In a perfect world, I’d be down in my craft room knocking out lavish scrapbooks documenting every moment of my son’s life and quilting memory blankets out of his first year’s worth of clothes. But let’s be real…ain’t nobody got time for that!
I would consider myself a pretty creative person, and prior to having a child, I spent a lot of time scrapbooking and quilting (yes, quilting). And I vowed that I was going to keep doing that once we started a family. I asked my husband to help me put in this beautiful craft room in the basement with everything I needed to work on my masterpieces. The first year of my son’s life, I did pretty good. I was able to keep up with his scrapbook album by going to weekend crops and Crop-A-Ganza.
Then, life happened. Quickly, weeks, then months had passed since I was last able to work on his albums and it seemed like catching up was hopeless. I felt like I was experiencing a major parenting fail. We were only having one child. Moms with quadruplets have kept up their albums better than me. And then with preschool, there was all this great artwork that I wanted to incorporate. I HAD to find a time-friendly solution.
So, I took to Pinterest.
Here are three projects that I’ve been able to keep up with and proudly display my son’s artwork and our most cherished family memories:
Digital Scrapbooking : One Frame A Day
Total Time: One hour one night per month in front of the TV with my computer and a glass of wine.
Total Investment: Mixbook prices vary but my annual book typically ends up being around $125 after their ongoing 40% off special.
This sounds way more intimidating than it actually is. I have tried a couple of programs prior to landing on my favorite: Mixbook. If you are like me, I take more pictures than reasonably necessary of our family. Two years ago I started doing a very simple,” One Frame A Day” themed digital scrapbook.
Through Mixbook, I did a basic white background and uploaded photos from every couple of days and journaled about what we did that day. I added the date and a title on some of them. Originally I was going to do one photo every day but there were days (gasp) where I didn’t take any photos and some days where it was too hard to narrow it down to just one picture.
My son absolutely loves these books! There are times where I’ll find him curled up in his room, flipping through page by page and laughing about what we did that day or running in to ask us if we remember something. I love that he loves it!
Little Picasso Wall
Total Time: 1.5 hours to cut, mount and hang my wall display. Changing it out takes about 10 minutes each time.
Total Investment: The frames were a steal at Michaels – 2/$19.99 and now they are closeout for 2/$9.99.
After two years of preschool, a mound started piling up of this beautiful artwork that my son was doing every day. I will admit, there were some pieces of scribbling that I may or may not have tried to slip into the trash and the times that I may or may not have been caught were brutal. DO NOT let your child see you attempt to toss out their artwork. It’s awful!
I decided I had to come up with a way to display his pieces and stumbled upon a great deal on shadow boxes at Michael’s. I simply took butcher paper, cut it into 11×14 pieces and made a backdrop in the shadow box. I am able to rotate out his artwork as he brings it home and it’s on display in the hallway for everyone to see.
In Home Art Gallery
Total Time and Total Investment: vary by the art project. You can keep them simple and very inexpensive by using items you already have at home.
I have a habit of buying really cute picture frames with every intention in the world of filling them up with all of the great family photos we have lying around but for some reason, Sally, Bob and Jimmy, or whatever the models names happen to be, appear to be our long lost family. My son LOVES doing artwork and continually brings it home for the Picasso wall but we started to do smaller projects that we could use around the house in places like the entry way and on the fireplace mantel. One of our favorites that we happened to gift out for Grandparent’s Day a few years ago, was a marble painting project that I found on Pinterest.
We love having our son’s artwork and family memories on display. With these three options, it’s been much easier to make it happen routinely. For more of our DIY craft projects that we do at home, follow me on Pinterest.
How do you manage keeping up with family memory projects?
