Well, I’m a day late but hopefully not a dollar short. Or, at least, not literally. It’ll be up to you to decide if, figuratively, this post comes up a buck shy. We were in the desert this weekend with no internet connection, and then the LOST finale, people, had me stymied for at least 24 hours. But I digress already.
This week we have the Generations Album. I love this project because I knew my mom had a ton of old photos that I could organize and make displayable. And when I say old, I’m talking invention of photography old. But you will see.
The Generations Album is essentially a heritage scrapbook, where you can put all kinds of old photos, memorabilia, and keepsakes. It’s a great place to store or create family trees, too. The essential differences between this album and others are the black pages, which I actually think look fantastic, and the use of photo corners. Do any of you use photo corners anymore? They are perfect for this album because they don’t affect the original photograph (no glue or stickers on the back) and because they look kind of old-timey.
I will definitely keep working on this album– I might even need a few, since my mom had so much stuff piled in boxes and old manila envelopes. But here’s how it shaped up as a start.
an old photo of my great grandmother at her high school graduation, and a letter from cousins
I’ve blurred out some of the names and such to protect the innocent.
several sets of my great grandparents, one of them all at my grandparents' wedding
These from the early 1900s were old, but then there were some even OLDER ones.
these are my great great grandparents (yep, my grandparents' grandparents), taken sometime in the mid to late C19
And also:
my other great great grandfather, born in 1848, who raised racehorses
Finally, besides old photos, you can put in letters or other keepsakes, like this wedding invitation to my great grandparents’ wedding in 1900:
their wedding invitation and portrait, 1900
No one looks happy pre-1950. But not only do they not look happy, they look actively mad or upset, don’t you think? What is that about?
As you can see with this kind of album, you have to use a white pen, but it looks kind of cool. And I like that you don’t really use a lot of embellishments, since they seem kind of inappropriate; Martha has some beautiful understated ones in the Encyclopedia, but there are few. Embellishing with the white pen adds a nice touch. You can see on the second page I took Martha’s lead and outlined a photo in white pen, which created a kind of subtle frame for it.
The photo corners were great, too. I found these Canson ones that are self-adhesive so you don’t have to lick them (and they apparently come in a bajillion colors, including something called “heritage,” which would obviously be perfect). It’s a little tricky to position photo corners, though. I found the best method was to put one on each of the top corners and, while holding them tightly against the photo so it is snug in the holders, lay it down on the page. Then, I usually did each bottom corner separately. It was not easy, though. The only other downside to the photo corners is that these self-adhesive ones are plastic. They are archival and acid-free, but the plasticness is a bit cheesy. I did some searching and I couldn’t really find any self-adhesive ones that weren’t plastic. If you know of any, give me a shout out in the comments. You can also use the ones you have to lick, which I did on the letter, but it really kind of sucks (or, well, licks?) to have to moisten every one.
The rundown:
TIME INVESTED
About 3 hours for 10 pages
As I mentioned with the school days scrapbook, the time invested does not include all the time I sat there looking through photos, figuring out the family tree, and sorting funeral programs from baptism certificates. The time I list includes layout, mounting the photos, journaling and adding embellishments. If you have all your photos and keepsakes picked out, you can expect to spend about 20 minutes per page to execute it.
PROJECT COST
I got this scrapbook cheap on sale: $3.33 at Michaels! It is a smaller scrapbook, though.
- black-paged scrapbook, $3.33
- white pen, $1.29
- photo corners, black and white, $3.99 per package
Total: $12.60, not including any additional embellishments you might want
DIFFICULTY
Easy
WAS IT WORTH IT?
DEFINITELY. This is by far the best project to date. It accomplishes so many things at once:
- it creates a display for all your heritage keepsakes
- it keeps these photos and memories safe in an archival, acid-free place
- it organizes your family tree and its branches
On top of all that, it was fun. I loved looking at all these old photos and (re)discovering the history of my family. Super cool.
Wow. How amazing to be able to see a photo of your great-great grandparents! Those are some amazing photos. Kudos to your mom for hanging on to them all, and to you for putting it all together! This seems like a fairly easy project to execute, but the idea of sorting through all the materials, like you said, is a bit overwhelming. Totally worth it though, as your boys will have it to look back on too.
I love the simplicity of it, too. You don’t want anything to distract from those pictures and stern faces! (I’m sure in real life, they were fun people, though!)