I am excited to feature fellow blogger and memory keeper, Natalie Martinez, to De Su Mama. Natalie and I have many things in common, including a love for preserving our family legacy. Like me, Natalie is committed to documenting her journey through motherhood, identity and heritage. She also has an insanely cute daughter named Elena!

Today, Natalie is sharing one of her scrapbook layout designs entitled Christmas Cousins. I love that Natalie documents Elena’s deep connection with her cousin despite miles of separation, especially since Alina has similar relationships with her cousins. Natalie’s scrapbook layout provides ample space to journal the sweetest note to Elena, while keeping the design elegant and focused on the message.

Family Legacy

Part of building a legacy is having young relatives in the same generation become friends. You’d never know that my daughter, Elena and her cousin, Jada live almost 700 miles apart and only see each other about twice a year. That’s because my sister and I make an effort to reduce the miles between our families by talking on the phone, sending lots of pictures, posting images and videos to a private Shutterfly site, and most recently, making video calls on Skype so the girls can talk to each other.

Last year when we made a trip home for the holidays, my sister hired a professional photographer to take pictures of the girls.  The photographer prompted Elena to give Jada a hug and she didn’t hesitate. The photographer clicked the camera and now we have this memorable photo of the girls. This particular page faces another 12 X12 scrapbook page about what was happening behind the scenes of the photo shoot. (The girls were playing and not listening to any of the adults telling them to look at the camera and smile.)

This year my entire family will be gathered at my sister’s house for Christmas. Elena and I will be video chatting with everyone from our living room hundreds of miles away.  This snapshot reminds me that even when we can’t spend the holidays with relatives, the love of our family is never as far away as we sometimes think it is.

“Elena, I love your embrace in this picture. I love that you and Jada have a special friendship even across the miles and that you aren’t afraid of reaching out and showing love.

I hope that you will always know that love is never as far away as you think it is.”

Supplies:

Paper | Epson Premium Photo Matte paper, Black and White dot background paper by DCWV, Kraft cardstock from Paper-Source.

LOVE Letterpress tag from Paper-Source

Ribbon and plastic clip from my stash

Natalie Martinez is full-time working mom who tells family stories and scrapbooks mostly in English, but sometimes, in Spanish. When her daughter, Elena was born 2 ½ years ago she started scrapbooking as a way to preserve memories and write love letters to her daughter. Her scrapbooking style emphasizes simplicity with a focus on storytelling straight from the heart.  She blogs about Hispanic heritage, the real meaning of home, and scrapbooking at her blog, The Real Natalie Martinez.