Keep Those Memories Alive

This past Christmas, we flew to Alberta to spend some time with Jesse's family. 

 While we were there, we made sure that we visited Jesse's Granny and Grandad. Granny's memory has been deteriorating throughout these past few years and although we knew that she wouldn't know who we were, we wanted to see her, see Grandad and have Gavin meet the both of them. 

  

Granny has a few scrapbooks in her room that go throughout her life, highlighting special moments and people. I was able to take pictures of some of those pages so that I could have those little snapshots to teach Gavin someday about his Great-Granny. 

After spending time with Granny and Grandad, as well as Jesse's family, it got me thinking about preserving memories. I wouldn't call myself an avid scrapbooker, but I do have a few albums that are actually completed and a few more that have a couple pages started. 

  Scrapbooking takes a lot of time and effort. What I love about scrapbooking though, is having those memories preserved for Gavin to look at down the road. Someday he will flip through my college yearbook and will laugh at the silly things that we wore (actually...I do that now). He will look through our wedding scrapbook and see all the people that were part of our special day.

My problem right now is finding the time to scrapbook.  

I have pictures printed off and ready to go. I have really cool supplies to make my pages look awesome. However, with an almost 8 month old (where does the time go!???), I don't have the time to actually get anything done. Scrapbooking use to be such a pleasure and a joy, and although I love looking at layout ideas and different techniques, I feel like it's one more thing on my list to do. 


 One day I was looking around Pinterest and I saw a few people pinning something called "Project Life". I didn't really look too much into it. Then the other day I was reading a blog (I don't remember which one) and you know how sometimes you click from one blog to the next to the next? Well, one blog after another led me to this website: 

Hmmm...Project Life. It rang a bell in my memory (ding, ding, ding) and I remembered how people were pinning pictures titled "Project Life."


  I don't know if you have heard about it or not, but it looks really cool! In a nut shell, Becky Higgins has designed these 12" binders that you fill with plastic sheets, which then you slip your pictures inside and your memories.

Like exhibit A: 

{source: Marcy Penner} 

 It looks like such a good idea. It has the essence of scrapbooking, without the process of spending time sitting at the table, staring at my 12x12 page, pulling out my hair wondering what to do, looking up layout ideas in magazines, rearranging pictures, thinking up clever titles and the pressure of getting it to look perfect. I really do like scrapbooking. I promise. 

  I think I'm going to give it a try. I know technically Project Life is to meant for you to scrapbook your pictures week to week, but I don't know if I'm into that yet. I need to get a better camera first. 

Right now though, it looks like a great idea just to get my pictures into albums and off my computer.  

  Not only that, but all these memories that are building up in my brain need to get out on paper. I don't know how much time I have on this earth and I want to make sure that even if I'm around for 90+ years, those memories are passed down to my children. 

So. Project Life. Have you guys heard of it before?