If you are looking for a meaningful birthday present (for a parent’s fiftieth birthday, for example), then a life scrapbook could be just the thing for you.  Home-made presents are often the most meaningful and memorable.  They show that you have put real thought, time, and effort into their gift.  Rather than just being a store bought item, the gift is significant and treasured because it is individualized and hand-made by someone they care about.

A birthday scrapbook is making a scrapbook as a birthday gift.  The basic concept is to make a scrapbook of the birthday boy/girl’s life up to that point. It is often nice—especially at landmark birthdays—to have a bit of nostalgia.

To make the birthday special, try to include as much information as possible that is not already in the receiver’s possession.  Write a letter explaining what you are doing, and asking for help in the form of photos, stories, and birthday wishes.  Then distribute this letter (well in advance) to as many family members and friends as possible.  This is most exciting if it is a surprise, so write in the letter that this is a surprise gift and ask them not to mention it.  Be prepared to have to give out this letter multiple times, or to prompt specific people about specific events or time periods.  If you use photos from other people, though, it will often be pictures that they haven’t seen before or don’t have copies of, which makes it more exciting and significant to them. 

If you’re doing this for a parent, for example, you can try to sneak a look in their address book, go to their church, or use technology—you can look at their friends on facebook and send them messages.  I recently made a birthday scrapbook for my mother, and had some great responses.  One of her friends from college, for example, found an old diary and sent me extracts from it that related to my mom! 

Try to include a mix of funny and sentimental stories and anecdotes.  Also, you can just ask people to give a birthday message, and incorporate those as well to mix in contemporary thoughts.  You may need more pictures than you are given by other people, so be prepared to try to secretly raid their photo stash, or to top it up with pictures of your own.  Remember that it’s a scrapbook, so any other “scraps” you can include are great.  For example, where they ever mentioned in the newspaper?  Put in a copy.  Have they been in an event (play, sporting event, concert, etc.) that had programs?  Do their parents still have childhood report cards hidden away that you could make copies of?

It is often easiest to put the scrapbook in a primarily chronological order.  Bring together all of the information you have gathered, add some thoughts or memories of your own, and scrapbook it all.  This makes a lovely album with birthday wishes for them, and for family to look through to remember and celebrate their life so far.