Basketball-Themed Layouts and Embellishments

Over the years my son has played many sports, so that means I have a lot of sports pictures to scrapbook. One of these sports is basketball.  He has played every year since he was four.  Since most years his colors or team name has changed, I find it hard to find sports embellishments that complement my pictures.  So I have come up with a solution.

Cut it up! - I am seeing a lot of papers that have cut-ups incorporated into their line.  For example, in this layout I used paper from Bella Blvd, Making the Team collection.  One of the papers called Fan Club has dozens of speech bubble and star burst phrases on it.  I cut out a couple and attached them with pop-dots to my page.  You can also make your own very easily in a word processing program as well.

Diecut It - Creating and cutting your own embellishments either with a manual or electronic die-cutting machine is so easy.  On the above two layouts I found great diecuts to use for my title and coordinating elements.  I love that you can really customize your embellishments by using paper in certain colors that match your pictures or even download a special font to make a unique title like my Fireballs title in my layout above.

Emboss It - On the layout above I die cut the flame and basketball but then I took it a step further for extra interest.  I ran the basketball part through my Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder.  Then I added a bit of brown ink to the top of the raised dots to make it look like a real basketball.

Stick ‘em - Cardstock sticker sheets are amazingly easy to use and often are found in every theme imaginable.  Just peel, stick and pair them up with your team's colored cardstock.  For added dimension you can brush a little baby powder on the back and then adhere foam or pop dots to it before adhering it to your page.  On this page I used a basketball sticker to showcase the theme of the page.

Repurpose It - Since most teams have a set of team colors, look for scrapbook papers that use those colors.  Many scrapbooking theme lines offer designs that are stripes, solids, or geometric shapes in the colors that you need.  Even though it might have come from a birthday theme line, it doesn't have to be used for that if it works with your team's colors.

10 Ideas for Basketball Layouts:

1. A team page, group picture, or teamwork
2. A page about the coach
3. Championship win
4. Sportsmanship
5. A comparison of pictures through the years as your child grows (with the title, "Closer to the Rim")
6. First goal, three pointer, free throw, jump shot, foul, steal, or injury
7. Position played
8. 5 things I love most about basketball
9. Player's number
10. Stats