My BOOK ABOUT ME Album

Wow its a hot summer. I have spent my summer enjoying air conditioning . Anything but being outside. I have enjoyed more movies and bowling this summer than ever before. Anything inside out of the heat.

My BAM album

Over at Paper Phenomenon Kathy has put together a beautiful BAM album. Bam means Book About Me. I had already made my own BAM album. I started mine last year. Seeing Kathy's masterpiece made me want to finish mine up. I had shared mine with a friend. However during the shipping back and forth the album was damage. I never got around to fixing the damage or 100% completing it. I have now finished the album and I am very happy with it. My album is nothing like Kathy's masterpiece. I made mine from a paper bag album. I would not recommend this type of album for this project. My album ended up being 8 inches thick by the time I finished layering it with all the pictures and embellishments. Wow that's a lot for a simple paper bag album. It is not standing up to the wear and tear my album is getting and will get. To help this I have reinforced the inside of the bags to give them more strength. So I suggest you put in more thought than I did when starting your album. If your making a BAM album check out Kathy's wonderful BAM album (http://paperphenomenon.blogspot.com ) and follow her tutorial. I do plan to make a box for my album to keep it safe.

Here is the front cover on my BAM album. I will post a few pages to show you what I made. I will also share with you what I learned while making this album and what you need to keep in mind when making a BAM album. Its a very personal album. Mine is already filled with personal pictures and journaling.  Some of the infomation in my BAM is too personal to share on this blog. I plan to pass mine on to my granddaughter. It is a wealth of information  that your are sharing with your loved ones.

Here is what you need to keep in mind when making your own BAM

1. It is about you. Make the pictures and the jounrnaling about you.

2. Gather all the picture you can from your childhood to present. Pick out what pics that represent your life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

3. Put them in order of dates. Decide how many pages you will make. Pick your pictures you want to use.

4. Put all the pictures per page in envelopes. Write the date and the event on the envelope.

5. Put all the envelopes in a box. Pull out one envelope at a time and make that page. This way each page has its own thoughts, colors and personality. When you put the pages together you will be your life flip from year ( or event) to year ( or event). You don't want the pages to have the same color theme. You want it to be a collection of your thoughts and experiences.

6. Prepare yourself for a emotional ride. Especially if you included some sad and disappointing time's of your life in your BAM book. You will relive some of those moments.

I learned alot about myself during my making of my BAM album. The biggest thing I learned was it is easier to forgive others than it is to forgive myself.

Here are 5 pages from my BAM album. I could not show the interactive pages. All my jouarnals are done on 6x7 cardboard tags in  between the pages of the paper bag album.

This is my first page. It is my favorite Easter picture of me as a 4 year old child.

Happy moments of my daughter and  I , as we rode my motorcycle.

Pictures of me throughout the years. I journal about how I felt at each point of my life that these pictures represent.

 



Me.... still looking for my White Knight, I journal about how I feel about finding the prefect marriage and being single at 50.



Pictures of my kids throughout their lives. I shrunk the picture's down to make them all fit. I journal about my feelings of motherhood, raising twins, adoption of my daughter and foster children.

Happy Crafting

Terri