Friday, June 15, 2012

My Summer Memory Keeping Project

I started this week on a HUGE undertaking!!
My grandparents will be celebrating their 60th Anniversary this summer.   Truly amazing!
At their wedding - 1952
At their 50th Anniversary Celebration in 2002
Well when we started planning the celebratory events for this momentous occasion, it seemed to make sense to me that I volunteer to create a slide show for the reception and an album to give my grandparents as a gift.   I do 'memory keeping' pretty much full time, right?!?!

Well - - let me tell you - - 60 years of marriage, 4 kids, 13 grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren create a whole LOT of photos & memories.     This is going to be a really big job that is going to consume a big chunk of my time over the next 6 or so weeks - - but I think it is going to be sooooo worth it.

Here is my plan - I have been collecting photos from cousins, aunts, uncles, and other family & friends for the project.  (I'm talking a whole big box of photos people!!!)  Some are on CD but most are originals requiring scanning for my project (yikes - the scanning takes a lot of time!)   I recently purchased a Mac (which I love!) so I'm creating a slideshow using my IMovie software on my computer.  I have begun this phase of the project & it is going pretty well so far.  I still have some photos to add that I'm waiting for from people & lots of captions/dates, etc., but the general framework of the slideshow is in place.    I basically set up the slideshow as a timeline of their lives.   I'm quite excited about how it is all coming together.  The biggest challenge with the slideshow is keeping it to a reasonable length!  As I said - 60 years = lots of photos.  Our family is large & I want to make sure everyone has their special photos of & with grandma & grandpa included in the presentation.  But I may have to work on paring it down a little when I'm done adding all the content.

The second phase of the project will be to complete a Studio J album to give my grandparents as a gift at the Anniversary celebration.  I can't possibly include all of the photos that I have collected in the slideshow presentation - we'd be watching it all night - so I'm hoping by doing the album I can add more photos and memories and more written details.   Also - by creating a Studio J album, I'll be able to provide extra copies of the layouts for anyone in the family who would like to have this collection of our family photos and stories in their own homes.    For myself, I plan to have a copy printed for my family & am so excited that my kids will have this record of our extended family's history and heritage.

(On a sidenote - for those that don't know, Studio J is CTMH's digital scrapbooking program!  One tip I've already learned - if you are scanning photos to include in your digital scrapbooking & plan on printing the layouts - be sure you set your resolution on your scanner high enough for 'print quality'!!)

So . . . if the blog is quiet in the next several weeks - - you now know why!!  I'm not absent - just working away on this gigantic memory keeping project.   I hope to share some of the finished product here once I'm done - so stay tuned for that.

Wish me luck . . . 49 days to go until the party!

6 comments:

  1. Wow! Now that is a major undertaking! What a great project! And 60 years of marriage...that's amazing!
    Jo-Anna

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  2. Sounds amazing! And so special. Good luck.

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  3. What a wonderful thing to do for them (well, for everyone, really) - you will be missed but it's all for a good cause. I'll wait right here!
    Hugs!

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  4. What a lovely project! I am sure your whole family will appreciate the walk down memory lane. (I am sharing some Moxie Fab love since Cath is recovering from shoulder surgery).

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  5. wow Carla, that is amazing! 60 years! my grandparents made it to 57 years and then my grandpa passed and my Nana was totally lost without him. We all did the same thing for her and created a HUGE collage in a HUGE frame, she loved it and I am sure your grandparents will love it!! Good luck, be sure to share some of the pages with us :)

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  6. Congrats to your Grandparents, that is a truly an amazing time line. Good luck with the project, sounds like a ton of work, but how rewarding.

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