 'I really want to do something with these pictures, Mom. It's making me sad that my memories of Papa and Grandmere are fading and I want to share them with Ian before it's too late.' my daughter confided to me as we threw yet another half full photo album into the box we designated for photo storage. It's been several months since she returned from her trip to Japan last summer. She came home burning with passion and motivation to simplify our belongings; mostly the things we held on to from my parent's estate. In doing so we found loads of pictures.  My mom and my son, Christmas 2006 My mom's greatest wish was to be remembered especially by the youngest of her grandchildren, my son. Even now over 2 1/2 years since her death, I still struggle with how I can keep her memory and stories alive in a tangible way for him. And with getting all the pictures from my grandmother that Mom kept, I've also been concerned with finding a way to share the pictures and stories of our family. Scrapbooking would be the obvious answer to this dilemma, right? Here's the thing...the only craft I've tried and hated was scrapbooking. All the cropping, laying out, and endless bells, whistles and do dahs that go with it seemed like much too much trouble for me. I need something simple that's not going to take time way from other things I do like to do. And though I've kept journals off and on for years I rarely if ever add pictures to my words.  Enter Becky Higgins' Project Life, a simple
scrapbooking system that lets me pair my photos with beautiful pre-designed journal cards to help me save the memories This made my heart sing with a resounding 'YES!!" as I shared with my daughter what this system could be for us. As we go through the process of putting together the memories, I'll be sharing our progress here as a way of staying accountable to the completion of what at the beginning feels like a monumental task at this point. Preserving the past while documenting the journey of a thousand memories. We're calling our journey Project Past Life and I hope you join us.
that sounds like a great project Dionne....I've struggle with the whole photo thing myself.....still have one bin in the garage I need to weed through.....thing is I'd rather just keep them digitally......although there are some old family photos I treasure.......I will get to it one day :).
Dionne the Tea Priestess
2/20/2012 06:21:00 am
@Gina apparently you CAN make a digital scrapbook which is what I'm considering doing with all the photos I have sitting on my external hard drives. That way instead of just taking up space they are actually out and being enjoyed.
Ninja Muslimah
2/20/2012 06:50:50 am
In case you ever decide to do dive into scrapbooking with all the cropping, laying out, and endless bells, whistles and do dahs I have all the tools, cutting, trims, papers, binders, etc in a box mostly new that I ever used or used for a couple of days before I decided it was too much work!!! HA HA HA Good Luck on your journey. Love you!
It looks like a good system - much more manageable than "traditional" scrapbooking. I have bins and totes filled with photos and half-completed pages. And I've spent a small fortune on specialized supplies. It just got too complicated to keep up with. This might be a good alternative for me, too. What a wonderful family project Dion! I did some scrap booking with photos of my first child then have since just pilled them in boxes (once digital photos caught on we basically just have them on the computer) Kudos to you for taking this on. I think it's so important to document our families this way. Oh, I took all our old photos out of albums that were ruining the pictures and got them into scrap books with all the bells and whistles up until about ten years ago. Now I am so far behind it's just overwhelming to try and catch up, not to mention digital pictures and all that. Good luck with your project! 2/21/2012 02:53:10 am
That sounds lovely! Another thing you could do is write a children's story about an adventure your 2 year old had with his Nana, either a true story or an imaginative one, and use some of the pictures to illustrate it. Then you can read it to him whenever he likes. <3 2/21/2012 08:16:24 am
Dionne, this is so beautiful. You are not the only one with boxes (and boxes, and more boxes!) of photographs without homes, their stories hidden away and silenced. I will certainly be looking into Project Life. 2/21/2012 08:45:56 am
Oh, what an excellent project idea!! I too have boxes of the photos hidden away & it makes me sad whenever I see them. :(
Dionne the Tea Priestess
2/21/2012 12:35:50 pm
@Ninja Muslimah ~ Well I know exactly who to come to if I get carried away with this! Comments are closed.
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Blessings!I'm Dionne, a Natural Rhythms Creation Coach and Elemental Forces of Creation Oracle Reader. I teach people how to tune into to the power of the elements and rhythms of nature to design a life they love 
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