For Celebrating, Remembering and Organizing

I always kept photo albums and scrapbooks for each of my daughters when they were younger (see my post on organizing kids’ keepsakes) – and we love to look back through them at all the funny photos, pictures they colored or painted, cards they wrote, report cards, awards, etc.

There are lots of other clever and creative ways you can use them; keeping things for posterity, and also organizing what you want to keep safe. They have been so useful to me, as I’ve needed to clean out my father’ home after his passing recently, and also help my husband purge and organize years of ‘stuff’ in order to merge our possessions together into one family home.

Like many things, I learned the art of scrapbooking from my dad. See these clippings he kept of his illustrious football career through HS and college.

Celebrating

For my parents’ 50th anniversary, years ago now, we did the cutest thing. We made a special scrapbook for them, collecting notes, card and photos from friends and family. I snuck my parents’ address book, and wrote to loved ones asking them to submit something to me for the scrapbook. I got such a great response!

Check out what some of the pages looked like.

I would definitely consider this for any milestone birthdays, anniversaries, graduations or other life events worth capturing in an incredibly special gift they will treasure!

My husband gave me the most adorable scrapbooks celebrating our first years together. They were such meaningful gifts.

Wedding Album. Once you are an official legal couple, definitely spend the time on a wedding album. I didn’t do it until three years after our wedding, so the photos, cards, invitation pieces, newspaper clippings, etc. were literally ALL over the place. I finally took the time to get pictures developed and collect everything in one spot. It turned out great!

I put it together chronologically, from our engagement to invitations to the wedding itself. (Note that the album matches the invitation- we got everything on zazzle.com.) We had our guests fill out postcards sharing places they’ve traveled that they recommended for us, so I even have some of those in there! See my post on the perfect travel-themed wedding.

Similarly, consider an anniversary album where you can keep memories of your annual anniversary celebrations! I’m all about personalizing things with our names and dates to make it more special.

Remembering

Cleaning out old bins at my parents home in recent months, there were so many things that were just so darling I couldn’t bear to throw them away. But where do you keep them? Scrapbooks! Here are a few I made.

Cards, pictures and notes from my daughters. I found lots of things my girls had given my parents over the years. I figured at least one of my kids would want to keep this, for sure.

My home-made cards. I sent my brother and sister the more-special home-made cards they made for my parents, but kept any I had made for them in my own scrapbook. I have no idea how old I was, but I typed (on a typewriter) an invitation to a dinner party for my father. Ha!

Memorial Books. If you have lost parents or other loved ones, you likely have things from their services, etc. that you may have on a shelf somewhere. I thought it was a nice idea to make a book for each parent that has:

• Their obituary
• Program from the service
• Poems and/or readings
•  Cards and letters from loved ones

I added to each of the books some of the love letters my parents wrote to each other that I found when cleaning, too. I think it’s a wonderful place to keep those!

Organizing

I found old recipes in a folder in my father’s house, too. I thought it was a great idea to put these in a scrapbook, not just to have the recipes I remember fondly from childhood, but also to organize them. Often people have a bunch of recipes that people have given to them, handwritten in a junk drawer or otherwise disorganized. If that’s you, consider putting them in a scrapbook and keeping it with your cookbooks!

Documenting a Life. My husband has lived all over the country and world in the last 40+ years of his life, and has accumulated, no lie, at least 100 boxes of ‘stuff’. He is just now having to unearth everything and make decisions about what to keep, recycle, and pitch. During this process, if he opened a box and found small things like papers or photos, I said, ‘I will put those in your scrapbook’, and now I have several for him. The scrapbooks have been a really helpful tool, because now he knows those memories are all in one safe place.

Other things of his that have been perfect for his scrapbooks:

• Photos
• Ticket stubs
• Cards and notes
• Invitations
• Play and theater programs
• Newspaper clippings
• Magnets, buttons, pins
• Pamphlets for museums, parks, etc.

Vision ‘Notebook’. Back in the days before Pinterest, those of us who were trying to be creative and clever developed what we’d call a vision notebook. It’s a really fun activity that is fun to do with kids too, because it’s meant to help you understand yourself and get inspiration.

You take a bunch of old magazines, and cut out pictures that resonate with you–maybe an outfit, the layout of a home, a delicious looking meal. You put them into categories- ie style, home, food, and put all the pictures in a similar category together.

Scrapbooks are perfect for this activity because you can take out photos over time that maybe have lost their attraction for you. It’s a fun thing to pull out now again, maybe before you do some clothes or food shopping!

Important papers. I’ve found that papers kept in a filing cabinet or otherwise exposed to air over time can fade, lose color, and sometimes disintegrate somewhat. Just like the old recipes. Things that might make for an ‘important family documents’ scrapbook might be the following:

• Birth certificates
• Social security cards
• Passports
• Marriage license
• Divorce decree
• Home deed
• Car title
• Kids’ vaccination documents

If you get satisfaction out of organizing and keeping memories in a safe spot like I do, consider how you might use scrapbooks to do this in your life!

Let me know if you have any other ideas!