Last year my oldest daughter made the transition from middle school to high school.  I was so sad and couldn’t believe how fast time had flown by.  It’s incredible how life just moves past you without any warning whatsoever.  We had just moved across the country, she had to start middle school at a school where she didn’t know anyone, start completely over with her sports and hobbies, and did it with an amazing attitude. We promised our kids we weren’t going to move them again. We promised that these were the friends they were going to graduate with. But life throws curve balls and we found ourselves moving again shortly after we had settled. We were moving to a place where she’d be starting all over again, new high school, new friends, new teams, new everything….once again.

So where am I going with all of this? I wanted to give her something special, something she’d treasure forever and help her capture all of her memories and stories from middle and thank her for being so supportive in our next adventure.  I want her to know that her family loves her, knows her and that she can do anything she sets her mind to. I want her to remember that she’s an amazing girl, spiritually strong and that she can make good decisions and be successful in the crazy times of high school.

I collected her report cards, awards, school pictures, sports achievements, letters from family, friends and teachers, scanned in special shirt logos, ticket stubs, etc.   I wrote down all of the big moments and achievements, stories, triumphs and failures.  I listed all of the fun fashions and fads, her favorite foods, colors, music, movies, books, and so on.  Through Cherish Bound, I put all of these images and stories together in an A-B-C format….the ABC’s of Surviving Middle School.

My favorite part was the letters from her family, friends and teachers. As a mother it’s so comforting to see how many people are rooting for her, how many people want her to WIN in life.

I used digital scrapbooking techniques to create a beautiful custom cover, and merged it with Cherish Bound’s custom designed backgrounds and colors to create an adorable book that she’ll treasure forever.

I did the cover with digital scrapbooking downloads from Shabby Princess
I created the cover with the “Express Yourself” Collection
I loaded the entire page as an 8.5×11 portrait size into the Cherish Bound full-bleed template to create the cover.

Here’s a peak at the inside of the book….  M is for Mom.

If you’d like more information on how you can preserve your family’s stories and memories visit my at my blog www.publishourstories.com or you can find me at Cherish Bound www.findcaptureandshare.com to request more information.

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