Family Tree

Family Trees can be a breeze

Family trees are becoming quite popular with scrapbooking fans. Family Tree albums are also known as Heritage Albums. There are many different ideas on how these can be done, so I thought I’d give you a few of the ideas that I’ve come across. Doesn’t everyone want to know and be able to hand down information about their own Family Tree.

Here’s an idea on how to get your Family Tree album started: Draw out your family tree on paper. This sounds pretty easy, but you have a few choices for each of the items I go thru. Do you want to start your Family Tree Album with a large tree and fill in the “tree” with the generations? Will you put names and dates or will you use pictures and names? How many generations do you want to include in your Family Tree? You may have more information on one side of the family than the other, but you’ll still want your tree to be as even on both sides as you can. Depending on how big your family tree will be, you might want to use two pages, which I will discuss later.

Print the information you have on each person on a separate piece of paper. This information

could be maiden names, birth dates, or death dates. This can be done by hand or on your computer. Print marriage dates on separate pieces of paper. These pieces can be placed between the married couple. One thought here would be to decide what shapes to use. Will you use round or oval pictures and rectangular shapes for dates or printed information? Will you use a different color for each generation? What about different colors for each side of the family? Remember, this is your project. You can use the same paper and color schemes for your entire family tree album if you wish. You can also look up family tree or heritage ideas on line.

If you have decided to use two pages for your family tree album, you could place one side of the family on each page. How about using a solid background and trim it down by using a lovely floral or decorative coordinating paper and place it on top? You might also use decorative scissors as you trim down the top paper. Then, try using shorter strips of paper to connect the names of the married couples. Can you visualize this in your head? You might even want to mat the names on to colorful strips to add a layered look. Hopefully this is giving you more ideas on how you would like to build your personal Family Tree album.