Tribute album for parent/s

Hi Karen and welcome.
I think a lot would depend on what photos I had to work with.
I would start with a title page.
First 2 page spread ( if I had the photos) would be prehaps a baby photo each, Mum on one side, Dad on other.
Next any childhood photos, then young adult then courtship photos, then wedding photos.
Followed by photos of their life together, their children coming along etc.
I would then do another title page for the other set of parents and follow the same format.
Mind you, this is all well and good if you have a lot of photos to work with.
I tend to be a bit ocd though and like things in order in a case like this....
You could choose to keep the same colour tones throughout, or mix it up for each page.
I guess that would depend on whether you wanted a more formal looking album.
When I scrapped my parents, I mostly had only black and white photos from their early days.
Hope you enjoy working on this precious album.....

Hi Karen,

I like what Christi has suggested but I'm not nearly so organized so just want to build a little on her suggestions. Assuming you have what you need in the way of pictures, I'd consider these additional suggestions:

1) Use a D-Ring scrapbook binder, NOT a post binder. Otherwise, you may find that your spending a bunch of time taking your post binder apart (to remove 3 posts with a screw driver) and put it back together again to rearrange pages. If you choose a D-ring binder (just like we used in school only made for 12 x 12 scrapbook pages) you only need to snap open the D-ring and swap out a page or two. I made 4 post binder albums for my twins before I discovered the D-ring binders! I can't tell you how many times I changed my mind about the order I wanted my pages to appear just because I discovered a few new pictures I had to include. Its a huge time saver especially if you don't know exactly which pictures your going to choose. I must have taken those post binder books apart two dozen times before I was done! What a huge waste of time.

2) A traditional style for ancestry layouts is a style called Vintage or Heritage. That style accommodates older pictures beautifully, especially if they are done in sepia or black and white. This style is typically done in muted tones of browns, creams, blues, greens, rose, yellows, lilac, almost any color in a muted tone can be used for heritage pages. Its also a style that can accommodate colored pictures too because you can use a neutral background colors. If you choose a style (Vintage or Heritage) rather than a specific color or theme, you won't be limiting your color palette or the different types of papers you can use. You can do a gallery search of either or both of these styles to see if you like the look first. And, there are tons of examples that you can follow if your new to this style.

3) Last thing I'd suggest is to make your opening page a family tree. You can start it with your parents, next row would be their children and the last row their grandchildren. This way you have one page with everyone on it. Include full names, birth place and date, (and death dates if applicable) as labels under the pictures. There are a lot of fill in the blank type family tree pages, so give those a search in the products area to see if you can find something you like, or be creative and do one free style.

If you wanted you could make this a 2 pager with the first page dedicated to your paternal and maternal grandparents and all their children. With page two picking up at your parents. It just depends what pictures you have available and how thoroughly you'd like to document the family.

Hope these tips are helpful. Above all else, there is no right or wrong way to do this, just have fun!

Welcome
I think that is a perfect idea to do I have a monthly heritage challenge here where every one scraps photos from 70s & before. we would love to have you join us some of those are making albums for their parents too I will send you a link

I just sent you a link in our pm system here

Hi Karen and welcome.

Welcome Karen!

You've got some wonderful suggestions here. May I add a few more? Plan your pages and decide what order you want them, but don't actually create them in that order. I would jump about, start with the pages in the middle, and don't do the main title page until you've worked out your style, colour scheme (if you want to - you don't have to have one!) and your repeating embellishments to keep it cohesive.

Working with large photos doesn't give you much scope for embellishments, so I would stick to something fairly generic: clusters of flourishes/swirls in corners, for example, with added flowers/butterflies for the ladies' pictures, and stars/birds/dragonflies for the guys'. Tags make great labels.

Make sure that you display the Who, When and Where for each photo. Journalling is really important too - so include the What, How and Why as well if you have it, and any little stories, especially funny ones. If you don't have space to display your journalling, you can tuck it behind the photo mat with a ribbon pull so that you can remove it from the top of the page protector to read it.

Enjoy!

Thank you all very much. I've put all of the advice together and have a plan - I think. Thanks for the D-ring advice. That will make life easier. And thanks for sharing the link. I'll be spending some late-night hours over this next week putting a few ideas to work using the pictures I already have printed. Thank you for the "permission" to work out of sequence! And yes, I journal- to the point of occasionally annoying my family! The big events are fun and memorable but everyday life is what it's all about. I'll share a few pages when I'm done, if I can figure out how to do it on this site. Thanks again. You all are GREAT !!!!!!!!!! (I think I'll be spending some time on this site!!!)

I am a HUGE journaler myself I also scrap out of order I look at the pic that that I want to tell the story of first & do that. I think you can never have too much journaling