Some things that are repeated: Halloween costumes (start an album that holds only the picture of your kiddos in their costumes each year), Baseball Team photos (I did one of these - it's in the new DW 2007 calendar ;), Class pictures, Karate belt pictures, and so on. See what I mean? Start a little album for each of these, and when you take those pictures you have a quick and easy place to put them. Aaah...And with so many smaller-sized albums on the market now, there's definitely going to be one to suit your needs.

So what is this? I decided to make a little album of 'First Day' pictures. School through College and beyond (and I'll admit to getting a little choked up typing up the tab for 'Life'). We all take pictures of our kids heading out to their first day of school, right (well, if they let us, that is!)?

I decided to use a BasicGrey Lunchpail album. Perfect! The album itself came with almost everything I needed: The outside box *and* all the inside pages and dividers. Even little adhesive-closable page protectors. Perfect! FYI: There was also a sheet of chipboard embellishments, but I decided to set those aside to use on another project.

I let Aidan choose the papers. I steered him toward the new lines from My Mind's eye, which I love. His Pick? The Wild Berry collection from the Everyday Tango line (good choice, buddy!).

As far as design, I went simple and did as much work up-front as I could. Theme books don't have to be fancy - and this was one I'm going to be adding to for the next 15 years, so I wanted to make it as easy on myself as possible.

How to:

1. Gather supplies!

2. In a word processing or photo editing program, format text boxes to a bit larger than the size of the file tabs that come with the lunchpail kit. Set the fill to dark blue and the text to white or clear. Print on photo paper. In a photo editing program, resize and print the photos you have to work with (so far!).

3. Cut out the file tab labels and adhere them. Flip over and use a craft knife to trim off the excess edge.

4. Cover the front of the tabbed dividers with patterned paper (just to make 'em look pretty!) and cover the individual pages with kraft or some other neutral. I made as many 'base' pages as I thought I'd need. 6 for Elementary School (k-5), 3 for Middle (6-8), etc.

5. Cover the outside of the lunchpail. This was pretty fun. I basically just cut strips and wrapped them around the box. Any adhesive will do - I used both a Xyron and my trusty Hermafix. For the title, I simply formatted a 2" x 12" text box in a word processing program and set the fill to olive green. I then added the text with 3 additional text boxes (create a text box, type part of your title, and use the selection arrow to grab and move it where you want it, and so forth). I used the 'arrange' function to put the title words over the title number.

6 - 8. Create as many of the inside pages as you can and put them in page protectors (included in kit). Keep it simple! I just used a photo and some printed text (school name is blurred). For embellishment? Just a 3" strip of patterned paper. Something I won't have any excuse not to easily update every year.

9.Stick all your pages and dividers inside the lunchpail album. So nice and neat.

10. To prepare for future updates, I cut a whole bunch of 3" strips - ya just never know what the kid's going to decide to wear on his first day of school, right? I just stuck these in the back of the dividers.

11. Add a little ribbon to the handle, and voila! A cute little theme album that will be easy to update with each year's 1st day of school (and college...and life...waaah!) picture.

Thanks for checking it out! :)