Meet Cindi my Scrapbook Buddy

When my parents moved to Oklahoma they brought all the family pictures with them.  They thought because I didn't move as much as my other siblings that I should be the one to store all of the albums, slides, photos, negatives, and mementos. So I put all these plastic bins in a closet for a couple years. One day I decided to see what all was in these plastic bins and start organizing the photos. It was a daunting job but as I began to look at old black and white photos I thought it would be a good idea to get them in some order for future generations.

My daughter knew a lady who liked to scrapbook and she gave me a couple lessons and then I was on my own.  I went shopping for supplies and started my first heritage scrapbook. My parents began to tell us the stories about these sober-looking people in these black and white photos.

I was a solo scrapbooker for a couple years and then two of my nieces Cindi and Leanna decided they might like to join me in 2004. Then Leanna had another child and didn't have as much time to devote to the hobby but Cindi was able to stay with me and became my scrapbook buddy all these years.


My favorite part of doing a scrapbook is, first of all, choosing my photos, then the journaling and embellishments. Cindi has a much better eye for color and color contrasting so she helps me pick out my paper.  She is also better at tedious jobs like gluing on small items.  She has been my encourager when I feel overwhelmed that I have so many scrapbooks I want to do and little time to do them. 

Cindi, my niece, and scrapbook buddy

When we get together we make it a special day.  We catch up on what is going on in each other's lives, usually go out for lunch and often make a trip to Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

Shopping with Cindi is always an experience!

Cindi loves Christmas and sometimes we end up doing Christmas decor shopping.

This girl loves all Christmas decor!

Sometimes we even watch a DVD while we scrapbook.  We laugh a lot and always have chocolate and caffeine available if we get sleepy or lack creativity and need a picker-upper. 

About three years ago she had an idea of us doing a  scrapbook of my parents and making one for all my siblings and their children.  That was a huge project but we had them done by the one year anniversary of my mom going to be with the Lord.  We had a family get together and presented everyone with a scrapbook.  We looked through it together and reminisced and shared great memories of my parents. Everyone felt it helped the grief process for all of us.

A couple sample pages of our heritage scrapbook.

Reviewing the finished scrapbooks at our family gathering.

Her latest idea is a generational recipe scrapbook. She has emailed everyone to get favorite recipes and I have my mom's recipe box so she is capturing some of those recipes for this project.

She has recently started digital scrapbooking and made two beautiful scrapbooks of our yearly Christmas Collectible that we have with the ladies in our family. It was a four-generation event for several years but now my mom is looking down from heaven. Cindi is a wonderful niece but she has also become a keeper of the family memories and in the process, we are making our own memories. 

Love you sweet Cindi and thanks for being my scrapbook buddy!!