Meaningful Gifts

The past two years, I've started doing something that really makes me happy (and if a burglar broke into my house at Christmas they'd leave pretty empty handed). I've made digital scrapbook pages for my family of their family history. I decided this year that I would make 10 per family and now that I've kind of got a layout idea for most pages, I can work on next year's early. I even had the added bonus of sitting with my husband's grandparents and asking them questions and seeing some really old portraits. The feeling that day was wonderful and I learned a whole lot more about them. And Grandma loved telling me all about her young self - who wouldn't! And my dad was nice enough to email me info. As well as the help I received from Tyler's cousin, B, and my in-laws. I even have some extra pages I can work on this coming year (along with photos). Now because I make them using Adobe Photoshop CS3, I can make several copies of the exact same page. For the parents I made 12x12 copies. For my sister and her family and then also for my bro I made 8x8 copies (I gave them albums last year). For my BIL I made 8x8 copies and bought them an 8x8 album. Digital scrapbooking has made my life easier and made sharing and keeping fun family photos and stories beautiful.

And I was able to send copies of the pages via email to Aunts and Uncles who want them so they can print them on their own. Saturday night we had a Christmas party with Tyler's Grandparents on his mother's side. I gave them an album and 8x8 pages I made for them. Grandma said to me, I thought you were making these pages for S (her daughter, my MIL). I said, "I did. I made them 12x12 pages. And I made 8x8s for you!" And then Aunt J said, "Oh wouldn't this be wonderful to display in your home for your Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren to look at when they visit." And then we got on the discussion about how sad it is that most important photos get hidden away as if they are protected by doing so. Anyway, here is a fun look at what I did. Tonight I will give the copies I made to my in-laws.

In answer to Marne's question:
First of all, thank you for your compliment!

I give them the album the first year I give pages. Not many people are going to run out and buy their own album and then those pages are sitting around with no way to share them safely. Then in the coming years, I just give them pages. This year for my family, they are just getting pages, since I gave them albums last year. But with my husband's family, we draw names, so each year for 5 years, I'll be buying and giving an 8x8 album with pages. Buying an album with slip in pages makes this sort of thing possible. I don't print these at shutterfly. The reason is because I need to add to it year by year. The pages you see here are actual chapter markers of a sort, or summary pages. And that also allows other family members to make and add more pages too. Oh and Marne, for those of my grandparents that have passed away (my Dad's side) I've just asked him for information. That way their story is not forgotten. And it's preserved with a photo of their face. So even though my children never met Emily or Briney, they still know who they are and what they did.