BYU Football Smash Book

How is your New Year going??  I hope you are feeling energized and ready to tackle your resolutions, for those of you who make them.  (Despite this bitter cold most of the U.S. is experiencing!)

I love the idea of writing things down and keeping records.  I have been an off and on journal keeper since I was a young kid.  It is a blast for me to look through photo albums, school papers, scrapbooks, journals, baby books...and I am always so proud of myself when I actually sit down and take the time to write.

For Christmas this year, I decided to make a journal smash type book for my aunt and uncle who are huge BYU football fans!  I mean, they have season tickets - and they don't even live in Utah!  They brave weather, crowds, traveling long distances - all for their beloved Cougars :)  And I wanted to help them remember their football fan adventures.

This would also be a great project for those of you who have a resolution to keep a journal or write down snippets of some aspect of your life this year.

So, here's a look at a bit of their book.

Keeping with the idea of a smash book, where anything goes, I got a used book with a blue cover (for BYU blue) to make into this journal - and a BONUS:: the title was Defensive Wounds... fitting, right?!

Take a look at my other post on reusing old books for a little more info on using this old book cover.  I took out the pages, punched holes, and used only the cover for this journal...

I cut cardstock in half to use as the pages, punched holes in the appropriate places, and then started embellishing!  My aunt and uncle had posted a few pictures on their social media sites (a great way to get pictures for surprise gifts by the way), and so I printed those off and finished a couple pages for them.  Most of the pages I simply created a template though, so they can fill them with whatever pictures and memorabilia they want.

If you don't know what a smash book is, go to Google Images and type it in.  You'll quickly get the gist.  Lots of pictures, words, little scraps of things you want to keep, all smashed onto pages, piled high, overlapping.  You can use washi tape, scrapbook paper, colored pens/pencils/crayons/stamps.  You can hand write or print words out.  You can use magazine pictures, real pictures, hand drawn pictures.  Anything that helps you remember, and is meaningful, is meant to go inside.  It is a lot of fun!

In keeping with the sports theme of the book, I included a space on many of the pages to write BYU vs. [blank], and what the date and score was.

Sometimes I included other types of pages, like the "5 Reasons we Love BYU Football" page below...

Another thing I liked was using watercolors to make backgrounds, or bubble wrap with paint on it as a stamp (as seen below).

I had a BYU magazine that had some pictures and logos that I used throughout, which was fun.  Tabs on each page and on stacked pictures make them easy to turn.  Tabs can be made with fabric, tape, paper glued down -- be creative!  Use paperclips and add fabric, ribbon or paper to those.  The more little bits the merrier!

I hope you are inspired to keep a new kind of journal or scrapbook - and maybe try making one of these smash books for yourself.  I love to look back at the things I've kept, and I love to share those things with my children!  Pictures and notes my parent's wrote are cherished items now that my sisters and I are grown.  And the great thing is, it doesn't have to be fancy!  Your handwriting alone will make it unique and worth keeping.  The sky is the limit with these books!

Finally, I made a free motion quilted BYU ornament for them...for the book or the tree!

Go BYU!!!

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