I am so SO excited to be talking about keepsakes with the ladies at TBB today. If you are hopping over from Dee's page, WELCOME! I am so excited to talk about the memories that I am collecting for my kids. Unfortunately since I have 2 boys, I am probably just saving them for myself, or their wives. Whatevs, I am a fanatic about documenting my boys childhood. Why do you think I have this blog in the first place?
Brace yourself, this is a long one.
This single shelving unit in our family room holds 99% our keepsakes.
In particular, the middle shelf holds ALL the things that I would grab if there were ever a fire in this house.
1. Yearly Family Album
Each year I put together a 12x12 Shuterfly book with my favorite photos of the year. Each month I upload all the photos from our 'big' camera and the iPhone and choose my favorites to include in the book. My aim is to have 4-6 pages per month. There are some months that I could fill 12 pages and others where I struggle to fill 2. If I sit down and do it monthly it only takes an hour and the task seems less daunting than waiting until the end of the year to tackle it.
I keep it very simple. I don't write any words in it, other than the month, as I would find that overwhelming and then would avoid doing it. I also use the classic black format every year to be consistent to avoid messing around with different backgrounds that tend to be distracting anyway.
Because I update my book every month the first week of January I finished up December's photos and waited for a sale. I ordered my book at 50% off and it just arrived this week!
2. Blog Books
I started blogging when I was 12 weeks pregnant with Grady. I knew I wanted to have a pregnancy blog and I never imagined that over 9 years later I would still be at it. Check out my first post ever here. I use blog to print to make my books. Once the new year hits I start watching for sales and order the previous year's book. Again, I've already ordered and received my 2016 Rsquared blog book, isn't it pretty?
What I like about Blog to Print is that after I input my blog address it takes about 5 minutes to finalize, other than writing the dedication to the boys. You can include or exclude comments, specific posts and table of contents. It is super user friendy
3. Photo Calendars
Each year I make 4 photo calendar, one for us and one for each of the grandparents.
In the past I've ordered the calendars from Shutterly but this year I tried Vista print which, for us Canadians, is much cheaper. Between the foreign exchange and the shipping/duty costs the cost using Vistaprint was less than half the price and the quality was equally good. The only thing I miss from Shutterfly was the ability to put pictures on the birthday square, though it makes for less work for me.
Like the photo albums, I do the calendar pictures each month. I take my favorite pictures and save them in a 'calendar' foldder in my current year picture folder. Speaking of which, I have a pictures folder on my computer and within that, I save all my photos by year, then my month. So as long as I know the month a photo was taken it is pretty easy to find on the computer. I assume that this is how most people organize their photos? Again, by doing this monthly it isn't an overwhelming task and I am ready when the calendars go 50% off right before Christmas!
4. Sports and Class Photos
Growing up, my Mom started an album for each of us that had our yearly school photos and class pictures. I wanted a way to recreate this for my own kids. I also use these albums for sports photos that the kids receive each sports season. I like to keep them all in one place. The kids actually like to flip through these ones every so often.
Dare I admit that I took the plastic off and put a picture in just before that photo was taken? In my head I was thinking that I would put their graduation photo in the front, but kindergarten photos work just as well. I also hate to admit that I didn't even know there was a plastic cover around the cover until I tried to change the photo. I'll just say it looks much better with the picture and without the plastic!
5. Mother's Day Book
A few years ago I started Mother's Day journals for my Mom, James' Mom and while I was at it I got one for myself for James to fil out. Each year the kids draw me pictures and are now starting to write things. James writes on a page as well. It is in lieu of a Mother's Day card. I love the idea and know that in years to come I will love reading what James and the kids wrote in the past.
Right now, we have 2 on our shelf since my Mom recently returned hers to me in preparation for Mother's Day this year.
6. Newborn books
Everyone knows that when a baby is born everyone goes crazy taking unlimited photos of said baby and every person that comes to meet the baby. I totally get it, babies are super cute! Each of the kids have a small photo album of all the pictures from the day they were born and for the first few days as we greeted our first visitors.
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| This is Grady |
7. Vacation Books
Each time we take a family vacation I make an 8x8 Shutterfly book.
Again, I don't do write ups or anything fancy. I just put my favorite pictures in a book and group them together by day if possible. I try to it as soon as possible after vacation, mostly because I love looking at pictures after vacation, and then I order it when there is a sale. NEVER pay full price at Shutterfly. Ever.
8. Photo Albums x 3
Way back 9 years ago when Grady was born I didn't really know about Shutterfly or use electronics the way I do now. Heck, I didn't even get a smart phone with texting until after Cooper was born. So... I was printing photos every month, similarly to what I do with Shutterfly except in hard copy.
I bought a 3 pack of Albums at Costco when Grady was born and started to fill it up over the year. I decided that I would print 3 years of photos since I had 3 albums. I bought another 3 pack when Cooper was born.
After the 3 years was up I knew that I needed a new way to store my pictures. I didn't want to print them anymore so that is when I decided to use Shutterfly and transform it into a family album rather than a set for each kid. Realistically, I have boys and they won't care about all these photos I have treasured so much.... I hope they prove me wrong.
I prefer the Shutterfly books because I can cram way more photos into it then I could in the one above. As a bonus, if I ever need to find a picture to print it I can do so easily based on the year and month.
School File Folder
This is the one item that is not stored on that magic shelf.... As Grady was starting Kindergarten a friend sent me an article about how to organize all your kid's school stuff. I read the article, loved it, and hurried out to buy 2 of these folder carriers from Target, before it closed.
Inside, you find a folder for each grade including preschool. I am going to try and keep all 12 years in here.... report cards, school photos, and some of my favorite art and written pieces. Realistically I will be more interested in revisiting these bins then the kids. There is just some stuff you can't throw out. Ever.
Tips for Keeping the Keepsakes
1. Break it down into manageable tasks. Don't wait until the end of the year to document something you could be doing as you go. We are all busy people and trying to find 30 hours at the end of the year is much harder than finding 1.5 hours each month. This is the biggest thing I did in keeping my mementos up to date.
2. Start small. Commit to one item, not 7. Choose the one that is most important to you. If I were to choose one of the items listed above, I would choose the family album.
3. Never pay full price. Ever. Wait for a sale. These items are not cheap so you may as well save yourself a few bucks. Whether you get it a week later or 3 months later it doesn't really matter.
4. Do it for yourself. While I like to think I am doing it for my kids, I really have no idea if the kids are even going to be interested. At the end of the day, I am motivated because I want to have these items as keespsakes, to revisit in 20 years when my kids are grown. If the kids want to see them, I consider this a bonus.
Now that I have shared my secrets, what would YOU add to the list of things you like to keep and any tips you have to make it happen.
Hop back over to TBB to see what the other ladies are keeping!
1. Break it down into manageable tasks. Don't wait until the end of the year to document something you could be doing as you go. We are all busy people and trying to find 30 hours at the end of the year is much harder than finding 1.5 hours each month. This is the biggest thing I did in keeping my mementos up to date.
2. Start small. Commit to one item, not 7. Choose the one that is most important to you. If I were to choose one of the items listed above, I would choose the family album.
3. Never pay full price. Ever. Wait for a sale. These items are not cheap so you may as well save yourself a few bucks. Whether you get it a week later or 3 months later it doesn't really matter.
4. Do it for yourself. While I like to think I am doing it for my kids, I really have no idea if the kids are even going to be interested. At the end of the day, I am motivated because I want to have these items as keespsakes, to revisit in 20 years when my kids are grown. If the kids want to see them, I consider this a bonus.
Now that I have shared my secrets, what would YOU add to the list of things you like to keep and any tips you have to make it happen.
Hop back over to TBB to see what the other ladies are keeping!
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