Sharing your National Scrapbooking Day

Heritage 6x4

National Scrapbooking Day - a day for creating scrapbook pages to commemorate, celebrate, remember …

Have you thought of sharing your NSD? … how about spending a few hours with an elderly family member, neighbor or other senior to record some of their memories - one on one?

I've met many people who don't think their life has been interesting enough to record. But I've also met many people who wish they knew what it had been like for a grandparent who lived through World War 2 for example, what it was like growing up in the '50s and '60s, or how a loved one coped in a very difficult circumstance. We can imagine, but wouldn't it be better to hear it from them.

Depending on their dexterity, which deteriorates with age and some illnesses, you can help your senior make a layout themselves or you can record the information for them

Recording their story

Take along something to record your relative's story - unless you're a whizz at shorthand or have perfect recall!

Just chatting to him, with an unobtrusive microphone and a crib sheet with a few questions to stimulate the conversation, will make it easy on both of you. In fact just looking through his photos will stimulate enough memories and natural conversation

How are you going to remember which photo goes with which story? I suggest you take notes as you talk. Or you could take your camera along and photograph those you think would make good layouts. It depends whether you want to surprise your relative with an album or not.

Aim for simplicity

It can be difficult making a scrapbook for someone else. Check out your neighbor's favorite colors; note if she has a lot of bits and bobs sitting on tables and shelves around the room - you know, little ornaments and objects. If she has, then she may like layouts with lots of embellishments and frills.

However, it's probably safer to aim for simplicity of design, color and layout. An album with a photo and story together on cardstock may be sufficient. This could be as simple as a 6" x 4" mini book, for many old photographs are smaller than those we get today. We have many family photos from the 1930s that are only 2" square or about 3" x 1 1/2"

Coffee, cake and iTalk

I know it's National SCRAPBOOKING Day, but even simply recording their stories, with a plan to help them sort out photographs to fit at a later stage, would be a tremendous encouragement for many.

You can get an iTalk relatively cheaply to add to your iPod which will record conversation. Hope you've got one of your own as trying to prize an iPod off your teenager for a few hours will be impossible!

I know many elderly people simply enjoy the company as much as anything else. So don't forget the cake to go with your afternoon tea or coffee

It needn't be expensive

Helping someone make a layout or an album need not be expensive. The layout in this post was made using freebies that came with the ScrapGirls Newsletter - inexpensive as I said, but they don't all come at one time so it will take time to gather them. However, being digital scrapbooking products, they are not expensive, can be recolored to match your photographs and can be used over and over again. I particularly like this fact as I have many lovely scrapbook papers I just want to look at and don't want to use. LOL! This way I can have my cake and eat it!

Another advantage of digital scrapbooking, Isabella tells me, is that you can alter a product to fit your layout. For example, in the layout at the top, the large flower at the bottom is in fact the little flower on the word 'family'. Isabella cropped the image to the flower, then used the eraser tool to remove the remnants of the letters … and there was a new image!

The other thing about this layout is that it is 6" x 4" and will not take up much space or ink to print it! And a 6×4 album is quick to make and convenient to use. Here are some beautiful heritage papers if you want to have a go.

Give a senior your time this National Scrapbooking Day - you will be blessed as much as they are

To help in sharing your National Scrapbooking Day here is a video tutorial to make a heritage accordion album in a tin. (If the video will not work first time, please refresh your screen and it will work then.

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