Keeping the Memories Alive

When I first had my baby boy last July I had a friend with a five month old. I would always ask her “when did Carys first do this…” “when did she first roll over…” etc and she would often shrug and say she couldn’t remember.
I couldn’t imagine this. Now my baby boy is almost seven months old and my little sister has just had a baby girl. She has been asking, “when did Ellis first…” “did he used to…?” And now I often shrug and says I can’t remember. Fact is you think that you will remember it all but it goes by so quickly and before you know it they are toddlers.

So I thought today that I would share with you some of the ways I have kept the memories alive of my baby boy.

 

My friend brought me a keepsake box that says, “BORN IN 2013” and I have used this to store little keepsakes, like:

* his name tags from hospital

* his first little outfit and hat

* his first shoes

* newspapers from the day of his birth

* cards we got from friends and relatives 

It will be fun for him to sift through as he gets older and perhaps even show his kids one day (quite a scary thought!)

Secondly I have done monthly photo shoots so that I can see the changes in him with every stage. I brought transfer paper on ebay and then printed out these free printables from here here. I now have good pictures of him, taken with the big camera, for each of his first seven months. I use picmonkey for free photo editing. I also like to place him next to a teddy bear so that you can see the difference in his size.

  

Thirdly – what to do with all of these pictures?  I am a bit of a scrapbooker and usually do big 12 by 12 inch layouts, but time is not in abundance with a new baby around and so I decided to condense my scrapbooking and make A4 sizes layouts to go into plastic wallets in a standard ring binder. A lot more time and purse friendly solution. I find TKMaxx and ebay great place to pick up bargains on pads of scrapbooking paper, thickers (letter stickers by America Crafts – they are the best!) and of course washi tape (I know that Lauren is a big fan of this too!)

These pages still give me a chance to tell a bit of his story and the story behind the photo. I tried to keep a notebook of his first few months so that I could then transfer it to scrapbook pages when I had the time. I also find my blog useful as I do monthly posts and I can use the content from the posts to create scrapbook pages.

Lastly, my new way of documenting memories is Project Life. Have you heard of it? Go check it out on pinterest or google and you will see it is the new craze sweeping blogland and craftland. It is a much quicker way of prettying up your photos and making sure that you print them and you tell the stories behind them.
I have a beginners guide post up on my blog here at the moment if you want to find out more. But for now I will leave you with a layout I produced Project Life style of the day of Ellis’ birth:-

Thanks for having me Lauren and hope that this inspires some of you to print your photos out and tell the stories behind them!