by Rachel Paxton

You might be thinking that I'm really organized to be already working on scrapbooking my daughter's high school memories. To be honest, I have a shoe box full of pictures of my daughter waiting for me to get to someday.

But if I wait until "someday" to continue taking pictures because I already have so many pictures I haven't done anything with, then my daughter's teenage years will come and go while I try to catch up.

I don't want to chronicle every detail of my daughter's life (nor would she want me to!), but I was trying to think of some memories that she might want to laugh about and maybe even treasure someday. So how do you do that without ending up with pages and pages of memories?

I decided to do two large (12x12) pages (facing each other in the album) for each year of high school. I will challenge myself to use this space creatively to tell the story of each year. When I started thinking of all the the possibilities, it really inspired me to start getting organized and collecting some great memories. And don't limit yourself to just photographs, your scrapbook pages can really be accentuated by other types of memories. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Photograph Ideas:

High School Dances

First Date/Boyfriend

School Building

Church Events/Retreats

Braces (the day they're removed)

Hair Styles

Clothing Fads

Learning to Drive

First Job

First Car

Best Friends

School Plays/Concerts

Family Vacations

Favorite Family Pets

Babysitting

Sports/Band/Cheerleading

Musical Instrument Practice

Other:

CD Covers (scanned)

Favorite Song Lyrics

Drivers' Permit

First Pay Stub

Programs from Play/Concerts

College Brochures

School Newspapers

ASB Card

Awards/Certificates

Ticket Stubs (concert, movie, sporting events)

Report Cards

You can be creative when you're arranging your layouts. Don't be afraid to cut pictures down or cut out portions of play programs or school newspapers. Just cut out enough to accentuate the other items on the page. You will create the overall effect from the entire page, not necessarily from an individual item.

Have fun and don't worry if you don't get it done all at one time. I figure if I can do one every summer for the previous school year, by the time she finishes high school (she's a freshman this year), all of her high school memories will be recorded in the family archives.

About the Author:

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit crafty-moms.com.