Whether you’re planning a party or just want to create a special gift for your grad, it’s not too late to get those memories organized to mark the milestone.
Once you’re organized, there are lots of ways to get creative and create special invitations, displays or gifts that highlight the unique personality of your child.
We asked the pros to share their advice on organizing and displaying these memories for graduation parties or as gifts for the graduate — whether it’s the Class of 2011 or for future graduates.
All of this advice can easily apply to other situations, including celebrations surrounding weddings, birthdays and anniversaries or even preserving memories of lost loved ones.
Get organized
Professional organizer Michelle Wearly, owner of Organized Life in Vandalia, said preservation is critical. “Remember to keep all memorabilia in a cool dry place in your home, not in damp basements or hot attics,” she said.
To get organized, she recommended a four-step process.
1. Gather your photos, memorabilia. "First step: Sort photos into a labeled acid-free box, back up photos on your hard drive and convert video tapes to DVD," she said.
2. Organize all the memories. "Do this while everything is still fresh in your mind," Wearly said. "Sorting titles can be as narrow or as broad as you wish: month, school year or high school."
3. Decide how you want to view the memories someday, whether it's creating scrapbooks or photo books, a memory box, online files or creating DVDs. "Keeping it consistent will give these memories an organized look while keeping everything together," she said.
4. Schedule yourself time. This may be a bit tricky for those just starting now, but try to carve out time to complete this project. "It didn't take two weeks to create 18 years of memories, so be realistic in your time management. Stick to a schedule, whether it's 10 minutes a day, by the end of summer, or by the end of the year," Wearly said.
Get creative
You’ve organized the pictures and knickknacks. Now what?
In the old days, about the best option to collect memories was to put together a photo album. These days, while traditional photo albums are still popular, their next-generation cousins — photo books — are usurping them in popularity. Many online photo services make it very easy to create a professional, personalized bound book using uploaded digital pictures. Most programs offer a lot of flexibility in layouts and backgrounds, as well as providing space to add personalized captions.
For a three-dimensional option, which can incorporate mementos as well as photographs, there’s always scrapbooking. It’s a hobby that has exploded in popularity in recent years and is well-suited to just this kind of project.
Debbie Heller is owner of Your Scrapping Cafe in Beavercreek. She said there are probably thousands of graduation-themed papers, embellishments and trinkets available for scrapbookers. It’s also possible to find materials related to just about any of the interests your teen might have, whether it’s music or soccer or politics. If you’re not planning to create an heirloom quality scrapbook, graduation wrapping paper is an inexpensive — and readily available — material. For art, you can always cut illustrations from graduation cards or download Internet images that don’t have copyrights.
The only limit on what to put in graduation scrapbooks is the creator’s imagination. “When I make graduation pages, I like to miniaturize things like the diploma, class pictures or the graduation program,” Heller said. Graduation trinkets can include little graduation caps and mini-rolled diplomas. Some designers like to include a lot of text, including letters, inspirational quotes or journal entries, while others prefer to focus on pictures and images.
Heller warned inexperienced scrapbookers to approach shopping with caution. “It can be overwhelming to walk into a store and see all the products,” she said. “The easiest way to get past the intimidation is to bring a friend. Ideally, bring a friend who knows scrapbooking and can steer you away from the temptation of buying one of everything.”
The scope of the project can attempt to encompass your child’s entire life — including birth and grade school mementos — or as basic as just memorializing the student’s last few weeks of school. Whatever the size of the project, leave plenty of time to get it done. That’s true both for seasoned scrapbookers and newbies. “Scrapbooking should be fun,” Heller said. “If you’re feeling like it’s a job or becoming a chore, take a step back.”
Shadowboxes are a great way to display individual scrapbooking pages. The boxes come in the standard 12-by-12 size of a scrapbooking page and can make a great gift for a departing grad. “Especially if they are going away to college, they can take it with them and be reminded of home,” said Krysi Joseph, owner of Krysi’s Scrapbooking Corner in Huber Heights.
She likes to use a box made by the company Creative Memory. “It’s magnetic, so you can swap things out. It also has a piece of ribbon along the border, so you can easily hang pictures or memorabilia,” she said.
If the idea of dealing with paper and scissors is daunting, digital scrapbooking might be more appealing. “There are programs now that come with the pages set up. You upload the digital pictures and they automatically get sized to boxes on the page. They’re printed out on whatever paper you want and then you’re done,” Joseph said.
An even easier option may be simply using a photo service — at stores or online — to have the graduate’s portrait or a favorite picture printed onto a mouse pad, a mug or other gift.
Show off your work
Share the product of all your hard work with others, whether it’s for graduation, a first birthday party, a wedding or some other occasion.
Using graduation as an example, you can start with the invitations or graduation announcements. “Some people make announcements that are very similar to Christmas cards with family photos on them,” Heller said. Or, use the school’s announcement but insert a photograph or a small homemade card inside.
At the party, get your guests involved, suggested Stephanie Via-Hagar, proprietor of Entertainment Unlimited Events in Centerville. “Make a collage of all of the graduate’s annual school pictures. Blow it up big and put it on an easel and have everybody sign the border,” she said.
Joseph, of Krysi’s Scrapbooking Corner, had a similar idea, but one that requires pre-planning. “Get your graduate’s friends to contribute photos or write little letters or notes ahead of time which you can display. It’s really special to get contributions from friends who may have moved away,” she said. Cover poster board or cardboard with colorful paper and make a collage of the pictures and notes and display it at the party.
Firsdon, co-owner of Encore Professional Organizers in Dayton with fellow organizer Barbara Warner, prefers a lighter approach than the usual displays of large senior portraits or trophies and awards. “I’d put up an easel board of really funny pictures,” she said. “Put things out that make people laugh and create a real conversation piece.” She suggested digging out those early Mother’s Day cards when your child still thought you were the best mother in the world, old notes showcasing early attempts at spelling, and those embarrassing early bath-time photos.
Firsdon recommends using your child’s mementos as the theme. “For one client, we used the mantle and the brick hearth as a display area, setting out favorite stuffed animals, old art projects and so forth. It was better than the usual cardboard props,” she said.
A mantle also could be used to display a timeline of the graduate’s life, Firsdon said. Make it out of poster board and paste pictures portraying the child at various points in his or her life. Put age-appropriate mementos on the mantle above the timeline.
If you made a shadowbox for your teen, Joseph recommended showing it off at the open house. Or, create temporary shadowboxes just for the party to display pages from a larger scrapbook. “People often won’t sit down and look through a book, but they will enjoy seeing the displays,” she said.
Heller suggested simply mounting the scrapbook pages on pieces of 12-by-12 foam board and setting them on tabletop easels. “You can put them in the book later,” she said.
A tech-savvy parent might choose to create a computerized slide show. It could be as simple as a changing display of photographs or a more elaborate presentation. Heller digitized a scrapbook she made for her son, using PowerPoint, complete with animated images and a musical soundtrack. She photographed the pages to digitize them, but with a large enough scanner, scanning pages is also an option. Digital files, either by email or CD, can also be shared with relatives and friends who can’t make the actual event.
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