Creating Childhood Keepsakes

It seems like the day I took home my twin girls, now 8, was just yesterday.

Time is flying by so quickly, and although I mean to chronicle our memories, my efforts fall short. There are the scrapbooks that I started when my daughters were 2 years old that haven’t been touched for months, and there are the diaries for recording milestones that I keep forgetting to use.

I have found ways to keep up with the swift passage of time, however. I’ve found that to keep our memories, I have to make the process as simple as possible. These are some tricks I’ve learned along the way.

1. Make computer time keepsake time: Most parents spend lots of time on the computer or email.  So, it shouldn’t be too hard to find the time while doing so to type in a few words about the day’s events and some memories. You can jot them down in a Word document or simply email your writings to yourself to download later.

2. Scrapbook online:  Scrapbooking is fun, but to scrapbook the old-fashioned way, you need the books, papers, adhesives, etc. Plus, putting the books together can be time-intensive. Scrapbooking online is easy, especially since most people’s photos are already digital. You can upload your shots to a website like Snapfish and use the site to create a scrapbook with words and photos. You can save the scrapbook online and work on it when you have the time. When it’s completed, you can order bound versions of your scrapbook. With just one effort, you can get multiple copies of the same scrapbook.

Each Christmas I make a scrapbook of the prior year’s events (featuring photos of my kids) and order copies of it for my daughters, my husband and me and my children’s grandfather.

3. Make it simple:  So you don’t forget to jot down your memories, keep journals in places where you can see them, like in your purse or on your nightstand. If you want to write your journal online or in a Word document, place the document or emails in a folder that is easy to find (e.g., you can create a shortcut link to your journals on your computer’s desktop, or keep an email folder in which to store your emailed entries).

4. Get the kids involved: You might want to let your kids make their own scrapbooks. My daughters have added photos and memories to their own scrapbooks, and their creations are better at preserving their unique personalities than anything I could put ever together. The fact that the scrapbooks are in their own words and feature photos that they think are important make them even more special!