Over the years I have shared many a memory keeping method on the blog. Traditional scrapbooking, minibooks, Project Life, bound photo books, art journals, framed collages, photo albums...even this blog is a memory keeping method. I LOVE photos. I LOVE words. I love taking photos and writing words and then looking back and reading through.
I've noticed a shift these past few months though and right now I am not as interested in spending the time putting the words and photos both together in an album. There is always a season for my hobbies and so I don't doubt I'll be back at some form of paper memory keeping eventually, but right now I am excited to change things up for 2015.
I am going to keep taking all the photos (on film, DSLR and iPhone) but I am going to be doing my "journaling" about Ellerie in a small bound book. I had it made through Pinhole Press. It's actually designed to be a guest book (like for a wedding or home) but with a few alterations it became an "I want to remember..." journal for my girl.
I added a collage of recent film photos to the first few pages (you get to add 3 pages of photos to the front) and then had "I WANT TO REMEMBER" printed at the top of every page. I want to remember is an easy journaling prompt that I have used many times. (Most recently two weekends ago.)
I went with a guest book instead of a journal because I liked the horizontal format and I figured it would be easier to write in. I plan on keeping it by my bed and keeping track of Ellerie habits, words and antics throughout the year. I won't write everyday. I won't try to fill a page. I won't worry about if the pen bleeds through the paper (it won't though, the stock is beautiful). I won't worry about miss-spellings or keeping the book precious.
Paul and I have been keeping a running list of Ellerie words on our fridge on just a scrap piece of paper and it was one of my favorite documentation methods this year. This is sort of an extension of that and something I can do without needing much time, storage or supplies.
Of course, I could have just bought a spiral notebook and did this exact same thing. I also could have bought a fun book like this or this. Having a custom book is far from the point (thought it does make me absurdly happy to see).
So what's my photo plan? Ellerie's 4x6 film photos are going into a photo album and are being marked with just the month and year in pencil. I don't have a real digital photo plan other than to take them and probably order a family photobook at the end of the year. I do have a plan to make a cool book about the MAKE29 adventure in early February. I am going to turn the E&e photo project into a book this summer as well.
So what's my personal documentation plan? How will I keep a record of our whole family? The answer is...we'll see what happens but I'm not worried about it. I have the blog for personal documentation. I have IG for all the photos. I did very little paper documentation about Paul and I in 2014 and I am not sad about it. Paul probably didn't even notice the drop-off. ;) If I'm feeling like something is missing I will start back up and I imagine I'll be more interested in trying to document a week in our life this year.
I will not be sharing the journal entries but I do hope to check in next year year to let you know if this is working or if I feel like I made a mistake and my "documenting" is lacking. I'm so looking forward to shaking things up.
note : links used in this post are affiliate. I love Pinhole Press and highly recommend them. I was thrilled with the quality of this guestbook but did not receive it for free nor was I paid for this post. The photos you see behind the list of Ellerie words are magnets that I have printed every few months by Sticky9. If you want to make your own, use code FRIEND29D9 to save 15% (and I get credit too... win, win.)
