Anniversary Memory Book

Math Man and I have been married for 10 years – woah! – and we have so many wonderful memories in each of those years and prior. The problem is, other than Facebook, I don’t really have a specific spot where I’ve been keeping up with the changes and pictures from those anniveraries or years. With that in mind, I decided to create an Anniversary Memory Book that I think will be really easy to update as each year is added on!

Close to My Heart is one of my favorite companies, and almost a year ago I decided to take the leap and join as a consultant. In doing this (quietly), I’ve learned more about tricks for scrapbooking and cardmaking than I ever had before. I really wanted to get more and more crafty, and I love the idea of creating handmade cards for friends.

One of the products from Close to My Heart is called Stories I Love. The idea is to create a literal story book that blends with a scrapbook. I’ve never been so great at scrapbooks, but I love telling my stories…this made for the perfect fit for the Anniversary Book I’ve been wanting to create. You may remember that I made a smaller version of the Story by Stacy books for my 40th birthday. Super fun.

The Stories I Love kit comes with almost everything you need to put a simple scrapbook together but also really keep a nice narrative going about the images you choose or the events you choose to highlight. The only things I needed to add to the prepackaged kit was adhesive, a good journaling pen, and my images. I did use a paper trimmer to trim edges off my photos so they’d fit well. I also had to add another pack of the 6×8 Memory Protectors.

My first step was to search my Facebook (so sad, ha!) for pictures of us over the years. Some were easy to find specifically for the anniversary. Early in our marriage, we could actually go out! But then I had to choose images that simply fell in the anniversary year.

I decided to add some images with kids as, clearly, they are very important to our story. And for each year that had something significant, I added that fact (child born, car purchased, house changed!) and a little blurb about things that were going on in our lives.

Honestly, from start to finish, if I didn’t have to add in the printing of photos and picking them up at the store, this project probably took me 1 hour. Of course, it wasn’t a continuous hour. I was constantly interrupted by kids!

I’m happy to have this project set and ready for me to add to as years go on. Do you keep up with memories like this?

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The Blog with Friends topic for July is “Tell Your Story.” See what my bloggy friends have shared:

Orange Blueberry Cheesecake from Baking in a Tornado

Tell Your Story! Nobody else can… from My Heartfelt Sentiments

Me. from The Bergham Chronicles

The Story of Me from Spatulas on Parade

Story Cubes from Part-Time Working Hockey Mom

 

Tags: anniversary, blog with friends, crafts, scrapbook