Project Christine's Keepsakes

(Written by and borrowed from Leslie's Blog dated Jan 4th)
I am a scrapbooker and a photographer. I love the process of creating something that is pleasing to the eye that expresses my thoughts, feelings, memories and showcases the pictures that I have taken. But more important than the creative outlet that it provides me, is the end result; my family's memories at my children's fingertips. After all, isn't that the reason any of us that are scrapbookers started in the first place? I have often thought about how behind I am, and how I wish I had more time to spend completing my books. Did I miss any important shots? Have I journaled important events before they are forgotten? Or, heaven forbid, something happens to any of us before the memories and photos are completed?

Christine Post was also a scrapbooker and photographer. She came into both crafts a little later in life, after weddings, kids, birthdays and holidays. She has thousands of pictures on her hard drive just waiting to be seen and appreciated. She had lots of catching up to do. Just this year she survived her husband's second 4 month deployment to Iraq in which she found it even more difficult to "catch up" on her scrapbooks and photos.

On December 11th, Christine passed away from a heart attack. She was only 35 years old and leaves behind a loving husband and 4 young children; Abby 9, Chris 7 and Madeline and Payton both 3. She also leaves behind thousands (I'm not exaggerating!) of photos to comb through and a ton of memories to scrapbook.

Her good friend Lisa has asked me to participate in an important project, Christine's Keepsakes. Our goal is to get Christine caught up on her albums so that her kids can have memories of her and their family at their fingertips. This is an important project, and we really need help. We need help in two areas: willing and able scrapbookers (beginner or advanced) to donate time to create Christine's layouts, and we need supply. We are first using Christine's own scrapbooking stash, but we need the basics: cardstock, adhesive, both wet (glue and glue sticks) and dry (photo mounting and glue dots) AND we need to print her massive amount of digital images, which is going to take ink and paper or online photo printing credits. Later, we will need more albums, and of course page protectors.

We are hoping to have a local kickoff for Christine's Keepsakes on Saturday, January 17th at the Ramstein Scrapbooking Crop. We will set aside a table with Christine's photo's and supplies. You can drop in and do a layout or bring your supplies, do your own scrapbooking and maybe do a layout for Christine while you are at it. It will be held at the Ramstein Elementary school from 9am until midnight. If you are interested in helping out, shoot me an email or add comment here and I can give you more details.

We would love to see a community come together to complete this important project for Christine and her kids. This community does not need to be just local, it can take in anyone who is interested in helping, whether you knew Christine or not. If you did know her, you know the way she touched others' lives. The idea for this project has blossomed from offers to make layouts or donate supplies by some of those touched by her. This is our way to give back to her and her family. If you would like to participate, whether completing layouts or contributing to the project in some other way, just contact myself at lesliefrandsen1@hotmail.com or leave a comment on my blog, or contact Lisa Terry at scrap4joy@mail2world.com. We'd love to have you involved if you feel you have something to give.

If you live stateside and want to complete layouts we can email you digital photos to work with. ANYONE can participate in anyway they feel they can! That is the beauty of technology!

This is important and if we work together we will be able to save Christine's legacy for her children to cherish for the rest of their lives. Her children were so young and having these books will be precious to them later in life. Let's pull together and complete Christine's Keepsakes!