To begin this process of creating a memory book for my grandma Shirley I started by asking if she had any old photo albums that I could look at. For lack of knowing a better place to start I thought starting to look at those old photos would begin to tell a story about Grandma, her ancestors, childhood and family. I visited with her on the phone a few times and she has story upon story from her life. So, the natural next step was to begin recording those stories and finding some way to put those in the book as well. Well, .ittle did I know that in asking for the photo albums that I would soon enough have more than 10 albums in my possession, with some being as big as a phone book. I got what I asked for and then some.
The good thing is that now there are over 4 GB worth of pictures saved after the scanning of the photos has taken place. And if you have ever wondered what it feels like to scan 4 GB of photos onto your computer, below is a close depiction:
or this:
Anyway, the photo scanning process is nearly finished, unless additional photos surface as the process goes along. With that chapter of my life behind me, I push on with the compilation of the photos, stories, audio, video and attempt to make it into a coherent book. I decided to use
Blurb to
make the book. If you haven't seen or heard of Blurb before, first of all what rock do you live under, it is a great site for the amateur (me) to make a professional looking book that is completely customized. There are a few other options to make the book including using Photoshop. But, to use Photoshop would mean that I knew even a little bit about what I am doing and also digital design software. 0 for 2 there. My sister can run circles around me with that stuff, so I'll stick with the idiot-friendly software for the time being.
Hello and welcome to the blog, Creating Grandma's Memory Book, dedicated to following the creation of a memory book for my grandmother, Shirley.
What is a life book?
In short, a life book is the happy medium between a photo album and having an actual conversation over coffee with a loved one. It is an interactive book with photos, articles, audio and video recordings encompassing the memories and experiences that make up someone''s life.
Why create a life book?
The idea for the life book came from interactions and conersations i have had with many senior citizens. As part of my current job I sometimes have the opportunity to see and talk to seniors in their homes. In almost every time iwas fortunate enough to meet with a senior, the senior almost always had pictures of family members displayed in the home. An easy way to get a senior to
start talking is to ask who was in the pictures? How many kids do u
have? Grandkids? Great grandkids? People have such amazing stories to
tell and hardly anyone asks.
Which brings me to why I wanted to do this. I was visiting with my
grandmother once when i was younger and she was talking about her family
history. As a typical teenager I was timing in my head the amount of
time it would take to get back to my paused game of Mike Tyson's
punchout on Nintendo.
