Saturday, August 1, 2009

Family History--Preserving {or not} My Personal Legacy


In my very first blog post ever, I mentioned that I have been a scrapbooker for most of my life. I drug this old scrapbook out of the tote-in-the-basement so that I could take a few photos of some of the pages.


This is inside the front cover:



I started this scrapbook just before high school and it went with me until the very end. I did create a 'Senior-Year' scrapbook, but this was pretty much what houses all of that crazy junk from high school that really meant something at the time, but now I pretty much have no idea what any of those 'inside' jokes are.


I saved EVERYTHING. I have receipts, notes, stickers, fortune cookie slips, traffic tickets, candy wrappers, trinkets, coins, letters, memorabilia from events and hotels, scraps of paper with writing on them, drawings, photos, magazine cut-outs and even a big piece of misletoe taped down to one page. I didn't take a picture of everything, but I think you get the idea.



I had a piece of card stock taped up in my room. Every time I would look through a magazine, I would cut out all the minis. I was in love with mini-pictures. I used clear tape to add to this collage for a couple of years.



My cousin made this and sent it to me when I was in jr. high. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! (Waaaay before digital cameras and photoshop) We kept it on our fridge for several YEARS. This little album is the perfect place to keep it.

I am pretty sure there is no way to save all this stuff from the acid in the memorabilia, but it is fun to look through every-now-and-then and the fact that it will eventually disintegrate as my memories fade with the events that live under the cover, I am okay with that. This isn't the important stuff, just the crap that I saved. I am still working through how to deal with the crap that I am accumulating in my life now. Do I throw it away? Do I put it in a 3-ring binder? Do I make a layout with it? Sometimes I use stuff in project 52 but sometimes I just toss stuff. I am okay with that too.

Is it pretentious to consider my 'stuff' a legacy? I hope not. I am just going to keep doing what I am doing now.

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Nellie! ...you have taken digital pics of this...and posted it on the WWW...for now it is preserved FOREVER acid free and viewed by people who you don't even know!
I LOVED that Mini pic poster!!! WOW...so many little itty bitty pics. Just perfect. You have ALWAYS been an artist and it shows!

Kelley Eubanks said...

I think this stuff is great! I have a couple of scrapbooks that I did when I was young as well. I think my middle school years were mostly made up of sports articles from where i played sports. The same in High school along with the other random stuff you mentioned. It almost makes me blush when I look through the high school one now and read what I wrote. I was so dumb! :) Great stuff!

Ann said...

I think this is really cool...it's like a yearbook, but SO much more personal!

yael yaniv said...

how i envt you for keeping these momentos over the years....i've tried to , but every time i threw then away because of clutter - no more!
now i'm putting every thing in an enevelop right away (and working on an envelope mini albums for these)

the only thing i've kept are the memory books from senior years...

thanks for sharing
love
yael