Instead of celebrating the season with a monster Christmas party, this year my daughter’s school is hosting a Polar Express-themed winter shindig. The teachers are planning a series of activities and events, which feature lessons on trains, the spirit of giving and other topics covered in the classic children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg.
With all of the hard work going into designing the massive soiree, naturally, the school wants to document the event from beginning to end. That’s where I come in. Last week I found myself agreeing to join the scrapbook committee. A bunch of moms will be photographing all aspects of the event, and then creating a mega-memory book that will feature highlights from prep to party.
The committee decided that the scrapbook will have a train theme running through it, which makes sense, but I have no experience whatsoever crafting a choo-choo-themed album. Fortunately, the Internet is teeming with train-related relief for inept scrappers, like me. I found a bunch of free downloadable fonts for train memory books.
For example, Search Free Fonts has an incredible toy train font, which features letters in the shape of toy train cars. In addition, the site also offers a Traintracks font that creates letters from traditional train tracks. For a more sophisticated look, consider the TQF Freightrain and TQF Word Train font, which spell out words with a more mature look. Rather than the using a kid-friendly design, the TQF options employ a sleeker car set-up. DaFont also has several train-themed fonts that would work well for a Polar Express memory book. My favorites are Optimus Princeps, Northwood High and Veteran Typewriter.
Another bonus is that there is no shortage of train-themed scrapbook supplies available, from clip art to stickers. I’ve already made a list of the embellishments we’ll be using for some of the Polar Express layouts. Crafty Moms site was a big help as it has a slew of sample train pages on display for inspiration. Another excellent resource is the Scrapbook Generator site which features a nifty tool that creates a train track effect on individual pages.
Have you ever made a train-themed scrapbook?