Family Reunion Family History Project Using My Grandfathers Brand and Artifacts

I shared a few  weeks back that I was working on a family history project for our family reunion. I just felt really strongly for about a month that I really needed to do something with my grandfathers "Brand" for the reunion. 

23 years ago when we first moved across the country, I felt like I wanted to do anything I could with family. I visited my uncle who built a house on my grandfathers ranch and was developing his ranch. 

He told me he found some old native American pottery on the ranch and I remember being a little girl and walking the ranch with my grandfather and he pointed out an arrow head that he found while we were walking. 

I asked my uncle if he could show me the spot where he found the pottery on the ranch and allow me to dig up some of the pottery. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it but for the past 23 years, I have had it in a Tupperware in my craft room and I wanted to maybe make a Christmas tree ornament or something for all the grandchildren. I found this picture of the girls and I with our friend Sara who is the reason I started this blog. Isn't this cute. Princess Three is maybe six months old.... 


There are about 50 cousins and my kids had 50 cousins so I wanted to make 100 of whatever I did make so that my cousins could all have one and then my children and their cousins could all have one as well. 

I didn't even know that my grandfather had a brand until I visited my uncle last year with some New Zealand friends and he showed it to me. For some reason over the past month or two I couldn't get that brand out of my head. I think maybe my mother was trying to help me from the "other side" as she knew I had the pottery etc. I contacted my uncle asking if we could borrow the brand and use it to brand some leather. I bought some leather couch cushion covers at a second hand store a year or so ago and it was thin so we thought the brand would burn through. 

I got my talented brother-in-law to digitize the brand and then they used their laser cutter to burn the brand into the leather that I had purchased. Some were super clear and others were a bit fuzzy due to the suede inside the cushions being a bit fuzzier on one verses the other. I tried to find other leather to use and my sister did have some thicker but there wasn't enough and it was super thick and brittle so we opted for the softer version. 

She and her husband are so talented. They helped me know what wood to purchase and stain so that we could use it as a mat to frame the brand, pictures and pottery I had. My first idea was to type up a history on the front in one of the squares we made. It ended up getting longer and longer the more people I called to connect stories but between two uncles, my aunt, and my oldest brother who was the oldest grandchild, I think we got a fairly good history put together as each person remembered one or two things about the stories. 

I ended up spending 5 hours one day at Walmart trying to get the collage we put together to print as it kept coming out green as my sisters computer and theirs were different. In the end, I put all the pictures into black and white and then after I printed that one, the worker was able to print it in sepia and lighten the sepia as the one on the customer computer, you can't lighten so the pictures kept printing super orange but I wanted them in that rust color to match the leather and the stain I put on the wood. 

In the end, the project cost nearly $300 as the frames we bought were just over a $1 each and we had to search lots of stores to collect enough of the ones I needed to have enough for everyone. I have an aunt and an uncle that donated the funds to help and just enough left over to mail a few to people out of state. 

Then, I had at least 100 hours or more of work putting it together, designing, writing the history, calling everyone, burning the mats and leather, Walmart twice printing for hours to get the pictures right, and then putting it all together before the reunion. Thank heavens I had collected and scanned everyone's pictures of my grandparents a few years back. 

I don't know if I would have had any sleep if my sister and her family hadn't come and helped put them all together the night before I went up. Here is a link to that post. I can't thank her and her husband enough for all their help with these. They would not have been as cute if I had done them alone! 

Everyone really appreciated them and I thought it was super funny that my uncle and my brother said they didn't think anyone would want the brand but when it was done, they thought it was great. My uncles sons thought it was the coolest thing and they grew up living on my grandfathers ranch most of their entire lives and they didn't even know that he had a brand etc. 

I washed the pottery and it all sort of looked grey in color so I tested out three different finishes on them to see which would bring out the color the best and the "satin" one brought out the color and gave it a glimmer verses the super flat dirt color or a super shine so if you are going to frame pottery, do a test and try the different finishes to see which give the pottery the best look. 

I also tested out the stains I had to see which I liked best with the leather before cutting the wood. I wanted the burned edges so I stained all the wood in sheets before we cut the mats and then cut the mats upside down so that the burned edges would show on the mat making it look "branded." I used a brown sharpie to fill in any scratches or chips but for the most part, they all came out great. 

I also took a scan I did of my grandfathers letter head for his ranches and put that on the top of the pictures in one of the sections. I then printed up the history and glued it to the back of the frame so that they would have the history with the items if anyone cared. I did have to put a bit more on the history when my brother called from Puerto Rico where he is serving as a missionary with his wife. Here is a link to a post about them and what they are doing. I sent the updated history to everyone so they could update it on the back if they wanted. 

I also found the only family picture of my mothers entire family together. My mother and her brother were 13 years older that the other kids so they were gone by the time my youngest uncle was born so all the photos have the older, or younger kids, but not all together. I found one just after my mother was married that had them all in it and everyone looked good so I photo shopped my father out of the picture so they would have one family photo. There were two others and one had two peoples eyes closed and wasn't very clear and the other was something someone took at an event and my uncle had half a face and no one was looking the same direction and there were many people in it so I was grateful that I was able to find that picture of them all that worked. 

It was a great deal of work but I think it is a fun keepsake as one of my aunts reminded me that her children never knew their grandfather because they lived on the East coast until after he died and they never knew about the ranches so she was SUPER grateful that I made up that history and frame for each of her ten children! 

I am grateful the pressure is now off and that one project is now done after 23 years of collecting! On to the next family history project! 

Have a Blessed and family filled day!