Friday, July 29, 2011

photos + journal

photos + journal


photos + journal


photos + journal


photos + journal

When I saw this on Momfilter I loved the idea and could not get it out of my head.

I'm terrible at keeping any sort of photo album or baby book, but for some reason the idea of simply printing out a daily photo--on regular printer paper--taping it into a Molskine, and writing a few lines about your day--seemed doable and strangely wonderful. What I love is being freed from the rules--the photos are not high quality, nothing is "archival," it's extremely informal, and yet . . . already my boys are loving seeing what photo I select for the day, and they love for me to read my text to them. The author of the Momfilter piece (who has been doing this for a number of years) said that taking these off the shelf and seeing what they were up to in the past, be it two years ago or two weeks ago--continues to be a fascination for them.

Can I stick with it? I love this and am compelled by it, and I adore handwritten notebooks and have kept numerous journals over the years, so I hope so. But no way do I see myself doing a daily update once school starts. I'd be thrilled to update it once a week. We'll see what actually happens, but so far I'm enjoying this little journal.

12 comments:

Heather said...

I love this idea. Thank you so much for sharing it. I've been terrible about photo albums or memory books for my kids - stacks of photos in boxes or trapped on my hard drive. It has always seemed like it needed to be such a production, you know? Like it had to be in pretty scrapbooks with borders and stickers and fancy lettering? This seems so much more sustainable and far more my speed. Love. It.

We Blog Artists said...

What a wonderful idea...I would love to keep up with something like this...I love handwritten stuff too that you can touch...but can never seem to keep it up...I could try again I guess...I've kept my blog going for nearly 3 years...
Thanks for the inspiration!
HUGS
Char.x

Jane said...

Wow, that looks so easy. I could do that! Thanks so much for passing this on. What a special and doable way to document our days.

Anonymous said...

this is fantastic, I love it. I already keep a journal but I like the idea of having one for the girls to look back on.

Kristin said...

Great idea. In the book "The Happiness Project" she talks about keeping a one sentence journal. Just one sentence about each day- quick, but over a month, you have documented a lot of events. I might add pictures to this after seeing your post!

Laura said...

I love this idea! I'm not very good at scrapbooks - I have a basket of scrapbook "items" that need to go into both of my sons' scrapbooks which has been sitting untouched since my younger son was born (a little over three years ago). I also have journals for each of them which have not been added to in quite awhile. I love the simple idea of this. Thanks so much for sharing!

Susan said...

This is such a fun, great idea! Makes me want to get my printer set up. In fact, I will! Thanks for sharing the idea.

michelle said...

That's such a great idea! We have gotten stuck in the habit of not printing our photos in the last five years or so, such a shame as it's nice to look through them every now and again. It's just not the same looking at them on a monitor.

I love Moleskine journals, I always have one stuck in my handbag to write my weekly shopping list and meal planning in.

Mamie Girl said...

May be you could just keep them during your holidays, then your boys would be able to look back on what you did last summer or last christmas etc :)

erin said...

What a great idea. I can see why they love it! My daughter loves to look at old photos of herself. Just last night she skipped reading her chapter story so that she could show me a bunch of photos of herself from one of her photo albums. Good luck keeping up the journaling!

Maiz Connolly said...

Sort of related... I tried to keep a notebook of ideas/projects/moments of inspiration for years, but I could never do it because I always felt too "precious" about the notebook, and I was always second-guessing if my ideas were really worth the notebook!
Finally, I just started writing ideas down really quickly (usually with a pencil) on plain pieces of typing paper and putting them in a stack on my desk. Like with your new journal, I feel like letting go of a little perfectionism can be so liberating!

christine ~ ourdayourjourney said...

oh, i just love this. what sweet memories for you to look back on and savor.