By Elaine Whelan
The most treasured heirlooms are the sweet memories of family. Whereas your family trip may only last for a weekend, a week or a fortnight, the memories of your holiday can last forever. It is important to store these memories for your children as your childhood is a lot like being drunk- everyone can remember what you did, except you! One way to hold onto the precious memories made on your travels is to create a travel scrapbook with your kids. This is something you can do over the summer and can entertain your kids for years to come after each and every trip.
The first thing you will need to make your memory book is some form of scrapbook, notebook or ring binder. In order to decorate the pages, your kids may want to use stickers, stamps, decorative tape or patterned paper. All of these things are easily found online at amazon, in craft shops or in discounts shops like Mr. Price. Let your little ones imagination run wild when designing the cover and the pages. The drawings and designs they used will be something to look back on years from now.
While on holidays, encourage your children to collect souvenirs from the activities they do instead of throwing them away. Collect ticket stubs from museum or park entries, train or metro tickets and boarding passes. Also holding onto foreign currency like coins and notes, and receipts can help to decorate your scrapbook. While abroad pick up a local stamps and postcards. Hold onto maps and leaflets you pick up along the way or wrappers from local sweets or chocolate. These are all things that usually end up crumpled at the bottom of your bag before being thrown into the bin when you give your handbag a well needed spring clean. However, you’ll thank yourself for holding onto them when you watch your children happily cutting and sticking these items for their scrapbook that their future selves can enjoy.
Pictures are one of the best ways to preserve memories for a lifetime. Make sure to include loads in your family scrapbook. This way you can take photographs of the places you’ve been and seen but also of your family. Make sure to not only take staged and posed pictures but candid ones where your kids are natural and being themselves, its best to represent them exactly how they were as kids. Then when your children are all grown up, flicking through the pages of family trips gone by will not only remind them of happy memories but allows them to follow a timeline of how they grew over the years.
Make sure to include notes from your children alongside the pictures. Have them write about their favourite restaurants, attractions, shops and experiences from the holiday. This is the perfect way to document all the fun things you did and saw along the way that you couldn’t snap a picture of or pick up any souvenir. It will also let you see into the minds of your little ones and see the world from their perspective. You’ll be surprised that their favourite memories aren’t of expensive outings or meals but the little things like piggybacks through a park or dancing to the music on the street. It is also the cherry on the top that it gets them to practice their writing and spelling without any complaints!
The childhood memories made on holidays are some of the best your child can have. It is sad that photographs of these important times are cooped up on an iPhone camera roll or in a stuffy photo album and are never seen again. A travel scrapbook is more personal than a traditional photo album because it includes not only pictures but everything else that made your time together so special. Children grow up so fast so let their childhood last forever. Putting your travel scrapbook together will be a fun few hours spent with your kids that will turn into a time capsule for much much longer.
