The Elegant Pen - Heritage Scrapbooking

The buttons below will take you to our heritage galleries where you can see first hand just what it is that we do. What you see on those pages will exemplify what we mean when we talk about "Heritage" and "Legacy" albums. Enjoy your visit, and please feel free to contact us should you have any questions.

Heirloom treasures to pass down from generation to generation. Call us now.

Is your ancestry just a list of names, dates, and places? Have you inherited "tons" of old photos from Grandma but have no clue what to do with them? Before these items become lost to generations, why not let us make you a heritage album that will be a lasting legacy for your family?

"Elegant simplicity" is key in our albums. The pages of your heritage album should never be too "busy". The focus must be on the picture!

"Simplicity is Nature's first step, and the last of Art." J.P. Bailey

Why Make a Pictorial Family Heritage Album?

So you can trace your family’s heritage all the way back to the Mayflower (or beyond)? You have hundreds of names, dates, facts, and places. But would you recognize any of these old relatives if you would see a picture of them in an old book or historical journal or even in a box of old pictures Grandma gave you? Can you tell Johnny why it is that he has red hair when neither you nor your spouse nor any of his siblings do? If the answer to the last two questions is no, then you have a reason to make a pictorial family heritage album.

Genealogists specialize in unearthing family members and facts concerning them. But sometimes, that’s exactly what they remain…facts, not “real people.” Put some faces with those facts and they become much more “real” to this generation especially because this generation is “image” oriented. Also, faces coupled with names, dates, and places lend authenticity to those facts.

How does one go about making such an album? You have the hardest part done, the research. Now all you have to do is organize the pictures to go with it.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

The Three C’s of Making a Heritage/Legacy Album

I. Continuity
   A. Inventory
   B. Catalog
       1. What works best for you (chronologically, families, individuals)
   C. Preservation
        1. Archival safe materials
II. Coordination
    A. Family - color
    B. Theme
    C. Chronology
        1. Past to present; present to past
   D. Focus
         1. ALWAYS the picture- “One picture is worth a thousand words.”
III. Creativity
     A. Elegance
     B. Simplicity
     C. Journaling
         1. Authentic handwriting
         2. Computer fonts
         3. Period lettering/script

Heritage Scrapbooking is:

Different (no primary colors)
Simple ("less is more"... focus on picture)
Elegant (not "cute")
Coordinated
A pictorial history of family/families

On the page to the left below we have featured the ship that brought this client's great-grandparents over from Ireland. To our client this was a very important bit of information. A heritage/legacy album need not be limited to simply old family pictures. Pictures and stories of events and happenings during the time your ancestors walked this earth can add a whole new perspective to the album giving one a real feel for that age and what life was like then.

For larger image click on picture.

The page above right was the Church where our client's great- grandmother was baptized. A picture like this can represent an important part of your legacy, and should not be left out. In this instance we had to rebuild the Church in Adobe Photoshop because our client had been unable to take a picture of the whole Church as you see it here. It is a beautiful old building and the page added a little something extra to the albums!

If you're at a loss in this area, why not supply The Elegant Pen with the information and the photos and let us craft a family heirloom for you? Our custom heritage albums are one-of-a-kind treasures to pass down from generation to generation.