Printed Photos + Family Memories

Ever since my post last year where I discussed my saddness at our lack of printed photos, I have made documenting our family life a priority.  Happily, I can report that I have compiled around twelve or so double-page spreads that together, give an overview of our 2014. I've found this project (which is on-going and will be added to over the coming years) to be so rewarding and very manageable and wanted to write about my approach to encourage others who haven't printed out any photos for some time to perhaps give something similar a go...

For my album, I have used Project Life page protectors.  However, my approach to using them is SUPER SIMPLE.  Unlike others who use such resources to complete weekly spreads (which for me personally would be too time consuming and feel like too much of a chore), I document several weeks or even several months in the same space. Every now and then, I download all of the images from our phones and camera and save my favourites into a folder.  When I have enough to put together a layout, I do. Sometimes a layout will cover a month or a season.  Other times it will document a special occasion such as a birthday or family holiday where a larger number of snapshots have been taken. No pressure. No rules.  No fancy embellishments or patterned papers. Just a simple collection of photos with a simple bullet-point list of memories.

I stick to a fairly basic layout and use only one style of page protectors.  I keep my journalling cards the same.  Polaroid-style smaller photos (thanks to the free Collect App) break things up and provide some blank space (as well as useful date records).  Some photos are printed with a white border to provide definition, others are printed to the edge of the photo paper. I try to balance colours and will convert certain images to black and white if they are too visually distracting.






Our album doesn't necessarily contain my best photography but I select the photos that best tell our story. Milestones, snippets of daily life, new additions to our home as well as the occasional portrait all combine together to showcase memories I want us to recall in the future.

If you (like me last year) are in the position of not having printed out any photos for a LONG time, I encourage you to try something similar. My girls love being able to flick through our pages of family memories and I'm so grateful I've stopped procrastinating and have begun creating a tangible record for us all to enjoy and look back over...

A special shout-out to Ronnie whose pared back Project Life style is what encouraged me to try something similar in the first place.

Also, thank you to Claire for your advice and inspiration which I've appreciated too.