A Few Important Things to Keep in Mind

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By Melissa Klein

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Composing this scrapbook will take time and effort, but in the end, it's worth it. Follow these tips to help you manage the process smoothly.

Be sure to start this project well ahead time: You need to make sure you give people who are contributing to the scrapbook plenty of time to write their letter, find old photos and send them to you. This is particularly important if many people are involved and if contributors don't live nearby. Planning far in advance will also give you the time you need to put everything together. This is a special gift constructed with careful thought, not haphazardly thrown together.

Keep a list: A key part in making sure this project is finished by the time it must be is to keep track of all those who are participating. Think of it like as an RSVP to the actual party. Give a deadline for the letters. As contributions come in, check off those whose letters you have received. A week before the date passes, give friends or family members whose letters you have not received a call. They may have forgotten and need a friendly reminder.

Give clear instructions to those who are contributing: If you have a certain design in mind, be sure to communicate specific instructions. In the case of my grandmother, her children, grandchildren and closest friends were asked to decorate their own pages to reflect their relationship with her. Other family and friends were asked to just send their letters and photos for addition to the book. If you're short on time or help, ask everyone participating to mount their contributions on birthday themed paper--just make sure it's the right size to fit into the book.

Keep it short: One very important tip that often goes overlooked is to keep it short. Tell friends and family you know it will be hard to contain their love and appreciation to a one page letter, but it's necessary to ensure everyone can be a part of the project. However, if space is not an issue and you're okay with letters being longer, be sure to remind everyone to write on only one side of the page. Remember, you'll be gluing this into a book.

Offer an example: Some people have a hard time putting what they feel into words, so help them out! You definitely don't want all the letters in the book reading the same exact way, but you can still help guide those who are having trouble. Try sending them a template. It allows a person to get started, but also enables them to make the letter personal.

Getting children involved: This is a present from everyone, including the children or grandchildren of the birthday honoree. If they're too young to write, have them draw a picture of a memory.

Designing the book's pages: Let the scrapbook reflect the person you are giving it to. A nice way to acknowledge the life of your loved one is to base the number of letters you include in the scrapbook with the age they are turning. You can incorporate hobbies, interests and passions into the book as well. My grandmother loves crossword puzzles so we decorated some of the pages of the scrapbook with word embellishments and cut outs from some old crosswords she had completed.

Designing the cover: My family and I received so many letters (over 100!) from people that we had to compile them into three albums. We kept the covers simple. We placed my grandmother's wedding photo in the center of the book filled with her family's letters, a picture of her playing as a child in the book that contained notes from childhood friends and a recent photo of her in the center of the book filled with letters from her other friends. On each of the three, we placed some of her words of wisdom around the image.

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