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.

Placing Importance On Memory Keeping

A little while back, Grace was watching an episode of Play School where the presenters were taking photographs of Jemima and Humpty and all of the other toys and compiling an album.  The show finished and she came running up to me with such a look of excitement, thrilled at the prospect of sharing what she thought was a brilliant suggestion.

“Mummy, Mummy, I’ve got a really great idea!  Let’s take some photos and print them out and then stick them into a book so we can look through them.”

I smiled at her enthusiasm and yet at the same time, felt horrified that the concept of a ‘photo album’ was so foreign to her.  Why did she not know what one was?  When did I stop printing out photos?  Why had she not experienced the same pastime I remember so fondly as a little girl?… flipping through my Mum and Dad’s albums, full of photos of myself and my sister as babies, of my parents and aunts and uncles as children, all of which led to lots of questions, the sharing of tales and plenty of reminiscing.  Photos that captured memories and milestones and the changing of eras.  Photos that embodied ‘family life’. 

I decided then and there that making time to start on some memory keeping projects was a priority. 

My first efforts have been spent on updating our hallway gallery where a collection of frames have displayed several wedding photos ever since we’ve been in our home.  While those photos were no less precious after all this time, somehow, displaying a handful of family snapshots seemed a better fit for this space now.  With a combination of frames from Country Road, Spotlight and op shops in white and timber, some favourite photos of us and the girls are now on display… a mix of posed shots and other more candid ones.  Not only is our new display more meaningful to the girls, but swapping the black frames for lighter ones has really lifted this space. 

Next up, I've begun to sort through our cupboard of haphazardly stored photos.  Cuddled up under a blanket on the couch at night with a cup of chamomile tea, I've been gradually going through our collection, sorting through one small pile at a time and putting them into bundles for projects I have planned. I’m going to finally  complete the girls’ traditional baby books as well as Sophie's first year album (like the one I made for Grace), begin an on-going family record of photos using Project Life resources (as well as on-going albums for each of the girls) and print out some photo books of holidays we've been on.  I promise to share these with you as I work on them…

How about you?  Do you still print out photos or have you too fallen victim to the digital age and the habit of viewing memories on-screen only?

The Tale Of 'That' Treasure Chest

I don't normally write consecutive posts quite so close together, however a little while back, I promised you all I'd share the story of my beloved keepsake chest 'one day'. This evening, on the fourth anniversary of my Dad's passing, I figured it was a fitting day to write about it...

I can clearly remember my seventeenth birthday.  Several weeks before it, I had stumbled across a cute, metal treasure chest of my Dad’s.  With its smooth rounded top, studded detailing and simple design, I fell in love with it immediately, begging Dad to let me have it.  He refused and a battle erupted between us.  In true self-absorbed teenage fashion, I couldn’t fathom his unreasonableness and viewed his stance as stubborn.  Not one to express his feelings in those days or to share with me just how precious that box was to him and why, we found ourselves at loggerheads and didn’t talk for a week. 

It wasn’t until years later that I discovered my Pop had made that lovely chest by hand.  It safely held his Dutch war medals, the ribbon from his navy hat and the intricate buttons from his uniform, pieces so very precious to my Dad having lost his father at the age of fifty (when he himself was still very much a boy at only eighteen).  That keepsake box was special to him because of the memories it contained and the connection it held to a loved one lost far too early.

And so it is that years later, history has repeated itself and the same treasure chest has found its way into my possession, the war memorabilia it held having since been passed on to my aunty.  When my Dad passed away on this day four years ago, and we later began the heartbreaking task of sorting through his possessions, the one thing I wanted to inherit more than anything was that treasure box.  Not because I still longed for it the way I did as a seventeen year old, but because I now understood… I understood all that it symbolised and why my Dad had been so unwilling to part with it.  I knew he would want me to have it.  

Sitting on the bookshelf in our living room, today it holds my keepsakes of my own Dad’s…the key ring he carried with him every day, an East Fremantle Football Club pin, a few of his rings and several of his dinky cars (collectibles by now I’m sure but purely sentimental to me). 

Every day, I walk past that much coveted and much admired treasure chest, feeling the cruel irony that after our battle way back in my teenage years, I can now say it is mine. 

Today, I’d trade a thousand of those chests, if only I could have my dear Dad here with me again…

Today is the fourth anniversary of my Dad’s passing, a day which I carry with a heavier heart than previous years, 

harder now that more and more has happened in my life that my Dad has sadly missed out on being a part of…
One of my favourite posts I've ever written was the one from this day last year, where I shared what happened on the day my Dad died -
it somehow captured how deeply I miss him, how much he was loved and my effort to live a life he'd be proud of... 

Keepsakes And Treasures

We are by no means hoarders in our house thankfully, but lately, I've felt an overwhelming desire and need to further simplify, declutter and sort through anything and everything around our nest, partly due to my desire to start off the new year on a clean and tidy note, partly due to my attempts to create some more storage space as I slowly work on our home office makeover.  Over the weekend it was my keepsakes box that I attacked.

As the girls napped and Paul and I stayed indoors trying to keep cool, I sat down with its contents and poured over each and every letter, invite and treasure that I had saved over the years.  It was a bit of a trip down memory lane as I reminisced over emails from when I was 19 and Paul and I had first started dating, sweet quotes about life and words of wisdom my uni friends and I used to exchange, maps and tickets from past holidays, postcards from loved ones' travels, invitations to weddings and milestone birthdays as well as service booklets from the funerals of those no longer with us.  Each one holding a special memory.  Each one precious.

With storage space in our home lacking though, I had to decide which keepsakes still held meaning for me  as my 'yardstick' for what I consider to be personal treasures has changed a bit over time. Most contents of my box remained.  However when it came to invites and other pieces from various celebrations, I kept only those of immediate family and close friends, rather than holding onto every place setting card, service booklet, thank you note and menu from every wedding we've ever attended. My keepsake box needs to make way for new treasures now like maternity hospital tags, handmade Mother's Day trinkets and mementos of schooling milestones.

Next up, I'm tackling my box of greeting cards...I'm not sure how I'll quite decide which ones become keepers among that collection.  Back when Dad died and we had to sort through his possessions, we came across a box of pretty much every card my sister and I had ever given him, including the handmade clay and honky nut pencil cup I'd made for him as a four year old way back in kindergarten. I have a feeling that my girls will be faced with a similar situation one day when they have to sort through my things...  

I'm curious to know how you decide which keepsakes to hold onto... Are you a hoarder?  Which items make it into your keepsake box?

The metal chest above stores all of my beloved keepsakes from Dad - I'll save the story of it for another post...