I am an avid genealogist and family historian, and for quite a while I have wanted to find some way to incorporate my family history research into my crafting. I decided to create a collage for my 5th great grandmother, Rebecca Smith Blodget, the woman who inspired me to begin my family history research. The purpose of this collage was to tell something of her story, though unfortunately I do not know enough about her to adequately represent her.
Materials:
*8½ x 11 photo frame
*8½ x 11 sheet of patterned paper
*Mounting squares or other adhesive
*Foam board
*Scissors or X-acto knife
Suggested additional materials:
*Pictures of the individual and important people in her or his life
*Signature or other handwriting sample
*Descriptive saying or quote
*Stickers or drawings representing favorite activities or pastimes
*Other mementos that remind you of the individual
Suggestions:
*Select an individual in your family to make the collage about. Parents, grandparents, and siblings could be good choices, or perhaps a distant relative or a family friend.
*If possible, find a picture of this individual to use in your collage. You may also want to include images of important people in this individual’s life. In my collage, the pictures in the top right and bottom left corners are of Rebecca Blodget. In the top left corner, the man on the left is her husband, Samuel Blodget, and the man on the right is her friend and the love of her life, Aaron Burr. In the bottom right corner I included pictures of her parents, William and Rebecca (Moore) Smith
*You may wish to include a copy of your chosen individual’s signature or other handwriting sample. I culled Rebecca Blodget’s signature from a photo I took of a letter she wrote. If your chosen individual is more recent, but you don’t have an easy way to obtain a writing sample from them personally, birthday and holiday cards may be places where you could find handwriting samples
*Does the individual you chose have any famous sayings? Maybe a favorite joke? The quote I selected was from the introduction of a letter Rebecca wrote to James Madison that I felt was representative of her character
*What does/did this individual enjoy doing? Find ways to represent this pictorially. For my project, I didn’t really know what Rebecca Blodget enjoyed doing, so I used images of things that I knew she did. I had learned from a letter she wrote to Henry Clay that when she was young, her father had encouraged her to read from his library, and from the historical references she makes in her letters, it’s pretty clear that she was a well read individual. I also knew that she wrote a decent number of letters, so I included a picture of the letter she wrote to James Madison
*Where does/did the individual live? I printed a portion of a map of Colonial Philadelphia onto my background paper. The spot denoted with the number 36 is a house that her father had owned. Other ways to incorporate residency could include a picture of the family home, images of prominent features in or around the home, or an image of the town
*Do you have any small mementos that remind you of the individual? You may want to include these items or likenesses of said items
*The above mentioned suggestions are just a few possibilities. There is so much more you could do with a project like this
Directions:
*Remove glass or plastic front from the photo frame. It will not be needed for this project
*Affix patterned paper to the photo frame backing, then put back into the frame
*Using scissors or and X-acto knife, cut out sections of foam board. Attach items you want to stand out to the sections of foam board. I chose to do this for all images of people, but you could find some other way to do it
*Arrange items on the patterned paper in a visually appealing manner, then adhere to the paper
