the family scrapbook project

Phew- it's done! I finally finished the family scrapbook for my dad (and a duplicate album for my aunt Terri.) It was a LOT of work, and I seriously didn't realize how big of an undertaking it would end up becoming!

Here's the outside of the album:


The process went sort of like this:

1. I gathered tons of photos from my grandma's house when she passed away. Most were water-damaged, there was absolutely no order, and none of them were labeled. I pulled the ones I liked and asked my dad if he could help determine who people were or any other info about the photo if possible.

2. I scanned every photo at a high resolution and touched them up as much as possible in Photoshop. I set them all to grey scale unless they were actual printed in good color (obviously just the more recent ones were).

3. I printed a slew- 2 copies of each- a few 5x7s for variation, but mostly 4x6.

4. I tried to group them in logical ways; such as photos of my grandparents together throughout their lives, baby pictures of my dad and aunt, etc, and put them in rough chronological order. Here I should note: I should have done this in digital format first then sketched some layouts of the pages before printing- I ended up with about 100 pictures printed that I didn't end up using because they were too random.

5. My mom wrote letters to my grandma's sisters for information- stories particularly. My great Aunt Peggy pulled through and sent us some great anecdotes, including the story of how my grandparents met.

6. I didn't have many stories to use, but I wanted to include some basic info for my grandparents so it's recorded somewhere. I had to ask my dad and look at some paperwork I dug up to find things like education info, employment, siblings and parents' names, etc. I created a couple pages for my grandpa and a couple for my grandma with their basic info like that. They look like this:


7. I wanted to narrow the scope so I whittled it down to 20 pages. (But two of every layout- I made two mostly-identical albums.) I kept the layouts simple, and similar. I am not a great scrapbooker with the latest and greatest gadgets and techniques. I just use cardstock, printed paper, and velum I can run through my printer, for the most part. It was still hugely time-consuming.

(I don't have any product lines to pimp here, and I'm no loyalist... but I do want to mention the "Bohemia" line from My Mind's Eye really is awesome, and made the pages effortlessly cool in many cases.)


8. Since I'd scanned and edited so many photos I didn't use, I burned them onto a cd to include in the album. I stuck a document envelope and cd sleeve to the back inside cover of the album with double-sided tape. I first had about 9 failed attemps at making my own envelopes... I ended up using manilla ones I already had. Blah. The envelope contains copies of my grandparents' marriage certificate, birth certificates, obituaries, and other paperwork. I like that they are at least all in one place even if they aren't displayed on a fancy layout. The line had to be drawn somewhere or I could have spent my entire life scrapbooking this stuff.


**This was a lot of fun, and interesting to think about my ancestry and learn more about the lives of my grandparents. Plus my dad loved it. {{{I'm seriously glad to be done, though.}}}