Creative Family Traditions & Ideas: A Guide to Growing Future Memories
From the Creative Family Traditions website:
This creative, fun-filled and budget-minded book features TONS of timeless TRADITIONS to enjoy with your cherished family and treasured friends. It will become your guide for making memories during the seasons, holidays and many special occasions you celebrate!
Also inside are…
-
Creative, Year-round Traditions to Practice
-
Other fun ways to make memories
-
Numerous, Gorgeous Photos and illustrations
-
Helpful Parenting Tips to Try
-
Ideas for Encouraging Positive Self-esteem
-
Holiday MAGIC and Seasonal Decorating
-
Easy Ideas for Recycling
-
Tons of FUN on a budget!
About the book
“Creative Family Traditions and Ideas is a charming collection of ideas to help you create lasting memories with your loved ones and friends. All the ideas in the book are so much fun. They’re also budget-friendly and very easy-to-do! This book emphasizes the benefits of practicing fun, creative traditions to “grow future memories” within your family unit, to create a legacy of LOVE. Memories are the one thing families never lose, spend or break and they provide us with something to hold on to, even in these uncertain times”. This book is full of year-round, seasonal and holiday inspiration with exciting, creative ideas to enhance your family’s existing traditions as well as some unique, brand new ones to try!”
My Review
You’ll know from previous posts, especially the Christmas Series and Birthday Ideas posts, that we enjoy creating fun family traditions at our house. So I am thrilled that I have the chance to review this great book about family traditions.
First, Creative Family Traditions gets definite bonus points for presentation and SPARKLES! If anyone knows me in real life, they know how much I like a little bit of “bling”, and this book has some bling! The book came in clear plastic wrapping with a gorgeous ribbon wrapped around it and tied with a tiny heart charm. And it has little faux jewels on the front cover of the book itself. Those extra little touches yell, “Pick me, pick me!” especially if the book is being chosen as a gift. Who doesn’t like something special, and to me, nice ribbon, shiny charm and little jewels say special all over the place!
The very next thing I noticed is that the book is spiral bound with a velcro pocket in the cover. This binding allows the book to lay flat and provides ease of viewing for the projects inside. In the past I’ve taken several of my favorite paperback books and had the binding cut off and replaced with a spiral binding. I LOVE this feature of this book. The velcro pocket allows you to tuck a few things inside and have them handy with the book – another great organizing feature that will help to keep supplies or notes together where you need them!
The content of the book is well-organized into sections: Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Summertime, Halloween, Christmas, and Miscellaneous.
I find the writing in the book to be very personal and inviting, as the author, Eileen Bickerstaff, shares in the first person about how she developed these traditions with her family as the CEO (Chief Emotional Officer! how cute is that?!) of a home with 4 boys. She says things like, “The next time you have a summer storm, take advantage of the gargantuan tree branches it deposits all over your yard (or a neighbor’s) and recycle them by putting them to good use ~ decorating for Halloween!” Sounds like a woman after my own heart, using great vocabulary (gargantuan!) and recycling what you’ve already got instead of having to buy new things for every season, every holiday, etc.
The Birthday section is extensive, giving great tips on ways to celebrate, party themes (invites, games, etc.) and ways to commemorate the occasion to create lasting memories. Simple, fun, and definitely budget friendly ideas include: using dollar store blow-up beach balls for party invitations to a pool party, creating a quick “This is Your Life” poster for the birthday child including a few pictures of special days in their life, and how to say Thank You to the guests who come to celebrate at your party with you (as well as many other suggestions).
Eileen has included some very unique ideas for each holiday, among them: remembering teacher’s at Valentine’s Day; scavenger hunts to find Easter baskets on Easter morning; keeping a Vacation Log while traveling during the summer; creating special luminaries for Halloween; recycling old Christmas cards to make beautiful and personal gift tags; great ways to keep gifts a surprise; and tried and true methods of making sure everyone enjoys giving as well as receiving gifts.
The Miscellaneous section has useful pointers about how to save all those precious school papers, controlling video game time, and what you can do to celebrate a friend who is moving away – as well as many other helpful tips for more every day kinds of things in life.
So, whether you are a family wanting to establish some fun and easy family traditions of your own, or if you would like a gift for that kind of family, Creative Family Traditions is a book that will be a valuable addition to any family’s library.
As a resource, the book is one that you will be able to go back to time and again to remember great ideas. It’s even small enough to carry around with you while shopping or travelling, not to mention that handy velcro pocket!
It makes a great gift because of the presentation, information and reasonable cost, as well as being a thoughtful, useful and fun present.
I want to thank Eileen for giving me the chance to review Creative Family Traditions! I can recommend it without any hesitation. I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I have, and we will continue to enjoy it as we implement some of the suggestions as new family traditions in our home as well.
Creative Family Traditions is now available in my It’s OK to be WEIRD! OpenSky shop, just in time for the holidays!
Eileen Bickerstaff sent me a copy of Creative Family Traditions to review and keep for my family. I received no other compensation for this review, and the opinions stated here are my own.
