Have you studied your family heritage, thought about sending away your DNA to find out your family history…maybe 23andMe or the kit from ancestry.com, have a box photos stashed away or pull out mom’s, grandmas or even great-grandmas recipes that may go back even further. Whether you are just starting or have loads of photos, info and history we have a great way for you to organize the past and share it with the future. 7gypsies has these adorable wooden crates that hold 4″x6″ items just right and that is where it all begins. Crew member Ewelina explores her families history through the recipes she has had for ages and truly cherishes.
Canvas Corp has created a line of papers and cards that are ideal for helping you create the most amazing projects. They are all ivory and black in design and can be used just as they are, which is wonderful with all things vintage or you can choose a pop color to give your project a special touch. The collection is called the Heirloom Collection and is make up of a series of printed cards and matching basic papers that help you explore you family history, your way. From Recipe Cards to Marriage Certificates and from Family Tree Cards to Pet Cards. You can fill the cards in with bits and pieces of the past, family recipes, family stories, life experiences and so much more. Here is just a taste of a few of the 4″x6″ cards that fit right into this wooden crate.
The first thing you must do is decide which of the Canvas Corp Black and Ivory papers you are going to choose, we have to warn you, you will want to use them all, and you will find all the Heirloom Cards here. You can mix and match them all to capture the look and feel of your project. Take a look at how Ewelina captures her heritage with a little bit of help from Canvas Corp and 7gypsies.
To get started, I had to go through a pile of cutting, at first it seemed like a chore, because I picked so many different papers, but a surprising sense of achievement grew in me as the pile of cards grew slowly but surely. The new Canvas Corp Heirloom cards are more like ‘information-holding’ cards. These 12×12 papers each have 6 cards you can cut or fold.
The ones that I chose were: Heirloom Cards on Ivory, Marriage Certificates on Ivory, Birth Certificate Cards on Ivory, Life Story Cards on Ivory, Pet Certificates on Ivory, Black & Ivory Recipe Cards, Calendar Months on Ivory. As a base, I also cut to match the size: Black & Ivory Plaid, Black & Ivory Diamonds, Etched Leaves on Ivory.
The collection has the “heirloom information cards”, all-over printed papers and papers for the seasons which allow you to create your heritage project your way.
For embellishments, I used elements from Cameras on Ivory, Farmhouse Kitchen Stripe on Ivory, Farmhouse Kitchen Labels on Ivory and tags: Black on Craft and Black on Ivory. Oh, I almost forgot… I also played with my new crafty toy – a die cut machine and floral dies. I cut various twigs and flowery swirls to use them as contrasting colours (kraft card) and designs on the otherwise black and ivory designs.
Once I had all the cards and embellishments ready, I started arranging them into 4×6 folders (I used Photographs, Farmhouse Kitchen, Black & Ivory). You decide how you wish to organized your crate…by months, by years, by people, by family blood lines, by recipes…so many different ways to choose and there are plenty of papers, cards and tools to help you sort things your way. You can create folders for each section that can house photos, recipes, filled out cards, notes, postcards and more.
I started with the first set of folders using the mini Heirloom Collection: Calendar Months Paper in which I will put all the important dates – mainly birthdays as I am rubbish at remembering dates! Anniversaries were the second section and they will have a new home in the folder.
Canvas Corp offers a range of 4×6 file folders you can use to fill the crate or you can make your own. If you make your own, you can adjust the tabs at the top to be the size that will work best for you.
More folders will hold some of my family photos – I want to make sure that I have all the family members (including our pets) in the same place. While making the album, I realized that I don’t really remember some of the less immediate family members or the ones that are no longer here… This will be a great reminder for myself and the next generations.
My family is quite big on cooking. I don’t mean anything fancy or posh. I mean good, old-school home cooking for the hard-working family. My paternal grandma used to run a big kitchen cooking for a sugar factory mess. Ever since I can remember, I used to help the cooks in the kitchen peel potatoes, prepare veggies and set the tables. They would let me help them and learn and taste their cooking. At home, my mum would test new recipes found in various magazines in between cooking traditional Latvian and Ukrainian foods that her mum taught her. She was very inventive; even during the time of Communism in Poland when there was not much to choose from, our food was always nice and tasty. And me… well, that’s a whole different story… but making recipes part of my heirloom crate was an obvious move for me. Now, I will be able to have all the family recipes in one place.
You can jot down the recipes on a Canvas Corp Blank Recipe Cards, you can make copies of handwritten recipe cards or choose to keep the originals inside these folders for safe keeping.
Last but definitely not the least were the files with all the family information: birth certificates, marriage certificates, pet cards and family histories. They all have different contents depending on which branch of the family they belong to. My mum’s side has loads of pet certificates in the file as they are all crazy animal lovers. I have made 3 sets so far but there is a couple more coming – my family is quite a big one and seems to be ever-expanding (even if it’s only by new pets joining our homes at the moment). Talking about expanding families, the awesome thing about the 12×12 sheets is that you can pick and choose which cards you need and get as many or as few as you are going to use for your family.
The cards are 4″x6″, the same size as most photo and you can put a photo of your pet, family member or even a postcard from where they are from on the back of each card.
So far, I ended up with 8 file folders, but I will surely be adding more as the time goes and building up the family history in words, pictures and recipes for the young ones in the family. The crates are ideal for allowing you to add going forward or continue to build your history going backwards.
No you see how wonderful this little crate can be, the folders perfect fit in the 4×6 stained crate. You could easily embellish it and add your own feel to it but I want to keep the whole project simple – black and ivory cards and files with some craft embellishments in a simple wooden crate.
Perfect. Simple. Stylish.
We hope we have inspired you to pull the box out from under the bed, ask Mom for Grandma’s recipes or log into Ancestory.com to find out about your past and catalog and organized what you have and what you find in a beautiful, organized way. These crates are terrific for handmade gifts fro holidays, anniversaries, birthdays or just because. Make copies of the cherished items and make one for each member of you immediate family and plan to pass them down for generations.
Happy Memories and Happy Futures!!!
– Ewelina –
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