. What makes you sad?
3. What is your favourite thing to do?
4. What is your favourite food to eat?
5. What is your least favourite food to eat?
6. What is your favourite colour?
7. What do you want to be when you grow up?
8. What is your favourite toy?
9. What is your favourite show?
10. What is your favourite book?
11. Who is your best friend?
12. What is the best part about being a kid?
13. What is the hardest thing about being a kid?
14. What is your favourite thing to wear?
15. Where is your favourite place to go?

Nothing earth shattering here, but it's always fun to hear his answers and see how things have changed from year to year.

And then, I try to incorporate his Q&A into a layout for our family album. This year I decided to go with a pocket page design and used my March Pocket Life kit to create it.

The left side is a full page photo with just a few simple embellishments. I asked him to write his name for me, thinking it would fit into one of the 3x3 squares, but it ended up being huge. So I trimmed it down and stitched it onto the photo instead.

The right side is a 9x12 pocket page with 12 - 3x3 pockets. I filled the pockets with a few co-ordinating patterend papers from the March kit and created some new 3x3 journal cards by trimming down strips of one of the journal cards and attaching it to white 3x3 cardstock cards.

I typed out the questions in Photoshop Elements on a 6x4 canvas with the intention of including 2-3 questions on each card.

I printed the cards onto 4x6 matte photo paper...

and adhered patterned paper over top of the selection that I wanted printed onto my patterned paper...

and ran it back through the printer again, trimmed them down to 3x3 and rounded the corners.

This year, I asked him to write his answers on the cards for me to include his handwriting at age 6. (They're working hard to write words the way they sound in senior kindergarten, and I love having that part documented in our album!)

The thing I like about this project is that it doesn't have to be just for your kids. Consider doing a Q&A for yourself each year and have fun comparing the answers from year to year :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Pam