snorkel magazine

I had made a mock cover of a football magazine for my son Nick, and his friend's mom saw it and wanted me to do one for her son. SO, I thought I would submit it for the challenge. (couldn't hurt right) Everything on both of these pages was done by hand using a single photo as the background, even the bar code at the bottom was done by inserting little black rectangles in the "shape" menu. I wonder if there was an easier way to do that. Any suggestions? I'd like to do one for Rainee on a ballet theme.