How To: Make a Holiday Memory Book

Every year for Memorial Day, we have a small-town parade pass right by our house. You know, firetrucks and veterans and scouts. The neighborhood uses the opportunity to really show off our Patriotism and celebrate the day. It's definitely one of my favorite things about living here.

To commemorate the day, I made a little mini album. You could apply the same principles to any event in your own life or neighborhood - for any holiday.

I found a plain  star-shaped chipboard album at Michael's in the $1 area and the Chatterbox Design paper shown here, I've had in my "stash" for a while. Any patriotic paper (or paper suited to your event) will do. No chipboard? You can use a heavy-duty cardboard and cut it to the shape you wish.

Here's What You Do:

• Cut your papers to match your chipboard or cardboard pages. 
• Attach your papers to your pages, using a gluestick or other adhesive.
• Punch holes to hold them together (I used a jump ring - you can also use ribbons).
• Ink around the edges.
• Hand-write or type the memories and things you want to remember.
• Cut your text to fit your pages.
• Cut your pictures to fit.
• Attach your journaling and pictures to tell your story.
• Add any stickers, buttons, ribbons or other embellishments to "fancy" it up.

This is a small, fun and easy step towards trying to  document the stories of our lives. . .the special moments in time. Sometimes scrapbooking and photographing can seem overwhelming, but the point of it all is to tell your stories - even if it's one small story at a time.

I like to place my mini albums in a large basket, so people (my kids love to do this) can browse through them en enjoy our stories too.

How do you preserve the small but significant stories of your life?

catch you soon -
This post is Linked Up for Motivation Monday at A Life in Balance.