My twelve-yr-old daughter was mad at me when I refused to pay $25 for a school yearbook final yr. Who are they trying to kid?

In an attempt to appease my daughter, I recommended buying a small notebook that her friends could write messages in for her. As it turned out, we discovered a small turquoise spiral-bound notebook for about $3 that she really liked. Her gel pens looked really great on the turquoise paper.

I also agreed to allow her consider my camera to school on the final day (it’s a pretty inexpensive camera). She took a roll of movie that was all hers to consider photos of her friends. She had her buddy write small notes to her in her notebook, including telephone numbers, AOL Immediate Messenger screen names, what ever information they needed to exchange.

Following we acquired the movie developed, my daughter cut the faces of friends she needed out of the pictures and glued them into her notebook. Subsequent she additional notes next to every picture, including the person’s title and some thing about that individual. The neat thing about these pictures was the reality that they were all so candid. She acquired group pictures of her friends, shots of all the boys she had crushes on throughout the yr–everything she needed to remember in years to come.

The complete cost of her small friendship album was about $10. The reminiscences it contains are priceless. When I final asked her where her album was, she stated a buddy had borrowed it so she could scan all the photos for herself!

Originally published at Suite 101. Rachel Paxton is a freelance author and mom of 4. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-providing ideas, and more family memory-making activities, go to http://www.crafty-moms.com