Christine Zuccerella, known as “Cricki” in Paperclipping Live, shared a sweet story with me about some internet bonding that happened between herself and a group of close girlfriends.

As we have become more mobile and the internet has become mainstream, there is a new dynamic to relationships, both short and long distance, and I think email and phone-texting conversations are going to become a common subject in scrapbooking.

Here is Christine’s story, along with a request for you and me:

A friend of mine was asked by someone at her job “How would your friends describe you?” So she sent an e-mail to all of us asking us to describe her as a person…well that snowballed into each of us describing our perceptions of the other and what we all mean to one another. It was a very playful, heartfelt, touching outcome to see such love and adoration come from a really wonderful group of women that I have known literally since grade school!

When do you ever really take the time and effort to tell your friends what they truly mean to you? We all have our baggage and personal drama going on at home and I must say, that this was exactly what I needed to hear to lift my spirits….So the big question is how can I take all these e-mails and incorporate them into either a layout or gift of some sort for each of the girls. Maybe something that they can hang on the wall or keep on their desks at work…I just wanted to do something nice with their entire excerpt and pair it with a really nice group picture of all us from this past summer.

I have some relationships I’ve been wanting to capture in a scrapbooking project by printing up our emails. Emails are like grade school note-passing, continued into adulthood, and I love it.

Mini-book Idea

My idea for Christine is to turn this into a mini-book and make copies for each friend. I would dedicate a two-page spread to each person, putting a photo on one side and the emails that describe her on the other. Then a photo (or multiple photos) of the group on the last page (and perhaps, on the front, as well).

Layout Ideas

If you want to do a layout, I think the design really depends on the amount of text in the emails. Perhaps you could put one group picture in the center of a one-page layout and then add the journaling in printed strips in sections around the picture. Each person would have her own section of journaling.

Or you could do an interactive two-page layout with a photo of each friend and put the email descriptions of each person behind the photos.

In Sunday’s podcast I will offer a tip for how to make a one-page layout extra special as a gift. It will be an extension off of this entry; a sort of “Part II.”

Christine is open to all kinds of ideas, so if you have something else to suggest, please leave a comment and share with us.