Thursday, January 11, 2018

An Accidental Family History

As Denise, Stanley and I looked at the 2016 Thomas Times Christmas newsletter Stanley asked if I had saved copies of my old newsletters, noting that they are a look at our family history!  His observation set my creative juices flowing.  I would make Christmas Newsletter albums for the grandkids!

2016-front-half fold format

I assembled all of the newsletters beginning with 1992.  (I’ve done Christmas letters many times through the years but none of these survive.)  Some of them were easy to scan, a few I have saved in my laptop so they were also easy to retrieve and a couple, which I had originally formatted on colored cardstock, were a bit more challenging to make good copies.

1993

1995-version 1-pg 11995-version 1-pg 2


I chose a loose leaf format so additional years could be easily added (maybe they will bind them in the future?) and purchased 1” binders, a different color for each “grand”, and plastic sheet protectors.

bindersheet protector20180111_132309



In order to customize them for each kid I used actual mastheads from different years for the album covers.  The photos are a mini family tree: Us, Russ & Denise, Gary & Vivian and Kelle & Joe, and the “grands” Jorden, Stanley, Mary and William.

Cover-MaryCover-StanleyCover-William











Finally, I slipped a little dedication card into each album:

dedication card

When I shared a photo of the albums with daughter Kelle she replied “I want one!”

20180111_132213

I enjoy receiving Christmas newsletters but Christmas Newsletters as family history?  Quite a concept!  I wish I had saved my older ones and also those of friends and family!

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Christmas Newsletter-55th Edition

I’ve used this format for our annual Christmas newsletter for many years.

2017-p 12017-p 2


Happy 2018 Blogger friends!