Straight From The Heart

By:Sheila K, St. Louis, MO

My passion for scrapbooking started just before Christmas 1998. I was immediately hooked! I called it my therapy because it was relaxing, and seeing the end result of my work was very satisfying. I received my first kit that Christmas, which turned out to be the springboard for my favorite hobby.

My first project was to make a scrapbook of the first year of my twin boys' lives (they are now 9 years old). That book completely converted a tattered set of photo albums into something that through my journaling now tells a story. This is important to me because when I am gone, my children and their children won't have to guess who was who and wonder what the story is behind each picture.

I made a scrapbook for my parents and one for my husband's parents as gifts this past Christmas. Inside the front cover of each it read "Straight From The Heart." The facing page read, "Merry Christmas 1999." I started the book by recording my first days with my husband. Then I did pages for each of our four children from birth to the present in order. The last page read:

"From beginning 'til now
These pages have told
Some wonderful stories --
Some new and some old.
Out stories aren't over;
No, they've just begun.
We'll keep making more
And sharing the fun!"

At the time I wrote those words, I didn't know how important they would become by the time they were read by our parents. My husband received a promotion just days before Christmas that required us to relocate over 800 miles away. Since our parents won't be a daily part of our lives anymore, these scrapbooks will be even more cherished. I will be taking extra pictures every month to use in special scrapbooks that they can look forward to for Christmases to come.

The look on our parents' faces when they opened the scrapbooks was all it took to make me realize that it's not the price of the gift you give that matters. What matters most is that it comes from your heart. A family scrapbook is priceless!


Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Untitled, by By Shana in Washington