future gift idea

[mandycapped.livejournal.com]

i spent this year's christmas at my boyfriend's parent's house along with 20 others from his family. one of my bf's aunts proved to be the crafty one this year and this particular gift turned out to be one of the highlights of christmas eve.

over the years (which have been many - she's 69) she's collected photographs of everyone in her family. she sorted them out into groups for each family member and cut them up scrapbook style. now instead of making scrapbooks for everyone, she affixed each group of pics onto a large colorful piece of paper. she wrote the year the picture was taken on top of each picture and at the bottom of the whole thing she wrote the receiver's name along with "xmas 2003". then she took them to kinko's or someplace of the like and had both sides laminated. the final product - placemats with some family history.

everyone LOVED their gift. it was so neat to see how everyone's grown into who they are today, not to mention the stories that followed.

anyway, i just wanted to pass this idea along in hopes that someone else could use it or alter it to their liking. happy holidays!