Bringing the past back to life

I recently sent this photo of my grandmother to our Restoration team at FOREVER. A few days later, I received this beautiful photo in my FOREVER account. What a blessing to be able to see my grandmother without all of the damage the years had made to the photo!

Do you have vintage photos that have suffered damage from time, sun, water, careless handling, etc.? Our FOREVER team can repair faded color, rips, cuts, and can even colorize them to bring back the “original” colors if you’d like. I can help you get them brought back to the way they should look, so you and your family can enjoy them for years to come. Just contact me and we can get started!

Until next time,

Downsizing? Tips for photos & videos

Downsizing can be daunting, but here are some tips that will make it easier for you!

A Library Cabinet memory?

Memories come in all shapes and sizes!

When I was in High School, my father was Chief of the Buildings and Grounds Department for the State of Connecticut. One day, when he was inspecting a library, he found this grungy, dirty library cabinet that had been thrown out. He saw the beauty within! He brought it home, cleaned it up, refinished it and gave it to my mom, who stored her sewing supplies in it.

Years later, my mom gave the cabinet to me and I use it for…wait for it…sewing and craft supplies! It is perfect for holding all the little items (pins, bobbins, glue, scissors, etc.) that go with sewing and crafting. It has the additional benefit of reminding me of both of my parents every time I see it and use it.

 

Library cabinet

• Here’s some info about the company that made it:
  The Library Bureau was a business founded by Melville Dewey in 1876 to provide supplies and equipment to libraries. The Library Bureau quickly became a one-stop vendor for supplies and equipment a library might need.
  During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Library Bureau supplied furniture, equipment, supplies, and services to many of the new Carnegie Libraries being built.
  In 1927, the Library Bureau was absorbed along with a number of suppliers of office supplies and equipment by the newly formed Remington Rand holding company. The Remington Rand continued to use the brand name “Library Bureau” into the 1950s.
  After Remington Rand and its successor companies had stopped using the Library Bureau brand name, they sold the name to a furniture company in Maryland which makes furniture in the spirit of antique Library Bureau furniture.

Until next time!

A funny memory

Here’s a funny memory to hold on to.

In the summer of 2003, we took a family vacation “out West”. We flew to Denver, rented a van and visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Four Corners, the Navajo Nation, Gunnison & Silverton CO, the Grand Canyon, Pike’s Peak, Mesa Verde and much more. We drove 2300 miles in 10 days!

One of the funny highlights was on the side of the road on the way from our hotel to our breakfast joint – we passed it (back and forth) several times and our older daughter asked us to stop by the side of the road so we could take a picture. I’m glad we did! Such a funny memory. “Jesus is watching you” billboard right over a “XXX-Adult” store!

Jesus is Watching You

These are the funny family memories that make you laugh years later. Hope you have some of those, too! Feel free to share them in the comments.

Until next time,

Not all memories are in pictures

For quite a while, our family has been collecting magnets – pretty ones, quirky ones, silly ones. Many came from our travels, but some are just from real life. They always lived on our refrigerator; a mess of colors and styles that brought a smile to my face.

But when we moved this last time (two years ago) I decided I liked the clean look of a magnet-less refrigerator. I couldn’t stand to get rid of them, so I put them in a bag and put them away. One day at work, I noticed a dry erase/magnetic board and I thought “That would be perfect for the magnets! I’ll put them in my crop room and enjoy them again”.

So that’s what I did. Yesterday, my husband and I hung up the board with the magnets. Once again, we enjoyed reminiscing about the places and people represented by the magnets. Lots of memories, folks!

So, from me to you – find a way to display and enjoy your memories. If it’s in a traditional scrapbook and you’re nearby, call me! If you’d like to do digital photo albums or beautiful wall art or greeting cards or holiday cards, call me! There are so many options for “Holding on to the Memories!”

Until next time,

How Angel Gowns Brought Families Together

Instead of posting a new post here today, I’d like to repost this incredible story. It was written by me and my team-mate Jean Martelli at ForeverLive! and it is the epitome of what we do at Forever. What a small world we live in!

At the FOREVER Live! 2018 conference last week, Ambassadors Phyllis Offenkrantz & Jean Martelli were sitting together at the 80’s night dinner, talking with the rest of the table about what everyone had been doing in the 80’s. Many said that they had gotten married and had children in the 80’s and that led to talk (and photos from FOREVER Accounts!) of wedding dresses.

Jean said that her neighbor, Diane (who is also her FOREVER customer!), had made Jean’s wedding dress into “Angel Gowns” and donated them to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Diane’s daughter Ashley lost a newborn twin, Wrigley Hoffman, from the NICU at Johns Hopkins and had started a charity called Wrigley’s Wish. Diane sews Angel Gowns (clothing in which lost newborns can be buried) from donated wedding gowns, and the Angel Gowns are then given to the families for the burial of their precious children.

Jean showed us her wedding photo so that we could see her dress, and then showed a photo of the gowns and blankets that had been made from her gown.

One of the photos was of a set of blankets with bunting made from her gown. The names on the blankets were “Ethan” and “Connor.”

Phyllis was amazed! Ethan and Connor’s mom, Jill, is her daughter’s best friend! Because of the family connection, Phyllis was very aware of all that had gone on with Jill’s family during the time that they lost their precious child. What are the odds?!

Jean contacted Diane and Ashley and shared the story and Phyllis contacted her daughter Becca to do the same. Ashley and Becca both contacted Jill, who got back to Phyllis. Everyone commented about what a small world it is!

How wonderful that Jean had these photos in her FOREVER Account and could access them from her phone in just a few seconds! We are Forever Grateful for the wonderful service FOREVER provides to help us save our photos and memories.

If you’d like to know more about these two great organizations, please check out their websites.

Wrigley’s Wish (https://www.wrigleyswish.org/ww

w.wrigleyswish.org)Twin to Twin Transfusion (TTTS)  (www.tttsfoundation.org)

I’ll hold the tea bag

Just a quick little memory today, a little piece of family history. My mom passed away almost ten years ago (so incredibly hard to believe that it’s been that long) and I have several things around my home that remind me of her. A cut glass jelly jar with some of her costume jewelry in it; a knobbed glass handled basket that holds potpourri in our Guest Room, several pieces of furniture and other objects that are part of our daily life.

One of my favorites is this.

Mom’s teabag holder

My mother was Scottish and came to American (Boston, to be precise) when she was a young child. Being Scottish, she was a tea drinker. I don’t remember ever seeing my mom drink coffee when I lived at home; it was always tea. When I went away to college, I drank tea. In later years, we both learned to enjoy coffee (but she only had it first thing in the morning. After that, it was all tea!)

This little tea bag holder sits on the ledge behind my kitchen sink, where I see it every day. It blesses me to have that little piece of my mom’s life nearby.

Until next time,

Weddings

There’s been so much talk and so many photos lately about the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it got me thinking about our wedding, almost 34 years ago.

We got engaged in February, 1984 and planned a wedding date of June 23rd.  Sixteen weeks, start to finish! That’s not much time to find a dress, a venue, a photographer, a caterer, a florist – but we did it. We booked a beautiful Botanical Garden in Winter Park, FL for the ceremony and booked the Women’s Garden Club building next door for the reception.  My parents told me we should make it the wedding WE wanted, since they had already had their wedding. What a blessing!

The morning of our wedding, our friends arrived early to the garden to sweep off the “stage” and wipe down the seats. Finally, it was time for the Bridal party to arrive. And then the SECOND Bridal party arrived.  Yikes! The venue had been double-booked! No wonder it had been so easy for us to book it with such short notice.  Since our friends had been there since early morning, fixing the place up, we got to go first.  Once our ceremony was done, we went over to the Garden Club building for our reception. We left our arbor on the stage for the other couple to use for their ceremony. They had put up a beautifully draped table to hold their cake, and they let us use it first for ours.  We cut our reception short so that they would still have time for theirs.  It was a bit touchy there for a bit, but it all worked out ok and we’re still married! (I hope they are, too.)

David and My Dad

Phyllis Bride

Phyllis with her Dad

With our parents

Our cake on the pretty table!

Cutting the cake

Champagne, anyone?

My wonderful parents

Me with my brothers

We’ve raised two beautiful daughters and they are both married now, to great men. We are so happy for them.  Each couple had a beautiful wedding that was exactly right for them. And we hope that they each have a lifetime of happiness together.

That’s all for now. Why don’t you pull out your wedding photos and take a look? If you don’t know how to locate them, give me a call 🙂

Until next time,

There are two kinds of people…

Nick Kelsh, a photographer I’ve met, says there are two kinds of people in the world – those that have had a computer crash and those that WILL have a computer crash.

Since I’m all about the photos, I am concerned about people that have no back up in place for their photos in the case of a computer crash. My best friend had a computer crash several years ago. She had a computer-savvy friend do the best he could to retrieve the info from her hard drive, but it was a mess. Layers and layers of folders and files to sort through in the hopes of finding a photo at the bottom. Even worse was that shortly thereafter, her External Hard Drive also crashed. Let’s just say that did not make her happy!

So, what to do? A general rule of thumb is to have three sources of backup. One in your home, one outside your home and one in the cloud. For example, an external hard drive that is hooked up to your computer and you back up to it (REGULARLY!), with a second external hard drive that gets backed up less frequently (once a month, maybe?) and is kept in a friend’s house or a Safe Deposit Box at a bank. Remember to back up the photos on your phone and tablet, and if you do digital scrapbooking, back up those files, also.

For the cloud storage, I definitely recommend Forever.com.

Forever is permanent online storage that you own, not rent. All images still belong to you and you control who can see them. The storage is guaranteed for generations and your data will not be data mined or sold to advertisers. Files are preserved in the highest resolution and are migrated to newer formats as old formats become obsolete (ever had a movie transferred to a VHS, then transferred to a DVD?). Your data is fully encrypted and triple backed up on strategically located servers.

I’d love to help you with your digital mess of photos (or physical photos and memorabilia, too!).  You can check out Forever by clicking here for my website or contact me at cmphyllis@msn.com.

Until next time,

National Siblings Day

So, I heard that today is National Siblings Day and that, of course, made me think of my brothers.

I am the youngest sibling (by far; my brothers are nine years and six years older than I) and the only girl. My oldest brother once said that I had totally different parents than they had! We grew up in a small, rural town in Connecticut and, I think, had a pretty good childhood! I was only nine when my second brother went away to college, so although I had siblings, I was often the Only Child (around).

I no longer live in Connecticut, so I don’t see my brothers as often as I’d like. They both still live there (one brother lives in the house we grew up in!) and I’ve been thinking for the last few days that I’d like to try to get up there for a visit this summer. I miss them and the rest of my family!

Here are a few pics of us through the years. Not many of us during the teen-aged years!

Siblings 1955

Siblings 1957

Brothers – including one that we “adopted” along the way!

At my wedding in 1984

Christmas in CT – with our Mom in 2003

At my nephew’s wedding reception in 2004

With our mom at my niece’s wedding in 2005

At my daughter’s wedding in 2012

If you have siblings, maybe give them a call today!

Until next time,