How to Make a Christmas Scrapbook

A Christmas scrapbook is a memory book which is kept and added to over many years. You can watch your children grow up through the scrapbook, and they can let their children see how they grew up through the scrapbook. It would make a delightful gift for a young couple’s first Christmas.

Things You'll Need

• Scrapbook
• White glue
• Red and green felt
• Red and green thin line markers
• Picture corners
• Christmas stickers and cut outs
• Individual keepsakes, including photographs

Instructions

1. Buy a large scrapbook; one with removable pages and with the capacity for adding additional pages would work best.

2. Decorate the first page of the scrapbook as follows (or use your own ideas): Center the words “Christmas with (the name of the family)." Around the words, glue a “wreath” of holly berries and leaves cut from the red and green felt—or you could simply use Christmas stickers or cut outs.

3. Make the first double-page spread of the scrapbook, by writing the title “Christmas 2008” and adding a border around all four edges of the pages made with the red and/or green markers. Continue to add this border to as many pages as you think you will need for this particular Christmas.

4. Glue in one of the Christmas cards which the family sent out that year. If a Christmas letter was sent, allow space for that as well.

5. Draw a rectangle for each member of the family. Label each “Christmas Memories: Jim” for example. Let family members write in their memories of Christmas. Seeing everyone’s handwriting is nice, but if some family members wish, let them go ahead and type up their memories and print them out in the right size and shape to fit into the rectangle.

6. Allow space for about a dozen Christmas photographs for each year. Putting these in with old-fashioned picture corners adds a nice touch. Write little comments under each using a red or green marker.

7. Write in the dinner menu with comments about each item, who made what, favorites, and describe any table decorations. This would be especially nice accompanied with a photo taken at the dinner table or of the table before the meal.

8. Consider using a square or two of the wrapping paper from this year as a background for any of the items you include in the scrapbook.

9. Include small children in the creation of the scrapbook by letting them add their own Christmas drawings or even hand prints made after dipping their palms in red finger paint.

10. Use a different border when you start each section of the scrapbook at the following Christmas.