Celebrating 100 YEARS with Grandma

I come from a family history of longevity.  Yesterday, we celebrated my Grandma's 100th birthday!! (Her actual birthday is really tomorrow - Monday, June 19th).  My Great Grandma (Grandma's mother) lived to 105 so it was no surprise to us that my grandma would strive to do the same!  So of course, we had to throw her big a party!!   Family from all around came by to wish her a Happy Birthday.

I wanted to do something special for my Grandma and give her something she would enjoy - looking at pictures from the past and reading everyone's birthday wishes!   I took an idea from fellow consultant Karen Pedersen.  Karen shared a guest registry she created for her son's wedding that was an album with layouts that the guests could sign. What a beautiful gift. So, I took Karen's idea and created a similar type album on a smaller scale.   I created 8x8 layouts and included pictures of Grandma through the years.  We had a special table set up, where I placed a couple of layouts on the table at the same time.  As the pages filled with signatures and notes, I would change them out with other layouts.

Now after the party is over, Grandma can enjoy the pictures and sweet notes over and over.

Here are the layouts I created with some specific notes about some of the pages.  Enjoy!

For this album, I used last year's Scrapbooking Month special paper - Happy Times.  I had just enough scraps left that I was able to use most of what I had left!  You will see, that with this type of album, you don't need ALOT of extra papers but I did use ALOT of cardstock!  The "Happy Birthday" and the balloon were both cut from the Artiste Cricut Cartridge (now retired).  I dug around in my stash and found some paper flowers from years ago!  These were big round flowers that I folded in half and then folded in half again!  I used the mini staple to hold the folds together.   The stem is from the Happy Times stamp set!

For all of my pages I used an 8x8 piece of cardstock for the base page and layered it with White Daisy cut to 7 1/2 x 7 1/2.  Since the pages are smaller I wanted to allow plenty of white space for the signing area so all of my pictures are either 3x4 or 4x3 in size.

Originally I was only going to have the pictures with no headings or names... but as I thought about it, I knew that eventually this album would end up handed down so adding names and dates where I was able became very important.

The flowers stamped on this layout are from the Happy Times Stamp set that was exclusive to National Scrapbooking Month in 2016.  I used Canary and Glacier Inks.





















There are a couple of pieces on this layout that are from my stash...... The Glacier Heart washi tape and the Glacier Thick Twine.



This layout is one of my favorites.  My Grandma was a quilter and she had a group of ladies at her church that she quilted with.   Since it was something she loved to do I wanted to be sure to include a picture in her book.  I decided to piece together the pattern papers like a quilt for this page.  I also tied little knots of twine and added with a few wooden buttons.

Here are more paper flowers and a butterfly I found in my stash.  Perfect Accent!

I ended the book with a layout of Grandma and husband Ed.  The picture on the left is a trip they took a few years ago to Venice, Florida.  I love how happy they look.   The picture on the right is probably one of their more recent photos in their new home.  After living on the family farm all her life (the farm had been in the family for over 100 years), she sold it to move to town.

I hope this Guest Book will inspire you!  The concept is a wonderful idea for creating a keepsake - whether for a wedding, milestone anniversary birthday!  

You can see Karen Pedersen's wedding guest album here: