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 4×6 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.)
but now that you’ve said this, I’m inspired to try again this year! But I’ll definitely be backing up my compilations more often. Ha!
enJOY it 
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