Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to capture memories of my children. B is starting school soon, a real milestone, and I’m concerned I’m not capturing as many of M; second child syndrome! As well as capturing memories, I also want to share them so other people can enjoy them. I’ve been collecting ideas for several months and these are my favourite:
- Print or develop photographs and put them in albums
- Use digital photographs to make a photo books
- Frame your favourite pictures or have them printed on canvas and hang them on the wall
- Use photographs as a screensaver; my computer rotates through all my scrap pages
- Make scrap pages, adding text to help tell the stories
- Make a slideshow of photographs to share with people
- Put photographs on physical items such as keyrings, bags
- Take pictures on specific days e.g. first day of school, birthday and combine them in a book, slideshow or wall display
- Take a photograph a day to capture the big and small moments in a year
- Take video of special events e.g. Christmas, birthdays, and make a compilation
- Film the children answering the same questions each year – I’ve done this once so far, using this page as a guide, and captured some amusing thoughts.
- Slyly take video to capture their true unobserved personalities
- Make models of their feet, our resin casts above are when they were both six months old
- Make footprints using paint
- Make hand or foot impressions; I love the idea of making stepping stones with a new stone and foot impressions each year
- Draw around hands every year
- Capture silhouettes
- Height chart including what they want to be when they’re older, or their favourite activity
- Frame your favourite pieces of their artwork
- Make compilation of themed art pieces
- Turn their drawings into works of art
- Turn their drawings of into soft toys
- Scan or photograph their artwork and collate them into a photo book for each year
- Make a scrapbook to store your favourite pieces
- Use small copies to make an artwork compilation in one frame
- Incorporate their drawings in to your craft work, such as sewing
- Cut up their artwork and make a montage
- Make a montage of their writing of the same word to show development
- Decorate and frame pieces to make wall decoration
- Write a shared journal
- Collect your memories in a book or journal
- Ask your children to answer specific questions each year
- Write special or funny memories and collect them in a memory jar and open it once a year; we open ours at Christmas last year it was great fun
- Take photographs of your children’s achievement, or if not possible a photograph of them holding their certificate or medal afterwards
- Write a record of the achievement
- Create an achievement book to store all their certificates and badges
- Create a scrap page compiling photographs, writing and relevant items; B’s first gymnastic badge is below
- Frame badges
- Sew badges on to a blanket
- Make a book out of blog posts and social media statuses
- Collate social media comments and text messages into a book of special events
- Make a blanket out of favourite clothes
- Use a shadow box to store special toys or objects
- Make a ‘mix tape’ or playlists of songs that bring back memories
Photographs are my favourite method because I love the expressions you can capture and the versatility of the output; I’ve been using digital scrapbooking to extend the memories captured within the photographs. But there are things you can not capture in a still image, such as voice and movement so I also take a good about of video. Unfortunately my laptop processor struggles with the video editing software so most of it remains untouched, however the key thing I’ve learnt is to make short compilations otherwise people won’t enjoy watching them.