Have you ever wondered what we would do without photos? All of those birthdays, vacations, school activities and Christmas day moments would go undocumented.
Luckily, not only do we have cameras available to us — they’re even built into our smartphones! Nowadays, we can capture those special moments almost instantly. But then what? If you don’t print or post them online, they just sit on your computer’s hard drive never to be seen again.
That was me years ago. I was so proud of taking photos during our vacations and special occasions, but then those photos would simply sit in my computer, literally for years. And what’s worse, they were organized in a folder structured that only I could understand.
Now, five years later, we have two kids and endless opportunities to capture important memories. Before kids I was perfectly happy documenting our “kid-less” life — and all was good. But now the stakes are higher, and I want to remember so much more.
I have always loved scrapbooking. I had all the equipment: plenty of scissors, markers, die cuts, etc. But it just became too overwhelming. Having everything spread out all over the dining room table, cutting and pasting and cleaning — all with very little to show for it in the end. It just became too exhausting! So I stopped.
However, when I got pregnant in 2009, I began journaling about my experience. And I took photos of everything from my growing belly, to what went on during my appointments, to even my crazy and weird cravings. I wrote as if I was telling my son the story; after all it was his story. The result was a 42-page, 8″ x 8″ photo book that I still treasure to this day. I love picking it up and re-living those memories and thinking back to that special time. But you know what means even more? That my son, now four, sometimes picks up the book at bedtime and wants me to go over his story. I love that!
He wouldn’t know about his story if my pictures were in the computer. At his age, he doesn’t know how to look for things like that. But he understands pictures and expressions and (most importantly) we are bonding when we re-live these memories.
Three years ago I found a method of scrapbooking that has changed my life. It’s called Project Life. It’s a “back to basics” approach to scrapbooking, but without tape or scissors. The supplies you need are only a photo album, plastic pages, your photos, a core kit for journaling, and a pen. I started in April 2011, and I completed documenting four months in just one single weekend. I was able to include my son’s artwork, movie tickets and lists of things we were watching, saying or doing, all in a format that was easy to do.
I fell so in love with Project Life that I have used it three years in a row as my “Year in review,” where I document on a weekly basis. This has allowed me to continue combining my love for photos and words in a very simple format. You can make it as easy or as complicated as you want. You can document weekly, monthly or yearly. The point is that you document. You can find more info on Project Life here.
Almost two years ago we welcomed our baby daughter. And while she does not understand as much as my son, she does recognize faces in the photos. She already knows where to find the memory books on the shelf, and soon, I imagine that she’ll be recalling specific events just like her big brother.
One of my biggest joys is finding my children looking over these books. They learn about our family, what we did before and after school, on the weekends, our traditions, etc. They get to know other, more distant members of our family along with friends and acquaintances who are included in those photos. And they get to laugh about a funny moment that I recorded … or something they said or did.
I believe that telling the stories of our lives can actually make our lives better. I have found that when I am actively recording our story through pictures and words, I am encountering more joy and automatically finding myself making more of an effort to live a more purposeful life. My hope is that by sharing my ideas with you, you will feel inspired to do the same and record your own memories.
