Do you like to preserve your memory?

Now that technology is so accessible and convenient, many people's interest in photography, or photography by cell phone has increased.  We often see that people snap pictures of many many things, some of which might even seem trivial.  In the old days, when digital camera did not exist, I remember my mom brought with her rolls of films when we took family vacation.  We did not take pictures randomly, but very selectively.  After the trip she would carefully keep the films in her carry on luggage and when we arrived home we went to a well known store to develop them.  We normally chose the next-day service rather than the one-hour service, because rumors had it that the one-hour service did not produce photos as high quality as that by next-day service.

It is a totally different era now.  When we go on family vacation, my mom no longer brings with her rolls of films.  Instead she uses her slim iphone and clicks away.  My dad loves his digital camera, and keeps on saying that we no longer need to worry about the films or cost of developing pictures.  He too, is a shutterbug.  He might even tell me that in my grandparents' era, they had to make a special arrangement to a studio to get any picture taken .  Pictures were indeed extremely precious and cherished dearly back in those days.

I am grateful that technology has improved so much that we can enjoy capturing any moments easily.  Today, even though pictures are not as special as they were 50 years ago, the special moments are still special and worth documenting.

When it comes to documenting our stories, just like everything else, we all have our own preferences, methods, techniques,  likes and dislikes.  Do you know what type of memory keeper you are?

Go look at p. 13 - 15 of the new idea book to find out!

Close To My Heart divides memory keepers into four main categories: Pocket scrapbooking, Decorative scrapbooking, Fundamental scrapbooking and Digital Scrapbooking.

In addition to these four, I'd add two more: instalife scrapbooking and event scrapbooking.   What are they?  Instalife scrapbookers are those who snap pictures with their phones and have tons of pictures on instagram.  They print their square pictures and put them in smaller albums like the Instalife Album:

It's a 4x4 album so that's perfect for the instagram pictures!  Close to My Heart also has a kit called Colorful Me that help you complete an album easily and quickly:

An event scrapbooker, defined by yours truly, is a scrapbooker that makes a small/mini album after an event, such as a trip, a wedding, a graduation ceremony.  When I document an event like this, I like to use the My Creations Kraft 3-Ring Album.  An example of this is:

Alternatively if you are not into creating all pages on your own, you may like My Creations Kraft Mini Book.  This also comes in black as well.  The My Creations Hip Pics Albums is another great choice.  See the video below to find out more about it.




Want the album to be smaller?  Try the My Creations Mini Folio which has 5 4"x4" panels in accordion fold.

Love many of the options above?  Me too!!  I document stories differently depending on the occasions.  For something very special, I'm a decorative scrapbooker.  Otherwise, I may do fundamental scrapbooking.  Normally, however, I'm somewhere in between.  Oh, sometimes I want to functionally document a story in a short time and that's when I do pocket scrapbooking.

For gifts, my favorite is the Kraft Mini-Albums as shown above.  I like that I can make many pages then freely re-arrange them if needed (that tells you how unorganized a scrapbooker I am, shhhh).  I also like that it gives me a lot of creative opportunity - it is a blank canvas so I can make it any type of album I want.  They are 8x8 which is a good size to keep standard 4x6 pictures but not as intimidating as a 12x12 album.  I've made many of these albums as gifts but I never get tired of them.  :)

While we are approaching the holiday season, we will be taking a lot of pictures again.  If you'd like to preserve your memory, or create a gift that preserves others' memory, I hope the information above will help you.  Not sure where to start?  Let me show you how.  Just leave me a comment below.

Thanks for stopping by!