Commissioned Scrapbooking

Just where did I disappear to in December? I had the delightful opportunity to assemble two incredible photo albums for the sons of my friend, scrapbooks which chronicled a few of the highlights of the first 18 years of each of their lives. In the four weeks I spent on this challenge I watched mere babes bloom into young men, aided and surrounded by love and opportunities. I also learned a few new tips that I'll take forward into my next scrapbook project.

The project began one evening when I took a call from a women with whom I'd worked for several years and at two schools. Both of her boys were now in college and while she'd saved photos and memorabilia throughout their lives, she'd never gotten around to creating scrapbooks with it all. Could I help her out?

I hadn't previously considered scrapbooking for other people's memories, but I invited her to bring her box of memories over and we'd have a look together.

And she came over. With FIVE 14-GALLON TUBS of photos of memorabilia!

3 of the 5 tubs of photos and memorabilia!*

Once my eyes stopped bugging out of my head, I suggested I start sifting through one of the boxes marked for one of her boys while she began to sort out a box that was mixed between the two. The purpose of my task was to begin getting an idea of which items could/should/might be included in a memory book, which might be better off in simple box of memories and extra photos, and, in general, if the project-on-whole was something I could wrap my mind around.

Two hours later I was in love with their family stories. I was hooked. I was doing these books!

My time was spent organizing at the front end, including sifting through images and memorabilia, determining a timeline of life events (the books were meant to be generally chronological), and winnowing down the wealth of treasured imagery into a sampling of each boy's childhood in two-page layouts. I met with my friend once or twice a week to further sort out photos (the boys looked alike in their younger years); ascertain important life events, friends, and relatives; and discuss gaps and progress. The sorting process also allowed me to return the un-scrapbooked material in tubs organized by child and rough timeframes.

With a general layout in place, I piled up my draft pages and took them into my nook where I had easy access to all the cutters, papers, tapes, and other tools I enjoy using for my scrapbooks.

This is what I call "crafting time," which I consider to be my most valuable scrapbooking asset, after my organizational talents. I make judgements about which items will ultimately be included and how they'll be displayed to best effect. I'm not one to employ lots of stickers and fancy edges, but I believe that a reasonable amount of creativity should be employed to help tell a story.

How is this done? Unfortunately, there's no formula. As I review my journey with these books I'm self-impressed with the amount of analysis of images, memorabilia, family timeline, and discussions with my friend. Thankfully, I seem to have a good instinct for pulling these together.

And voila!

---

Three days before Christmas I was able to deliver the second of two albums for my friend. You can bet that we cracked a bottle of wine for a toast! It was still up to her and her family to write in the details (called "journaling"), for which I gave her non-fading pens, but the visual story was sealed into a readable book.

My friend was pleased with the results, as were her boys on Christmas morning. She reported that they've been through the books, as have their doting aunts. I'm so pleased to have been a part of this project and to help create such a memory-filled gift that they (and their eventual wives and children) will enjoy for a lifetime!

*Images have been intentionally filtered to respect the privacy of my friend's family.