Scrapbooking Solo Sports

Have you been to one karate tournament after another? Can you hum the entire score of “The Nutcracker” as a result of watching your daughter dance in a sugarplum costume for the last five years? If so, chances are you are the owner of a large stash of photos of friends and family engaged in individual sports, and in need of some scrapping ideas for those photos.

Although we often think of soccer and baseball when hearing the phrase, “sports photos,” many might prefer the solitude of the long distance run, or the intensity of a flying side kick. Distance running, golf, tennis, karate, rock climbing and dance all come to mind as sports that although they may be pursued as part of a team effort, are won or lost on the merit of an individual’s performance.

A Different Focus
The nature of individual sports suggests a different focus for the photos you might take. Although any sport involving loved ones dictates photos that feature that person, individual sports will offer far more opportunities to place the spotlight on individuals. Depending on the sport in question, you can shoot to capture reflective moods, as in dance or yoga, or intense moods, as with martial arts or distance racing. Here are some possibilities to consider:

• Lined up in the pack at the starting gate
• Preparing for the big event: tying on shoes, stretching out, carrying the bag of gear into a locker room or studio
• Performing a key action: karate sidekick, dance plie, clearing the hurdles
• Conference/congratulations with coach
• Receiving trophies, medals or other honors
• The tools of the sport: think of the triathlete, who needs a bike, a water bottle, running shoes and swim goggles

When taking these shots, it’s always a temptation to capture whole body poses, but focusing on the person’s face can tell more about their focus. In most individual sports, intensity and focus are key to success, since that will be what keeps an athlete motivated on that long, lonely run.

Savor the Memories
It won’t be long before you have acquired an impressive amount of photos or digital files of your athlete, along with all kinds of memorabilia. No doubt you’ve saved all the associated memorabilia, such as certificates of participation or advancement, medals, trophies, race numbers or event programs. Don’t forget about these items when planning your layouts or other displays. Try some of the following ideas on your next design.

• Create a mini-book to hold journaling, using the race number for the book cover.
• Scan or use the actual medal to create a border design for your layout.
• Scan the program from an event for use as a background element.
• Shrink certificates or make small prints and include them like a photo in your design, helping to visually tell the whole story.
• Save receipts detailing the expenses behind your event or sport, using them to illustrate a credit-card style design. Think of the commercials detailing costs, and ending with a statement about that occasion being “priceless.”

Putting It All Together
You have the photos, you have the memories, and you have the memorabilia. How can you display them to best advantage to enjoy in your scrapbooks? If you’re a sports mom like I am, you may have reached a saturation point when it comes to scrapping these events. You love attending all their events, but after a while, what can you possibly do to make it new and exciting?

There are two ways to approach this dilemma. One is to see this as your creative challenge, thinking outside the box to achieve new and different designs. The other is to create a consistent design and vary the colors and embellishments. The second approach may sound less exciting in the creative sense, but it is helpful to remember that in the future, no one else will look at your work and say, “Oh my, Mom sure was behind the trends when she scrapped this ski race, wasn’t she?” Instead, they’ll appreciate that your attention to their passion extended to saving it in an attractive manner to share with their families.

Go for Broke!
The first choice, creative thinking, will allow you to reach the finish line with panache and flash. When planning such designs, consider approaching them differently than your standard layouts. Here are a few ideas to inspire you.

• Create a theme album that reflects some aspect of the sport. If you have a future NASCAR driver working the Go-Kart circuit, create a special album using an old license plate that is trimmed, filed and hinged together for the cover. The inside can be created using all the fun license plate embellishments available. Not a racer? You could do the same with event numbers (such as marathoners wear) for your cover.


• Take a look at the local sports page in your newspaper for inspiration. Arrange your elements to look like they were taken from the sports page. You can even have fun using paper tearing skills to make it appear it was ripped from a newspaper.


• If your sport involves more refined athleticism, such as dance, take a cue from a performance program and fashion your design to look like a page from one of those.


• Maybe you’ve reached a goal, such as doing your first triathlon. This is an event to celebrate. A wall-hung canvas creation done collage style will be a great motivator, or a wonderful gift that can move with your athlete from bedroom wall décor to dorm room style.

Attractive, but Finished!
In following the second suggested approach, I’ve found that selecting a consistent palette and design scheme has helped me get more of these layouts finished. I choose a black cardstock, and one or two accent colors. Often, the uniform worn will help you choose those colors. I pick one focal point photo that is larger. This is frequently one I was able to purchase from the sports photographer. I make a simple border strip vertically on one page, include this focal photo and a title block. The other side of the layout will have the rest of the photos and memorabilia matted to complement the “feature” side, and most of the journaling will be placed there as well. You can choose an overall sketch or design that pleases your eye, then vary it for each layout. Neutral solid colors, with perhaps some of the increasingly available patterned papers for various sports as accent, seem to work the best for this approach.

An Athlete’s Approach to Scrapping
Hopefully these ideas will help spark your own muse when you next face such a project. If you’re still stuck for ideas, go out and enjoy a bit of lonely sport yourself, whether it’s biking, running, yoga or something else. Chances are, as you achieve that moment known to all solo athletes as the “runner’s high,” your creative mind will find just the right answer to your layout problem. You’ll have great ideas and burn some calories at the same time!

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