Since the beginning of university I've kept a scrapbook that's now essentially a tangible, physical record of my three years spent in Durham getting my undergraduate degree. I finally finished the last of the third year pages the other day so I thought I would share some photos of it here (but not every single page or else this post would be ridiculously long) in a more visual and less text-heavy kind of post.

But first, some background. The scrapbook itself is from Paperchase, unfortunately the exact one I have is no longer stocked but it's fairly big (perhaps A3? I'm not sure) and ties at one end with ribbon. I received it for my 19th birthday from some friends - along with some nice white and silver gel pens for writing on the black pages - and I knew immediately that I wanted to use it for something special and really put a lot of effort into creating something that I would treasure for a long time. Eventually I decided I wanted to use it to document my university experience, which was fitting as it was a present from people at uni.

The process of putting it together was fairly simple. At the end of each year I sat down and looked through the photos, ticket stubs, wristbands and other flat paper-ish items I'd accumulated that year and mentally organised them into groups by theme, after which I ordered the necessary photos from Photobox in 6"x4" prints. In a couple of cases I also used my handheld HP Sprocket mini printer which prints 2"x3" photos on sticky-backed paper) Then came the fun part: I spent ages arranging the various items on the pages before sticking them down and using the gel pens to write in a title for each page and often some other key names and dates.

Three years later I have a lovely memento of my years at Durham which I'm sure will be super nostalgic to look at in years to come. As there are plenty of pages left I'm planning to document my Masters too so it's a complete record of my whole uni experience. Quite apart from its main function, I also use my scrapbook to balance my laptop on when I'm watching stuff on it in bed to stop it overheating, although it's now on the heavy side since it's stuffed with photos!