By the time your teen is in high school, you probably aren't taking as many pictures of them as you used to. I have to keep reminding myself that I only have a couple of years left and no time to waste trying to capture fleeing teenage memories.

You might be thinking that I'm really organized to be already working on scrapbooking my daughter's high school memories. To be honest, I have a shoe box full of pictures of my daughter waiting for me to get to someday.

But if I wait until "someday" to continue taking pictures because I already have so many pictures I haven't done anything with, then my daughter's teenage years will come and go while I try to catch up.

I don't want to chronicle every detail of my daughter's life (nor would she want me to!), but I was trying to think of some memories that she might want to laugh about and maybe even treasure someday. So how do you do that without ending up with pages and pages of memories?

I decided to do two large (12x12) pages (facing each other in the album) for each year of high school. I will challenge myself to use this space creatively to tell the story of each year. When I started thinking of all the the possibilities, it really inspired me to start getting organized and collecting some great memories. And don't limit yourself to just photographs, your scrapbook pages can really be accentuated by other types of memories. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Photograph Ideas:

• High School Dances
  

• First Date/Boyfriend
  

• School Building
  

• Church Events/Retreats
  

• Braces (the day they're removed)
  

• Hair Styles
  

• Clothing Fads
  

• Learning to Drive
  
  
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• First Job
  

• First Car
  

• Best Friends
  

• School Plays/Concerts
  

• Family Vacations
  

• Favorite Family Pets
  

• Babysitting
  

• Sports/Band/Cheerleading
  

• Musical Instrument Practice
  

Other:

• CD Covers (scanned)
  

• Favorite Song Lyrics
  

• Drivers' Permit
  

• First Pay Stub
  

• Programs from Play/Concerts
  

• College Brochures
  

• School Newspapers
  

• ASB Card
  

• Awards/Certificates
  

• Ticket Stubs (concert, movie, sporting events)
  

• Report Cards
  

You can be creative when you're arranging your layouts. Don't be afraid to cut pictures down or cut out portions of play programs or school newspapers. Just cut out enough to accentuate the other items on the page. You will create the overall effect from the entire page, not necessarily from an individual item.

Have fun and don't worry if you don't get it done all at one time. I figure if I can do one every summer for the previous school year, by the time she finishes high school (she's a freshman this year), all of her high school memories will be recorded in the family archives.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of What's for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For recipes, tips to organize your home, home decorating, crafts, and more, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com. Email: rachel@creativehomemaking.com