Decorating with Family Heritage



GlenbeulahI have blogged before about displaying family heritage in your home with examples like an ancestor wall, shadow boxes, or heritage blocks. Decorating your home with family heritage is a good idea for a few reasons. First, your children will know where they come from, ask questions, and be more interested in genealogy and family history. Second, it is a great conversation piece. Visitors to your home will have something to talk to you about, and it is a lot easier to see something on a wall or bookshelf than for them to ask to pick up a scrapbook and look through it. Last, it is a fairly inexpensive way to fill up a room, or a wall. Whatever your reasons, start thinking about simple ways you can decorate using DIY projects about family heritage around your house.

Here are a few ideas to incorporate sprucing up your home with family heritage:

Maps- You could simply buy a map of Ireland or Italy or wherever you might hail from and hang it in your home, or you could get creative at making a map that is a little more interesting. Try taking thumbnail images of old family photos and making a collage of photos in the shape of Italy (or any other country). Print different sized words on your computer, or family names from your Italian ancestors, and piece them together to make a family history map of your family’s native country. Make one for your side and your husbands. Give one as a gift.

Language- My husband is one-quarter Russian and I would love for him to tap into those roots. Spell out the word family in Russian on your ancestor wall. Another idea I found was this one. They simply found old books with the native languages from both sides of the family, and cut out tiny butterfly shapes from the pages of the books. Then, they alternated them in a frame as a beautiful way to display two families coming together without taking up a lot of space or explanation.

Buy an old frame and decorate it with your family heritage in mind. Use old wall paper for the background. Add some lace around the edges to create a matte, and then fill the frame with photos, or words that represent your family heritage. Display this in any room of your home. You could always create a beautiful family tree as well like this one.
Think outside the box when deciding where to display your family heritage. A baby’s room is a great place to display a little bit of history. Black and white photos will draw your baby’s attention, and wouldn’t it be great for your child to look up at the wall and see his ancestors? Or what about a guest bathroom? Frequently, this is a room that your guests will go in while they are visiting your home. Having something for them to look at and think about while they are washing their hands is a great idea to get the conversation started!

If you haven’t thought of decorating your home with family history before, think again. What better way to honor your ancestors than surrounding yourself and your family with them?

Meredith Ethington is the author of this blog. To learn more about Meredith, and her history with Scrapbooking and Genealogy, go here.

Photo Credit: cluewagon

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