The memory keeper.

If I'm not blogging, you can assume that life either sucks (kinda like last year did) or life is pretty awesome. Thankfully, it's been the later of the two lately.

Now that Livi's done with the harder part of her treatment, it feels like we've been living life again. We've been busy...too busy for my taste to be honest, but I'm grateful to be out in the world again and for some kind of normalcy.


The point of this post...last year I read The Happiness Project and one thing the author said about herself stuck out to me big time. She realized that she was the "memory keeper" for her family and it was her job to keep a document their lives. For whatever reason, that stuck with me.  I'm our memory keeper.

I've been documenting life these past few months and keeping these memories alive, I just haven't been using the blog to do it. 

Instead, I've been sucked into the Project Life world...



Last summer, my mom and I got into a conversation about our old scrap booking days...you know, the scrapbooks with stickers galore and tons of cutting.  Though she's still been plugging away with it over the years, I had dropped it.  I was in college and it felt like it was just too dang expensive to keep up.  I told her how much I missed the scrapbooking, but I just didn't have the time to sit down and spend hours making a single page.  I know you print off photo books or have your blog printed off in a book, but for some reason, those didn't feel the same to me as a scrapbook does.  She mentioned looking into Project Life and I was immediately hooked. 

Over the fall, I slowly collected the few supplies I needed when they were on sale or I had a coupon....page protectors, a couple of kits, a photo corner rounder, a few craft pens, etc. and got to work when the new year came around.

(Obviously, I've developed a little addiction over the past few months...there may or may not be more kits that didn't make the picture...cough, cough.)

It's a pretty simple process...you buy a kit that tickles your fancy, buy some sheet protects, print off your pictures, then use the pre-cut cards in your kit to make a page.


I personally decided to start in January and do a yearly family album.  I'm sure I may go back when I have a little more time on my hands and make a separate one for each of the girls.  I failed at a baby book for both girls, so I'd like to eventually go back and make something similar for both.

Every few weeks or at the end of the month, I have all  my pictures printed out.  I then work on the previous month throughout the month we're currently in.  The most exciting part is that so far, this system is so simple, I've been able to keep up. 

I'm already finished with March and my album is already half way full. 



Most of the pictures are cell phone pics. I don't worry about if they're frame worthy.  Heck, some are even blurry, but ones I love and know I still would want to look back at them years later. I also have no shame in borrowing a few photos my kids are in from close family and friends that I know wouldn't mind.

I include anything that I felt the need to take multiple pictures off.  I usually just jot down a few notes and what day it is (my computers photo organizer will remind me if I can't remember the exact date). 

If I have enough photos of a certain event to fill a whole page, then it gets one.  Each month, I also include a "Random" page of single photos, a page dedicated to each of the girls with funny things they did or said that month.

It's just enough to fill my crafting need, but it doesn't take tons of time or makes a huge mess. I can finish several pages in just an hour.

I often find the girls looking through the album.  Even though the events are just a month or two old, Olivia loves to reminisce over them.  I can't wait till we have several years to really reminisce over. I find Amelia probably looking through them more than any one!

 It's so simple, I just feel the need to share this with all the other memory keepers out there.

I'm hooked.