| Tutorial 7 Times Remembered |
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Everyone loves recalling memories of loved ones.
This tutorial will help you create a gift album that
will capture those memories. This is a great gift for
Grandparents given at a family reunion or a friend or
family member’s special birthday or anniversary.
The album will help the person
recall memories through photographs and stories or letters
from loved ones.
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The basic steps, explained in detail below, include
Step 1: Contacting loved ones
Step 2: Gathering Supplies
Step 3: Planning Pages
Step 4: Receiving Letters and
Photos in the mail
Step 5: Putting it all Together
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| Step 1 Contacting Loved Ones |
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Supplies - cardboard letter mailers, twice the amount
of address labels as there are people, letter paper, acid
free paper and adhesive, and acid free lined paper. |
- First, write a letter explaining that you
are making an album for a person
and you want their help by writing
a letter and sending photos. Request that they send them
back within a month. Click HERE for an example letter.
Print your letter out on regular letter paper and put
it in the mailer.
- Second, make a list of names
of people who are special
to the person. Try to
think of 10 to 20 names. Locate their addresses and
phone numbers.
- Third, address half the address
labels with the addresses
of the people you are
sending the letters to as the receivers. Then stick
those address labels on the front of the mailers. Now
address the other half of the address labels with your
name as the receiver. Put these labels in the mailers
for the person to use to send the letter and photos
back to you.
- Fourth, make a photo protector
using acid free paper. Just
fold an 8x10 sheet of
acid free paper in half and seal 3 sides
with adhesive. Then,
use a pen to label it with the word "For Photos".
If you have acid free bags,
you could use those in place
of the paper. Put the photo protector
in the mailer.
- Fifth, put a sheet of lined
acid free paper in the
mailer for the person to use to write
their letter/story.
- Sixth, check that everything
is in each mailer:
- Letter describing what you
want them to do
- Return Address Label
- Photo protector
- Acid Free Lined Paper
- Seal and mail the mailers.
It should cost approximately
$1.00 per mailer
for most destinations.
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| Step 2 Gathering Supplies
(Do this about 6 weeks in advanced.) |
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Make sure you have all the supplies
you will need on hand. The most important item in your
supplies is your album.
Click here to get tips on choosing your album. Make
sure you have enough adhesive,
paper, album pages, page protectors,
etc. Locate and organize your
cropping tools and any other
tools you might use to create your pages. Also gather
photos that you have and write your own letter for the
album.
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| Step 3 Planning Pages
(Do this about 6 weeks in advanced.) |
| Organize the
album chronologically – This
is a great heritage type album. Start with the person’s
birth and go through the major milestones in their life.
The letters from loved ones would be dispersed chronologically.
For example, put a letter from the person’s mother
near the birth pages. Put a letter from the person’s
sibling near the growing years pages. Put a letter from
the person’s best friend near high school or college
pages. Put a letter from the person’s children near
their children’s birth pages. Put a letter from
the person’s current friends near current pages,
and so on. This works well if you have a lot of photos
that can be used to fill in the gaps. |
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Organize the album by person – Highlight each
person that sent in a letter and photos. Include photos
from long ago and recent photos together. It is a fun
way to see how people changed over the years. Disperse
the letters in a random order or by importance and create
a page or two using the letter and photos sent by the
person. You may need to add some photos or be specific
on how many photos you want the person to send. |
- Use one type of paper throughout the album
to maintain consistency and to make planning and creating
pages faster. For instance, I used Anna Griffin paper
to highlight my photos on each page. I put the paper behind
photos, over the whole page, and/or I cut out letters
from that paper to make titles.
- To make things easier and
go faster, do not crop
many of the photos and the photos you do choose to crop,
just crop them into squares. This makes for a nice,
clean, sophisticated look. Then double mat each photo
with a piece of solid paper first and then printed paper
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| Step 4 Receiving Letters and photos |
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Once you begin to receive letters and photos you will
see your album come together easily. Begin by sorting
the letters and photos and put them in order. Use cardboard
pieces the size of your album page for sorting. This will
make putting the album together easier. Give anyone who
has not replied after a month a call to remind them. |
| Step 5 Putting it all
Together (Begin this about 4 weeks
in advance.) |
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| With your letters, photos, and supplies
sorted and organized, you are ready to create your album.
Use the tips above and your imagination to create the
pages. Remember, this is a large undertaking and simple
pages are easier to create and often more elegant anyway. |
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Enjoy this Scrap Class? See the next one! Scrap Class
8 "Scrapping Your Vacation As
You Go!"
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