As my children grow up I find myself holding on to different bits and pieces. Except I don’t keep them in a particularly organized fashion. Which if you knew me probably wouldn’t surprise you in the least. When I go through my children’s memorable items and reminisce, it’s usually while I’m looking for something completely unrelated in the garage or loft!
That’s not how it is supposed to be. I don’t even know what I’ve got to remind me of my children until I happen across it while looking for something else. So I’ve decided to get organized. Here are some of my favorite ideas so far.
1) Photo Collages
By a photo collage I don’t mean those badly cut out and pasted ones you did as a teenager to prove how popular you were. With all the photo apps and programs now available even a beginner can produce some pretty good results. If you’re not sure where to start try something user friendly like Photo Grid, http://www.photogrid.org/ .
Depending on what you want the photo collage to encompass will dictate what pictures you put in there but you could capture the first five years of your child’s life by including pictures of the pregnancy scans, photos of their first pair of shoes, photos of the first time they walked, photos of their favorite comforter.
Anything that is a meaningful happy memory of your child can be included in your photo collage. Once you are happy with your finished collage you can print it out and frame it.
For the love of god, use photos of your kids rather than Zayn Malik… please.
2) Keep a Height Chart
This is a really fun way to keep track of how much your child is growing. It’s hard to keep track day by day but it is fun for both you and your child to look back and have them stand against their previous marks and see how much they have grown.
A lovely way to do this without losing the marks when you move house or a paper chart gets damaged is by using a vertical panoramic canvas. Also, you can personalize this to your family or individual child by choosing a photo or pattern and having it printed onto a panoramic print canvas.
If you even move house you can just take it right of the wall and move it with you. Companies such as those at http://www.printpanoramics.co.uk print canvases in a panoramic format, that you invert and put on your wall!
Get with the “height chart” times. Canvas it up!
3) Photograph Their Artwork
One thing I’m sure most parents will understand is what prolific artists our little ones can be! At first you coo lovingly over each and every masterpiece your little Picasso creates but after a while they seem to have produced more artwork every time you turn around. After a while you come to the realisation that unless you live in a specialised archiving unit, it is nothing short of a fire hazard to keep every single piece of artwork they produce. Especially the 3D junk modelling.
But yet you don’t want to forget their creative journeys. So why not take photographs of all their work? You can keep them in an online album. They can be categorized by age, calendar year or academic year. This doesn’t mean that you can’t keep the really special pieces but it saves you feeling guilty about not keeping every single piece of art they produce.
Get some incredible artwork on your wall, like this masterpiece!
4) Time-Lapse Photo Album
This can make a lovely memory to keep yourself or it can make a beautiful and thoughtful gift. You take a photo of the child or children at regular intervals and store them in an album. So for instance you could take one photo a week of your baby from the day it was born until their first birthday.
Print the photos out and you can store them in a beautiful album. You can either use an album bought from a shop likes http://www.boots.com/en/Photo/Albums-Frames/All-Albums/ or if you’re a creative sort you can make or decorate your own. This can also be done over longer periods of time, such as collecting a photo from each birthday from the 1st to the 21st.
If you’re a digital champion, you could create an amazing time-lapse video at various stages of their life, like this Dad.
Take a look at Lotte’s incredible time lapse!
5) Scrapbooking
This is a great way to keep memories of specific events such as a family vacation or the Christmas season. You can include a mixture of things such as photos, ticket stubs, cards and cuttings. Anything related to the memories you want to preserve. Scrapbooking is another area in which you can be as creative as you like so you can have beautiful memories to treasure forever.
Get the kids involved! Although try and look more enthused than this gentleman.
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This article was written by Shelly Leake (@ShellyLeake). Shelly is a content artist, a mother of 2 fantastic children and a huge fan of wine. If you’d like to discuss anything in the content of this article, connect with Shelly via social media.
Are there other suggestions on ways to keep childhood memories? Please share it with us in the Comments. Thank you.
