Military Scrapbooking with Layers of Meaning

With so many of our armed forces stationed in different countries across the globe, military scrapbooking has taken on a new meaning. No longer is it archiving memories of old relatives and grandparents who served in the Vietnam or Korean War. It is about our young men and women who live far away from their families in war torn lands like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Remembering Lost Ones

Many military families find solace in thinking about their lost sons and daughters, wives or husbands by immersing themselves in military scrapbooking as an heirloom to pass down to their kids. Military scrapbooking can include letters or emails your navy seal sent to you days before he was missing in action, his badge or special photos provided to you by the government when they broke the news. Newspaper articles about another young life lost or pictures of when they were babies can all make beautiful military scrapbooking accents.

Celebrating Loved Ones

For those of us with children, spouses or siblings serving in the Army, Navy or Air Force, we can send them layouts of what is happening at home and make it a way of keeping in touch with members of the military through scrapbooking. Dad would love to know what his children wore and got on Christmas even if he is thousands of miles away.

Having a layout of the children opening presents along with their actual words and sentiments expressed when they unwrapped the shiny paper gives more layers of meaning to an otherwise regular photograph. Hand made cards and notes, report cards from school or certificates from swim or piano lessons can also be made in to scrapbooking pages for military family members.

Going Digital

If you can not send actual layouts to your loved ones overseas, many US bases have easy access to email. Digital scrapbooking has made significant strides and now it is easy, perhaps even easier than actual scrapbooking once you get the hang of it, to make a digital military scrapbooking layout. You can save the page where you left off with no packing up to do. You can just crop the pictures instead cutting with scissors - and still not making a straight line and you can 'adhere' as many embellishments as you like without a drop of glue on your fingers.

So, sort your pictures and send a scrapbooking page or card to someone who is serving our country. You have no idea how it will make his or her day!