55 Years of Memories

My mom's birthday was last Friday and it was a big one- 55!!  I knew I wanted to do something special. One day I was browsing Pinterest and saw this idea I knew I needed to do it. Collecting memories from all her family and friends and creating "55 Years of Memories" for her. I called my sisters right away and told them we HAD to do this.

This was not going to be easy, especially since we just decided to do this about a month before, but I was determined! My sister gave me my moms email password and I went in and copied her contact list. We also sent it out to friends of hers on Facebook as well as our friends.

{Here is the email I sent: *I used the email from the link where I originally saw this idea and just changed it to fit my needs*

Hi Everyone!

If you're receiving this email, you probably know that our mom, Phyllis, is turning 55 next month (much as she would hate us to be reminding everyone, I'm sure.) To celebrate her birthday, we'd like to put together a little surprise to let her know that her nearest and dearest are thinking of her. We're going to try and create "55 Years of Memories" by filling 55 envelopes with a memory her friends and family have of her.

And this is where you come in!

If you have a spare moment in the next few days, we would be so grateful if you'd jot down a favorite memory you have of our mom and put it in the mail or email it to us. It doesn't have to be anything fancy -- you can just write it down on a piece of paper and sign your name. You can mention anything you like -- although the more nostalgic the better! Please absolutely feel free to send more than one memory (in fact, we welcome it -- we've got 55 envelopes to fill!), but make sure you write them on different pieces of paper (and sign your name to each) so we can split them up.

Thank you so, so, so much for participating -- we know everyone is busy with their own lives, especially this time of year, and we do appreciate you taking a few minutes to do this; it will be so worth it when she reads all the memories people have of her! (Please don't forget to keep it a surprise until then, though!)

We only have a month to get this all together, so if you could please send something out as soon as possible we would really really appreciate it! We know how much this would mean to our mom and really hope we can get 55 memories from her friends and family!

Also, if you know someone else who might have a memory to share, we encourage you to pass them on to them! We only had them email addresses from her contact list, so we may be missing people with special memories! So please pass this on to anyone who might have a great memory of our mom! The more memories the better!!

Thank you so much again!!

Melissa, Kelly and Stacey

*I also included our contact info at the bottom of the email}

I was a little nervous since we sent this in the middle of December and that is usually the busiest time of the year for most people, but not long after I hit send the memories came pouring in!

I think I enjoyed this as much as my mom. I loved reading all the wonderful things people had to say about my mom! {And I also learned some of her friends have very dirty minds... just sayin!}

In the end we got 55 memories as well as pictures. My uncle sent us a ton of pictures of my mom as a little girl! So fun looking through them all!

Here are the envelopes- all numbered 1-55. I cut the numbers on my Cricut and just glued them on.

My sister typed up all the memories that were emailed to us and I did a decorative punch on all the corners. We also got some hand written memories that we just put right into an envelope! This is my 3 year olds memory :)

I found this suitcase {at Michaels} and thought it was perfect. We were 'travelling' through the years with these memories, so I thought it was the perfect thing to hold them all!

Once we stuffed all the envelopes with each memory, I tied them up with a little twine

And all the pictures were added to a photo album {That picture on the top right is my mom taking her first steps! Pretty cool huh?!}

We put both the memories and the pictures in the suitcase and it was a perfect fit!

I made this 'luggage' tag with a quote my sister found I cut the tag on my Cricut and then used stickers to decorate it.

And here it is all ready to be given to the birthday girl!

And here are some pictures of her opening it. There were a lot of tears as well as a lot of laughter! I think she was totally surprised we put this together and I really think she will cherish this gift for years to come! {that is my mom and dad and my two cuties!}

If you have the chance to put this gift together for someone, I say go for it! It took a little bit of effort and bugging people to get the memories back, but in the end it was all worth it. I know my mom is going to cherish this gift forever!!!