Cass has just finished track season, and high school soccer starts conditioning in just a couple of weeks. It's also time for her to start training for cross-country season by logging as many miles as she can over the summer. Cami's competitive soccer team has a final tournament this summer, then they're off for a bit before beginning summer practices to prepare for the fall season.
Around here, sports are just a daily part of life. Both of the girls are active in a variety of sports, which means that we spend a lot of time on the track, the course, the soccer pitch. It also means that I end up with lots and lots of photos from these events. The problem is that after a while, the pictures all tend to look the same.
So what do you do with hundreds of pictures of your kids running, or kicking a soccer ball, or batting at home plate, or shooting a layup?
The biggest tip I can offer is this: Don't even attempt to scrap them all. There's nothing that can squash your creativity faster than lots of pictures of the same thing. Instead, pull out the best photos -- the ones that capture great shots, fun moments, or other memories that you want to remember, and forget about the rest. (To be honest, I delete the rest of mine, but if you want to keep them, you can easily have them printed and just load them into a traditional photo album).
Here are some options for different types of pages that I've made it a habit to scrap during our sports seasons.
A SEASON OVERVIEW: 2010 Season
Every sport that my kids participate in have some type of season-ending celebration, whether it's a school banquet or a party at the local pizza place. I like to combine those pictures with a copy of the game schedule for the season, including wins and losses, as well as any other stats that might be appropriate (for cross-country, that includes times, team results, locations, distances, and more). Pages like this, for both team and individual sports, are a great way to show growth over a period of time, and they help to capture the little details that might otherwise get lost.
TOURNAMENTS AND POST-SEASON COMPETITION: I Love To Run
Whenever my girls compete in tournaments or regional and state events, I create a layout to capture the special nature of that event. After all, not every athlete gets to participate at regionals or state, so this is something I want to commemorate.
A REFLECTION ON THE SEASON'S GROWTH: XC 5K
Each sport and each season brings with it a new set of obstacles. I make it a habit of creating a layout, written TO my girls, talking about these challenges and how they handled them. These layouts are a reminder of the hard work and dedication they've put in each season, and they serve as encouragement and praise. Sports aren't always about the good times, and these pages help to remember that even when it's really hard, it's worth it to keep fighting.
CAPTURE THE ACTION: Trackstar
I use burst mode a lot when I'm shooting sports pictures, and I loved the progression of these track shots, so I try to make sure that I scrap at least one page that focuses on the girls in action.
EMPHASIZE A "BIG" GAME: Run Like You Mean It
Every athlete has that star moment -- the race where he finishes in the top 10, the game where she scores the winning goal. I think that moments like these deserve their own layouts.
If you've captured the pages above, here are some other techniques you might want to try, if you are looking for alternatives to the typical sports page. Some offer topic ideas, while others focus on photography or design techniques.
GIVE YOUR KIDS A VOICE: Just for Kicks
Cami had to write an article for class at school about her greatest achievement, and she wrote about making the competitive soccer team for her age group. I thought it would work perfectly with these photos from her fall season. Plus, using the article here meant that I could toss the typed copy -- one less set of papers to have to file and keep.
CELEBRATE FRIENDSHIPS: Run Like Girls
Some of the best friends my daughters have made have been through their sports teams. I try to create a least one page each year featuring these same friends, so that we can look back and see how much they've grown and changed over the years. Even though these pictures are just a couple of years old, Cass and her friends always giggle at how "little" they looked her. (Elementary soccer pictures get even more giggles!)
INCLUDE THE WHOLE TEAM: Calloway XC
I end up with pictures of more than just my daughters (I really enjoy shooting sports, and I know that the other parents appreciate getting pictures of their kids, just like I love it when they share their photos with me!) Creating a grid layout like this is an easy way to include everyone.
DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE COACH: Meet the Lakers
Coaches play a key role in guiding and developing players, and capturing a couple of shots of them for your scrapbook pages is a great way to remember this. Whether you've got a photo of your coach in action or a posed shot, make sure it makes it onto one of your layouts.
INCLUDE AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: Coaches' Award
Trophies, certificates, medals, plaques -- awards should definitely find a place in your scrapbooks. Provide some background on what the award means, and include any other details about it. One of the things I like to do is record the audio from awards presentations and include a key quote or two from the coach. It's really nice to get their words on the page as well.
INCLUDE CAMPS AND PRACTICES: Futskilz AllStar
If you've got pictures from camp or practice, create a page with them. It's another way to document all the hard work that goes into preparing for a great season.
COMBINE ACTION SHOTS WITH POSED PHOTOS: Soccer Rockets
If you purchased a team and/or individual photos from a professional photographer, you can choose to scrap those separately, or you can combine them with action shots on one layout. Again, this is a great way to get an overview of the entire season.
INCLUDE MULTIPLE PHOTOS WITH PHOTOSHOP TECHNIQUES: Genuine You
This layout is a combination of a couple I've mentioned in this post -- the reflection layout and the action photos layout. The journaling talks about how hard this year was to transition to the varisty level after years of competing on the middle school level. For the photo, I merged 5 different action photos (taken with the camera on burst mode) of Cass. I also converted the background to black and white and kept the photo subject in color.
USE PHOTO EXTRACTIONS AND TEXT TECHNIQUES: JV Soccer
I think extracted sports photos look awesome, especially against a white background with graphic text elements. In this instance, I played off the double C in soccer, because my daughter plays for Calloway County -- so I colored those two letters in red.
CREATE A PHOTO COLLAGE: JV Soccer
There are lots of great templates that will allow you to combine multiple photos from a season into one simple layout. Even better, something like this could be framed and given as a coach's gift or presented to other members of the team.
CREATE TWO-PAGE LAYOUTS: Alumni Games
One of the easiest ways to scrap all those sports photos is to use two-page layouts. If you aren't comfortable creating two-pagers, use a template.
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