A Final Page, A Lasting Memory: Closing the 2023 Album with Love
As all scrapbookers know, the final page of any album is usually a single-page spread. Sometimes I use it to collect loose bits of ephemera from the year—ticket stubs, tags, or extra embellishments that didn’t find a home elsewhere. Other times, that last page becomes a moment of reflection, a quiet closing note to the story the album tells.
For the end of my 2023 album, I knew exactly what I needed it to be.
This page holds the final two photos I have of my mother. I’m fairly certain they were taken sometime in the late months of 2023 or very early January 2024. Just a short time later, in January, she passed away. And so, these images—simple, sweet, unassuming—became the last captured glimpses of her life.
Both photos show her with the animals that were her constant companions. Our pets adored her, and as anyone who knew her could tell you, she had a way of making them feel safe, seen, and utterly loved. It feels fitting, somehow, that these final photos show her with the creatures who never wanted to leave her side. That quiet tenderness, that natural connection—those were the kinds of moments she created so effortlessly.
To honor that connection, I designed this spread entirely in Cricut Design Space and used my Cricut Maker to cut the elements. I included a silhouette of a Chihuahua and a cat—gentle symbols of her bond with our pets—and used my Cricut’s pen feature to draw the journaling. The background is made from butterfly-patterned cardstock, pulled from my mother’s own paper stash. She loved butterflies. They were one of her favorite symbols—quiet, beautiful reminders of transformation and grace—and it felt like the perfect choice for this closing page.
This layout isn’t just the end of an album. It’s the soft closing of a chapter. A quiet goodbye. A page I will treasure for what it holds and for what it helps me let go of.
To see how this spread came together and hear more of the story, you can watch the video below.
Categories: 2023
MASCrapping 