The Everyday Album

I am a firm believer that if someone takes the time (and with the ever increasing cost of postage! Yikes!) to mail you a letter, birthday card, wedding invitation, or a thinking of you sentiment, the best way to appreciate them, is to scrap them. And, I haven't, sadly, always done this. I think we have all received a wonderful handmade card and felt it valuable to keep and store it, but haven't really found a system that fits with our fast-paced lifestyle. For me, it is hard to toss something that includes a hand written note. 

My system is identical to my Holiday Album, but I tend to scrap more sentimental items in additional to everyday cards.

For this album, I chose a chocolate fabric covered "D" ring album. They can be purchased at Hobby Lobby and are on sale all the time.

The "D" ring looks similar to a regular 3- ring binder, which is the kind we are all familiar with from high school. The advantages of a D ring album are that you can scrap cards that have thick embellishments (big flowers, buttons, ribbon) and not really lose any of your space in the album. As you look through the album, the pages won't fall over on themselves either.

I am lucky to have lots of friends who make and mail handmade cards often, so much of what you will see are cards like those. But, I also keep store bought cards and can show you how I group those and layer them together.

I keep birth announcements and miscellaneous holidays cards. I don't scrap them by family, though I have seen some AMAZING albums that scrap all of a certain family together. I'm not really that particular, but I do scrap them as I receive them. I will leave them out for display for a few weeks, and then start a new page in the album. So, it would be totally normal for you to see a birth announcement and a spring card together. 

I scrap wedding programs..

and birthday invitations.

 Again.. another birth announcement paired with a wedding invitation.

I also keep random newspaper clippings in this album- I try to keep engagements close to wedding invitations.

Another thing I save- and maybe my favorite- are handwritten notes and letters. I can pull this album out on a gloomy day and instantly feel good. I think we all have days where cards and notes serve as reminders of love and friendship.

I'm noticing here that I have scrapped our own family card for Harbor's 1st 4th of July. I actually keep another album that is completely separate for our family cards that we make and send, but if I have extra, I will double up and use them in my Everyday Album as well as our Family album.

For regular store bough cards, I usually layer and collage them. These tend to come in large amounts during a birthday week, for instance.

The nice thing about scrap booking cards is that you have the added bonus of using the page protectors for whatever purpose you want. Just recently, Rachel, wrote an essay about my influence in her life and sent me a copy after she turned it into one of her UofA college courses. I simply stapled it and slipped it into a blank page protector.

I also save graduation announcements for both high school and college. I, for one, know how expensive those things are!

Another favorite of mine is to scrap postcards! Postcards are so sweet and old fashioned! It is nice to know you were thought of during someone's vacation time.  

And of course, my students supply me with never-ending cards. I love them all! Someday, I know I will be glad to have kept mementos from this season of my life.

Find a way to save important cards and letters from the friend and family in your life. If you are not into scrap booking, use a simple photo storage box or take a picture of them and upload them into a digital album. You could create multiple digital albums for each family member and save them accordingly.

If you mail something to me, rest assured it will have a home- forever! Ha, ha!

I wish you a Happy New Years! If you are from the south like we are, we always cook black-eyes peas and eat them on New Year's Day. I also have an anonymous poll that will be up all month if you want to participate.

Stay warm and happy scrapping!