Much of my tweens was spent clipping Glamour and Teen Beat. I value the tactile feel of yellowed newsprint and magazine gloss. Several photo album leaves are filled with old recipes and now kids certificates, art projects, and even a few college essays.
This is so precious!!! And a commonplace book sounds right up my alley! What a gift to have for children/grandchildren. After my Dad passed away unexpectedly, my brother went through his many (digital) notes and put together a book.
I keep a word doc of blog posts I’ve read that I’ve found interesting/helpful/inspiring across all areas (parenting, trips, general musings), the internet version of a commonplace book. Many an EmforMarvlous post have made it on there!
I love this! My grandmother is also a big clipper of newspaper and magazine articles and frequently mailed her clippings to various family members with little notes. (She photocopied so she’d have duplicates and, I assume, kept the original.) She also kept a huge binder full of newspaper and magazine clippings about JFK’s assassination. My granddad was out of the country with the Air National Guard when JFK was shot, and she wanted him to be able to see the coverage — but it was also a treasure trove to her history-loving, Kennedy-fascinated high school granddaughter (🙋🏻♀️) when she brought it back out years later. She also subscribed to Reader’s Digest and I remember sitting next to the basket full of them at her house and reading every one! What an interesting reflection, friend!
I was just going through a few boxes and came across many newspapers from around 9/11 that John had saved. I asked him if he was ready to part with them and he said ABSOLUTELY NOT, MA'AM 😂
Ha! I am the keeper of much of the collections of Sturgis/Hall/Foster/Ayer diaries, clippings, genealogy records, and other “interesting stuff.” My go-to is to open a trove and read aloud to whoever is gathered (and listening), usually at the Cottage or at Sarah’s.😉It is a way to learn about our forebears, correct fallacies, compare historical events and laugh! I have tried to immortalize certain things I hope are important to future generations IN PRINT (like EFTS’s diary entries from the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919 and her Weeks in July at the Cottage in 1925 compared to mine of the same period in 2025.) Interesting, important and fun! Will you be the next Keeper, Em?❤️
There is education, there is intelligence and there is wisdom. All three are important - but they are not the same. Your dad obviously worked at all three. I'm glad you are clipping the articles he saved and putting them into something that can be passed down. The world needs more wisdom and that wisdom needs to be shared - who better to receive it from than a parent or grandparent. Love the article!!
This is so cool! My husband and I do something similar, but rather in our notes apps. Some of my most prized possession are a journal my great grandmother filled out for all her grandmother, and a journal from another great grandpa. This makes me want to start my own clippings journal!
My great grandmother who kept the journal for us grandkids also used to mail clippings to people - my mom has a binder from College of all of the ones sent to her!
I adored reading Reader's Digest when I was a kid - my parents subscribed for many years! As a professional "keeper" my main recommendation if you do keep clippings etc is to not paste them into a scrapbook! Rather keep them in a good box with nice folders. They'll keep much longer that way (and make way more sense to future generations if you have a basic organization to the folders). My staff has scanned over 1400 scrapbooks that date from the early 1900s to the present and they're kind of a pain haha. (you can see here! https://lib.digitalnc.org/search?ln=en&p=655:[Scrapbooks]%20AND%20773%3A%22North%20Carolina%20Memory%22&f=&sf=&so=d&rg=10&fti=0 )And I will always advocate for printing out photographs - and then putting them in an album!
I admit I haven’t any real system for it - but once a year (usually in September or so) I go through the last year’s photos, select the ones I like best into an album and then upload it all into mpix and order them all as 4×6s with the occasional 5×7 for updating pictures in frames. It’s typically about 250-300 photos a year!
Much of my tweens was spent clipping Glamour and Teen Beat. I value the tactile feel of yellowed newsprint and magazine gloss. Several photo album leaves are filled with old recipes and now kids certificates, art projects, and even a few college essays.
I treasure my marked up essays and weathered recipes, too!
This is so precious!!! And a commonplace book sounds right up my alley! What a gift to have for children/grandchildren. After my Dad passed away unexpectedly, my brother went through his many (digital) notes and put together a book.
Thanks for sharing ❤️
Oh my goodness, I love this so much!
I keep a word doc of blog posts I’ve read that I’ve found interesting/helpful/inspiring across all areas (parenting, trips, general musings), the internet version of a commonplace book. Many an EmforMarvlous post have made it on there!
Thank you, Sara! 🥹 Same here!
I love this! My grandmother is also a big clipper of newspaper and magazine articles and frequently mailed her clippings to various family members with little notes. (She photocopied so she’d have duplicates and, I assume, kept the original.) She also kept a huge binder full of newspaper and magazine clippings about JFK’s assassination. My granddad was out of the country with the Air National Guard when JFK was shot, and she wanted him to be able to see the coverage — but it was also a treasure trove to her history-loving, Kennedy-fascinated high school granddaughter (🙋🏻♀️) when she brought it back out years later. She also subscribed to Reader’s Digest and I remember sitting next to the basket full of them at her house and reading every one! What an interesting reflection, friend!
I was just going through a few boxes and came across many newspapers from around 9/11 that John had saved. I asked him if he was ready to part with them and he said ABSOLUTELY NOT, MA'AM 😂
I’m with John!!!
Ha! I am the keeper of much of the collections of Sturgis/Hall/Foster/Ayer diaries, clippings, genealogy records, and other “interesting stuff.” My go-to is to open a trove and read aloud to whoever is gathered (and listening), usually at the Cottage or at Sarah’s.😉It is a way to learn about our forebears, correct fallacies, compare historical events and laugh! I have tried to immortalize certain things I hope are important to future generations IN PRINT (like EFTS’s diary entries from the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919 and her Weeks in July at the Cottage in 1925 compared to mine of the same period in 2025.) Interesting, important and fun! Will you be the next Keeper, Em?❤️
And we love that you do!
There is education, there is intelligence and there is wisdom. All three are important - but they are not the same. Your dad obviously worked at all three. I'm glad you are clipping the articles he saved and putting them into something that can be passed down. The world needs more wisdom and that wisdom needs to be shared - who better to receive it from than a parent or grandparent. Love the article!!
Thank you so much for the encouragement!
Such a GREAT idea!
...but why did this make me tear up?! Your parents are such gems.
That David Brooks quote is going to stick with me too. Sledgehammer to your skull!! No thank you!
This is so cool! My husband and I do something similar, but rather in our notes apps. Some of my most prized possession are a journal my great grandmother filled out for all her grandmother, and a journal from another great grandpa. This makes me want to start my own clippings journal!
My great grandmother who kept the journal for us grandkids also used to mail clippings to people - my mom has a binder from College of all of the ones sent to her!
I adored reading Reader's Digest when I was a kid - my parents subscribed for many years! As a professional "keeper" my main recommendation if you do keep clippings etc is to not paste them into a scrapbook! Rather keep them in a good box with nice folders. They'll keep much longer that way (and make way more sense to future generations if you have a basic organization to the folders). My staff has scanned over 1400 scrapbooks that date from the early 1900s to the present and they're kind of a pain haha. (you can see here! https://lib.digitalnc.org/search?ln=en&p=655:[Scrapbooks]%20AND%20773%3A%22North%20Carolina%20Memory%22&f=&sf=&so=d&rg=10&fti=0 )And I will always advocate for printing out photographs - and then putting them in an album!
Printing out photographs feels so overwhelming but I really want to get better at it!!
I admit I haven’t any real system for it - but once a year (usually in September or so) I go through the last year’s photos, select the ones I like best into an album and then upload it all into mpix and order them all as 4×6s with the occasional 5×7 for updating pictures in frames. It’s typically about 250-300 photos a year!