5 Ideas on Making a Holiday Memory Scrapbook

One sure thing about the holidays: as the family gathers together there will be a discussion -or worse argument- about something that happened at a past holiday gathering. The kids received duplicate gifts 2 years ago -or was it three? Uncle Joe hit the eggnog a bit too hard and ended up sleeping it off under the tree when??

A simple way to help provide evidence of all the fun-filled events of holidays past is start NOW to document the evidence -uhm create a holiday memory scrapbook. But how shall you do this?

1. Decide on theme for the book. YES, these are holiday books which means they already have a basic theme, but see if you can refine it. Organize the memories by year or by person. Or look through the photos you have and see if another -less obvious- theme presents itself. It might be color, food, facial expressions, anything that will let you organize some of your memories.

2. Edit the photos. While you may have 50 photos from last year's Christmas Eve dinner, choose the best 10 to 15 to use. Make the photos you use the ones that truly tell a story. They do NOT need to be the "best" photos artistically-they should be best to tell the story.

3. Trim the photos and add a frame. You can trim out any excess background (scrap bookers call this cropping) to make sure the focus stays on the story element. Border the pictures with one or two complimentary colors of paper. Think of this as the matting and framing of the pictures. Because this is in paper, though, feel free to be creative! Are the pictures of Thanksgiving dinner together? Frame these pictures with a cut border(s) in the shape of a turkey or circles to look like fancy dinner plates. Christmas memories might be framed in shapes of fancy ornaments.

5. Leave room for the story. As I understand it, the difference between a photo album and a scrapbook is that the scrapbook tells the story. Space for writing/printing/sharing the story on the page is important.

6. Feel free to add other ephemera. If you decide to make a scrapbook from this year's holiday gift-giving, include the gift tag with the photo. Or add the Thanksgiving menu, the newspaper's weather report (especially if a blizzard explains someone's absence or their extended presence). Anything to do with the day that might spark additional memories of that exact moment in time.

If I were spending the holidays with family, I would make several of these books ahead of time- minus a lot of the story. Then invite the people there to look through the pictures and write their own recollections of the days and years past on the pages. Letting a photograph spark memories from all the different perspectives would be the greatest gift for me and from me.

If your images are already on your computer-or stored online- you can use a website like scrapblog to create your memories, because sometimes holiday photos NEED the story shared. I supply as evidence myself:


Holiday Scrapping Talk:

Great instructions for Making Your Own Holiday Cards and Keeping Sane While Doing So can be found at Ella Publishing's blog. The secret is using technology.

Turn your blog into a scrap booking page. The Theory of Creativity explains using My Digital Studio to design your blog template.

I also blog at: Weight for Deb and BlogHer on Wednesdays and Saturdays.