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Am working on Vanessa’s book for her in-laws’ 50th anniversary right now. They raised 5 boys in Chicago and clearly have an awesome sense of humor.

The book is a 50 years, 50 memories theme and I just had to share this memory from their niece. It totally cracks me up.

Ask Auntie El about the time she got pulled over while going the wrong way down a one-way street—purposefully. She was just trying to save a little time on her way to or from one of a million baseball, basketball, or football practices, with a station-wagon full of boys. When the police officer approached the vehicle, Auntie El got out, put her hands behind her back, and asked him to please put her in hand-cuffs, and to take her to jail! That he’d be doing her an enormous favor! He looked her over, checked out her “precious cargo” and sent her on her way apologetically.

I love this Auntie El.
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Look how cute these turned out! Shannon and I used the inspiration from Isaac McHale’s announcements and made a few adjustments for her daughter Caden’s birth announcements.

Shannon wanted 2 pieces - a Thank You and a Hello Announcement.

Here’s the Hello Announcement with red stripes on the back.

Here’s the first panel. The rest of the panels say “My Daddy Scott, Mommy Shannon, and Big Brother Colton are all thrilled with my arrival! xoxo”

I love the end result, and Shannon was so fun to work with!

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Here’s a book made with love for Elinor by her children and grandchildren on her 75th birthday.

We used the "chapters of your life" concept, starting with early years.

I love this photo of Elinor's fiance dancing away at a famous New York nightclub for his bachelor party!

Photos of family life.

To add a personal touch, we asked each family member to come up with one word that described Elinor, and to explain why they picked that word. Here are a few examples of these "word" pages.

As a travel agent, Elinor's travels were an important part of the book.

The closing page.

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Tomorrow we start on Helmer and Emma’s gold mining history in Alaska. Such great photos. And I’m learning a lot about gold mining, of all things.

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From a book I’m working on right now.

A photo this newlywed sent to her husband in World War II. On the back she wrote, “My skirt couldn’t be much higher but – look at my wedding band – I still want to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming – you’re all mine dearest – we’re one forever.”

Love is the greatest.

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Old-fashioned savings accounts.

Mine wasn’t so yellowed and wonderfully old-fashioned as this (my great grandparent’s) but my first savings account was recorded in one of these passport-like booklets.

A far cry from online banking! I showed this to my younger cousin who didn’t even know what it was…

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Shannon just sent me this beautiful image of her holding her newborn girl. I just love it! Something about the black with the lovely blonde lil babe.

We’re using the photo for her daughter’s birth announcements. They’ll be similar in design to Joel McHale’s son Isaac’s announcements which you can see here and here.

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If, like me, you are a fan of Moleskines then you will love love this book.

Eric and his family spent 8 weeks in Brooklyn and he kept a daily journal while they were there. Along with his photos, we crafted his very own custom moleskine to remember the trip.

Here is:

brooklyn
8 weeks / fall 2008

The custom endsheets below feature the subway map of Brooklyn. We marked their apartment location on the map.

For a journal feel we added graph paper lines, highlighter marks on some of the text, and a handwriting font for the photo captions.

I love this next page with his 2-year-old daughter's favorite phrases. Precious.

If you just can't get enough, there are more photos here!

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I spent last weekend visiting my Dad’s family in Bakersfield, where I have lots of family history. My aunt dug up some old family photos for me and there were some real gems.

I especially love this one of my grandmother (on the right) and her girlfriends. Something about it - they’re just so carefree and happy to be together. Girlfriends are timeless.

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And no, I’m not talking today’s economy…I’m talking Great Depression.

This is the work of a man who made it through the Great Depression with imagination, pen, paper, a fancy camera, and a whole lot of gumption.

I heard this story last week from Bob, who is working on his family history book with me.

Bob’s father’s garment business was liquidated during the Great Depression. He needed another way to make money, so he started to draw. And it turns out he was GOOD at it. He illustrated these children’s books and pitched them to publishers…and got some published!

And then he somehow acquired a camera with the fastest shutter speed at that time. He started taking "rapid sequence" images like these.

Then he used the camera to photograph some dogs and wrote a children's book to go with it. Since he wasn't known, publishers rejected his manuscript. But since he needed the money, he found a known author who agreed to put his name on the book for 50% of the proceeds, and lo and behold it got published!

And when all was said and done and the Depression was over? He donated the camera to the Smithsonian where you can see it today.