Happy National Preservation Month & National Scrapbook Day Eve. Preservation is the act of keeping something valued intact and in its original state, protecting it from damage or decay, for the conservation of history and more.
Scrapbooks are where Mom kept her personal “valuables” – letters and cards from relatives and close friends, pictures and pamphlets from trips that she and Dad took, and more. Scrapbooks are used to save pieces of our lives that we want to remember – movie and concert tickets, special cards and notes, a dried corsage from our first dance, and more.
Mom and I made several homemade scrapbooks together when I was young. In honor, here are the instructions [just from my own memories] for how we fashioned them…
HOMEMADE SCRAPBOOK
By Gloria Pitzer
[No printed reference available… This is a project that I remember doing with Mom when I was young.]
INGREDIENTS/ITEM NEEDS:
Large empty cereal box
Scissors
Contact paper
Paper grocery bags
Hole puncher
Shoe laces
INSTRUCTIONS:
Open the cereal box at both ends and down the seam then trim off all of the flaps and cut what’s left in half. These will be the covers of the book. Cut two pieces of contact paper a little larger than the two cardboard pieces. Center picture side of cardboard on sticky side of contact paper and wrap the excess over the edges, cutting off the overlap at the corners.
As shown in the picture (above), cut the bottoms off of several paper grocery bags and turn the “tubes” of paper inside out. Flatten out these tubes and fold them in half. Use the hole puncher to make holes on the edges of the paper “pages” and covered covers. Weave a shoe lace through the holes to “tie” the pages and covers together (as pictured below).
You can make these scrap books on any budget, using any size box and as many “pages” as you’d like. Repurposing and recycling materials is always a win-win for us and the environment.
LAST THOUGHTS…
For questions or comments, you can email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. I’m also on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
[NOTE: As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share this.]
