Family Memory Box? What?

In April of this year and inspired by other gather members, I decided that I wanted to start a family memory box.   The link for that article is here. 

Here is the link to my first article about my family memory box.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976957455

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Once I decided to start the memory box, I wanted to choose each item in the box carefully.  I don't want to just throw in any old junk!  I was thinking that everything in the box needs to be something about the family, something the family has written, drawn, photos, created in some way or something that inspired someone in the family.  I want to put it together with mostly memories from me and my parents and brother and THEN add the things from my daughter and her three sons [the newer generation!].

Here is the link to my article about the first item I added: Poetry Notebook By a 7th Grader

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976958835

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So I have been searching for items for the memory box.   But I also wondered what to put the items into. 

Should it be just a cardboard box?  It could work.   But no, moisture damage, perhaps bugs could get into it too easy, not attractive enough.  I couldn't get behind this idea at all.

Then I thought that maybe one of those plastic under the bed boxes would be better.  It's plastic  and has a lid so it could protect the contents better than a cardboard box, it looks nicer than cardboard, and it will slide right under the bed and out of the way.  Perfect, so I bought one.  But I didn't put anything in it and I just set it aside.  Looking at it, it seemed too plain, bland, so not quite right somehow!

Then along comes my mother and my ears perk right up.  She says "I have an old pink Samsonite hardside suitcase and make up case that I found at a thrift store.  It seemed so pretty that I thought someone would want it!"  Well, when I heard that I thought, pink, oh, that's my favorite color.  Samsonite hardside suitcase?  Isn't that the luggage that they gave to gorillas in the old commercials and they could NOT break them?  So I thought, hey, perfect for my family memory box!  It should still slide under the bed [with risers put on the four legs of the bed first], it's hard plastic for protection, it clicks shut though we don't have the key to the old locks, and it's PINK!  When I first saw it, I was blown away!  It isn't JUST pink, it's HOT PINK!  So bright, so cheerful, so NOT bland!  I love it! 

And that's how an old samsonite suitcase became my family memory box!