How to Make a Memorial Book

A memorial book is a meaningful and tangible way of holding on to the memories of a loved one or even a special time in your life that you don't want to forget. Since the challenge of making a memorial book lies more in its organization than the materials, it's fairly simple to create a memorial book. Read on to learn how to create a memorial book.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Photo album or scrapbook
• Poster tape or archival glue

1. Gather as many photos, scraps, letters, notes, newspaper clippings and any other sort of memorabilia as you can find that relate to the person or period for which you're making the book. Feel free to ask other people for copies (or, in some cases, even originals) of the things you need so you get as complete a picture as possible.

2. Copy and label each piece of material you get so you can find it easily as you create your memorial book, and so that you have a record of what went into the book. You can use a spreadsheet to inventory the items that you have or you can use the tried and true method of a sheet of paper with tables and columns to keep track of what you have.

3. Create the structure of your memorial book by first deciding if the progression of the book is according to chronology, theme, personal relationships or any other topic. Then, use your inventory of items to find things that are best suited to each section. Pull aside each item that you choose and place it into a pile for that given section.

4. Choose the book you want to use from options like over-sized photo albums or specially designed scrapbooks. Do a preliminary layout of the items you selected and ordered. Once the layout of the memorial book looks good, use either poster tape or special archival glue on acid-free paper to complete the book.

Tips & Warnings

• Photo sharing sites like Snapfish, manufacturers like Kodak and software programs like Apple's iPhoto allow you to create digital memorial books online or on your home computer. These can be professionally bound and printed in multiple copies to share with family members.
• To pay tribute to a deceased loved one, include copies of the newspaper obituary, funeral program and treasured sympathy cards or notes in the memorial book.

Resources

• The Memorial Book website
• Information about creating digital photo memorial books online at Snapfish

[qjs2000]

on 4/5/2009 Here is a good place to start from:http://www.bookemon.com/bookemon-memory-book