Why Family Scrapbook Pages are a Joy Worth Passing On

Scrapbooking is an art tightly focused on personal photographs snapped at random moments, on special occasions, or to forever memorialize the most beautiful moments in a lifetime. By its very nature, it tends to be family oriented since so many of the pictures most of us take are of our family and those so close to our hearts they might as well be family. Yet, there is something to be said for family scrapbooking projects that specifically explore the family unit as a whole.

I could call the scrapbooks documenting my children's first year of life family scrapbooking projects since so many of the pages feature the members of my family coming together to welcome in the new bundle of joy, but I have been doing some larger family scrapbooking projects which are very different.

For instance, I recently started a scrapbook documenting the life of my grandmother. I found some very old pictures of her when she was young and collected a variety of pictures of her in recent years. I covered as much of her life as possible and then set about creating a scrapbook completely in black and white with some random shades of gray. It's amazing how many layout ideas and coordinating embellishments and papers you can find just for a black and white theme!

I also keep a running scrapbook of family members for our immediate family which includes my husband and the three kids. I have scrapbooks ongoing just for each of the kids and then one scrapbook for family oriented events.

For instance, when my daughter graduated preschool I made a page for her own book with pictures of her walking the aisle in cap and gown, making funny faces at the reception, and smiling with her teacher. I then made family oriented pages for the family book which included pictures of us as a family at the same event.

I have made a clear distinction here between family scrapbooking and scrapbooking that documents a single lifetime. Family scrapbooking explores the unit as a whole, rather than isolating one person. It shows where we have come from and hints at where we might be headed in the future.

I get my family layout ideas from the photos that are at hand for a given event, but there are many ideas floating around online if you want to get some inspiration for pages of your own.

Go through your photos and find one occasion where members of your family were all together. It could be your immediate family at a holiday celebration or extended family that you rarely see but want your children to remember. Gather pictures from that event and find a couple sheets of paper with a design, color, or texture that seems to go with the event on an instinctual level.

Now, start laying the pictures out on the paper. Which ones should be grouped together? Is there one so special that it should be featured alone on one page? You should start getting some ideas just by determining where photos should go and how they should be grouped.

Once you start a scrapbook just for memories of your family as a group, it will become an everlasting project that you can't wait to add to over the years.

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