Keeping it together

I have a large plastic container hidden deep in my closet underneath piles of other random things that seem to have no other place. This plastic box has a green handle that pops up for easy carrying. The box is rather heavy, although all that is in it are photographs, spanning my entire life; obviously from the days before digital photography.

Do you have an old repository of photos and aren't sure what to do with them? Go out and buy a photo album or even just a sketchbook, or even a notebook, if you don't mind lined paper. Then, go through your photos and categorize them and place them in your new scrapbook!

Scrapbooking - makes you think of old age, of lace, and flowery things, perhaps? Not at all. For those who like it simple, just paste in your photos and give them dates and captions. If you're a little more artistically inclined, try cutting things out of your favorite magazines, phrases and pictures in bright colors and gluing them around your photos in interesting and creative ways. And nothing says that your photos need to be glued straight, or in a line in the center of the page. Be different, be unique, do it your way.

In the end, you'll have volumes of visual testimony on your own life. And not only will it be yours, it will be a valuable resource for generations to come. The more I get into researching family history, the more I wish that my ancestors had preserved something attesting to their identities and lives.

So give it a try. You have my word.