Toy Story

Do you remember that special toy you had as a child? The one you couldn’t sleep without, or the one you prayed Santa would bring you? My special toy was a scruffy old bear named Boo. Boo has a squeaker in his tail and many, many playground war wounds.

Boo played such a huge part of my childhood that I put him into my hope chest when I left home, and I still can’t part with him. I’ve decided that Boo’s contribution to my childhood memories should be recorded in my scrapbook. I’ve also decided to dedicate a layout in each of my children’s albums to their favorite toy.

I started thinking of all the ways I could honor my old companion and I’ve come up with a few ideas I would like to share with you. I hope you’ll take a moment to scrapbook your own treasured keepsakes from your youth, or those of your children.

Photograph the treasured items to create customized photo accents. One of my favorite ideas is to take advantage of the panoramic feature on your camera (or to use disposable panoramic cameras) and take an overhead photo of a grouping of toys. Legos, blocks, cars, dress-up beads, crayons, Easy-Bake Oven packets, etc., shot from above, so that they completely fill the view when you take the photo, make wonderful accent pieces. After getting the photos printed you can cut them up for decorative blocks, tag accents, die-cut letters, and color blocking pieces, or to use under vellum titles and journaling.

Use your scanner to add coordinating backgrounds, embellishments and logos to your page. If you have access to a scanner you could scan and print an enlarged image from the toy, such as a logo or the texture of fur on a stuffed animal. An actual board game scans very nicely, as do children’s books. These can be used as a custom background or can be faded out prior to printing your journaling over the image. Scanning in a Barbie Doll, printing her out the full height of your layout and then silhouetting her and placing her on one edge of your page would be a great border for that fashion-doll themed layout.

Include the item itself on your layout. Using the actual pieces from games and toys is a wonderful way to accent a layout of this type. Poker chips, cards, paper money, game pieces, or small metal pieces from construction sets all make dynamic layout accents and can be used in a variety of ways. Small holes can be drilled or punched into most items to create small tags. Sticker letters can be used on top of game pieces for a unique title treatment as well.

If your creative streak has rubbed off on your children and their favorite toys happen to be arts and craft supplies you have an abundance of page accents at your fingertips. You can adhere colored pencils or crayons directly to your layout, or use the packaging they came in. A small eight-count crayon box can hold tags for hidden journaling or even extra photos. Creating a beaded title with wire and brightly colored beads, or adding a flattened play-dough accent with a cookie cutter would help highlight a layout dedicated to your crafty offspring.

If you are concerned about the safety of using these items in your scrapbook, check the PH level with a PH testing pen to see if they are acid-free or use double prints of your photographs to prevent damage to the originals.

Layouts about toys are fun, and the playful accents you can create are only limited by your own imagination. Take some time to look around at home and in thrift stores and you’ll find a number of accents that would jazz up a layout about your treasured childhood play things. Keep an open mind and you’ll soon be scrapping away creating layouts for yourself and your children that will bring a smile to their face every time they see them.

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