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5 Fast Memory Keeping Ideas with Jessica Turner

This morning I’m excited to introduce you to Jessica Turner, the voice behind The Mom Creative. In my mind, Jessica is superwoman. She holds down a full-time job, she runs a successful blog and she is about to publish her first book! All the while, she is a thoughtful and attentive mom who enjoys crafting and memory keeping in her “spare” time.

Jessica and I are doing a “blog swap” today. I’m over at The Mom Creative sharing one of my favorite summer recipes, and Jessica is going to share some of her best memory keeping ideas (no glue required!) As a former Creative Memories consultant and lifelong scrapbooker, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and Jessica has a variety of ways to preserve your family’s memories that I think you’ll enjoy. With that, I will turn it over to Jessica. Please make her feel welcome!

5 Fast Memory Keeping Ideas with Jessica Turner

Hello! I’m thrilled to be “blog swapping” with Jo-Lynne today. I’m honored to call her my friend and so inspired by her cooking and the way she lives her life. (Be sure to check out her amazing strawberry pretzel parfaits she contributed to my site today).

I’m Jessica from The Mom Creative. I’m also proud to be a wife to Matthew, mom to Elias, a silly and spirited five-year-old, and Adeline, a spunky two-year-old. Other hats I wear include marketing professional, savvy deal finder, photo lover and memory keeper trying to juggle it all.

Memory keeping is really “my thing.” I think it is so important to document your story, and the story of your family. But memory keeping doesn’t have to mean crazy scissors, lots of glitter and glue sticks. Here are 5 fast memory keeping ideas that don’t even require glue.

1. Project Life: This is my fifth year doing Project Life and I can honestly say it is the best thing I do with my pictures.

This is a kit that makes it easy to print your photos, journal some thoughts and be on your way. I love that it is still paper scrapbooking and a tactile process, but also the freedom it gives me to not feel guilty because I am doing SOMETHING with my photos.

The kit also allows me to fit scrapbooking in my busy life. I also love to add “bits of life” like receipts, artwork and mail. (To download my free list of 100 bits of life you can add to Project Life, click here.)

Each month I invite Project Lifers from around the world to participate in my monthly Project Life Tuesday link-up (May is tomorrow!). It is so fun to see so many different approaches to this project. If you are interested in learning more about Project Life, check out these 20 FAQs about it.


2. Journals for your kids:
I created these simple photo journals online. Every once in awhile I will write a memory, thought, milestone, etc. to my son, Elias, and daughter, Adeline.

I also love that these journals contain my handwriting, which I know will be something that will make these books even more special to my kids someday.

I should point out that I am NOT a journaler and sometimes go several weeks – or even months – in between writing in these. I am okay with that because I know it is about what I DO do, not what I don’t.

Each time I write in the journals I think, why don’t I do this more? It doesn’t take much time and I know what a special keepsake the journals will be to my kids someday.

3. Journal MY story: I received the book, Reflections of a Mother’s Heart and love the simple way it encourages me to write down my own story.

The book is divided in to 12 months, with 12 questions a month. You certainly do not have to start it in January though! Every page has a question on it.

Sometimes I do it before bed, sometimes while sitting in the bathroom while my kids are in the bathtub. It doesn’t take long to answer a question (probably about five minutes), but I know that the book when I have finished it will be a beautiful keepsake of stories I otherwise wouldn’t have recorded.

As memory keepers, I think that when it comes to our own childhood and early adulthood we often don’t record much of our own memories. Instead, we start in the place where we are. My story is important and this simple tool is helping me to record pieces of it.

4. Videos: I know it might not seem like memory keeping, but making videos definitely is a form of documenting your story! My phone has a video camera on it and I will often just pull it out and record a short video of my son or daughter.

Here is a video we made wrapping up our 2013, using mostly iPhone video from the year:

This year I am loving using the 1 Second Everyday app, which stitches together videos from your phone for you. This type of videography isn’t fancy, but I know these clips will be treasured when they are older. Check out this list of video ideas you can make with your kids.

5. Photo Books– Since having kids, I have found it easier and less time-consuming to create photo books for large batches of photos than to make mini scrapbooks or lots of scrapbook pages from one single event.

Typically I use the 8×8 format. It is a very manageable project-size and not too time consuming to complete a book. (I can often get a book designed in one sitting).

Some photo book ideas include: vacations, birthdays, holidays and photo shoots. My favorite photo book companies are Picaboo, Shutterfly and Snapfish. These 5 tips for creating a photo book fast will surely help you if you are overwhelmed or pressed for time.

For more memory keeping ideas, check out the series I did a while back called 31 Days of Memory Keeping. Also, I hope you will take a minute to check out my blog, or connect with me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter.

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4 Responses

  1. I stink at just about every form of memory keeping there is. Unless you count blogging and documenting my life with Facebook snippits memory keeping lol. I’d likee to get better at printing out photo books!

  2. Man, I miss scrapbooking! I have kept taking pictures and keep organizing them in [digital] folders. But I haven’t actually scrapped in a long time. I love the photo books, but I need to start Project Life. Like, yesterday. 🙂

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