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Graphic artist and genealogist Tony Matthews' latest book is a humdinger; it's a collection of hand-drawn family trees created expressly for the scrapbook hobbyist. Tony believes that "Family Trees and Scrapbooking/Memory Albums are practically cousins," and in this new book he demonstrates how to bring the two together to produce a wonderfully decorative tree, using scrapbook techniques, whether you are an artist or not.

Memory Trees begins with suggestions for choosing the design of your family tree, using purely aesthetic considerations or one or more subject themes (births, careers, homes, geography, pets, cars, vacations, etc.) that are important to a particular family. With a design in mind and one of Tony's layouts selected, the scrapbooker (a term meaning someone who makes scrapbooks) can choose from a myriad of beautiful papers, borders, stickers, stencils, clip-art, stamps, etc., etc. that are readily available. Matthews provides oodles of suggestions for embellishing the basic design, adding photographs of varying shapes and sizes, filling in names and dates, and generally putting a personal touch to the family tree. Tony has laid out each tree so that it can be enlarged to fit within a 10" x 10" border, the size most commonly used for scrapbook albums The layouts themselves range from hearts and flowers to shields and insects, from toys to crosses, and from landscapes to elephants. The creator can complete some of the trees from the outside in and others from the inside out. There's a collection of borders to choose from, and many of the designs are suitable for child scrapbookers. In short, if your scrapbook is lacking a family tree, you'll find that Memory Trees is an easy, convenient, and FUN tool for adding one.

Other Publications by Tony Matthews:
Paper Trees: Genealogical Clip-Art
Creativitree: Design Ideas for Family Trees
Treets: A Feast of Family Trees