When Maris was born, I ferociously entered the world of scrapbooking. I loved collecting the papers, documenting the stories and crafting the layouts. By the time Jack arrived, less than 3 years later, I had already completed 2 enormous books of Maris' first 1000 days. When Jack was a few months old, I started back to work part-time and my free time, allowing for the craft, all but ceased to exist.

The guilt that ensued with only having those 2 books and not having even 1 completed scrapbook for my Jack has lingered for the past 14 years and will probably bother me always. Maybe that is why I now have my camera with me 99% of the time and take pictures of my kids and their friends constantly. I include them in my blog posts so maybe this can serve as some sort of 'scrapbook' of their tween and teen days. {oh, the guilt!}  I love personal art crafted from momentos and that is the inspiration behind todays project. 

It's hard to see in the above image, but Maris was given a little Court pin for Homecoming. It's on her left lapel, under a curl. Rather than just throw it in a drawer at the end of the night, I wanted to do something special with it.

I laid her jacket on the bed and slid the gold necklace inside the lapel, trying to mimic the way it fell while she wore it. I took a picture of it and then made a 5x7 print on my copier.    

 I have a bin of frames that I have collected over the years and found the perfect one that apparently came from TJ Maxx. It is 6x6 and is an inch thick {a shadowbox type frame was needed}. I cut out the copy to 6x6 to fit in the frame.  

I slipped it back in the frame and set it in her room.

She loves it and now we have a sweet reminder of such a special year...

This would also work great if your child has received a patch, a ribbon or a badge! What have you framed that is special to you? I would love to hear!