It seems I'm always on a quest to find more efficient ways of doing things. A common phrase in our house is, "and that way I can kill more birds with just 2 stones!" Pat teases me that I shouldn't be on this life quest to kill all birds as quickly as possible. :) There's actually been about 3 birds that I've been waiting and planning and scheming to kill, but just couldn't find a way to do it with 1 stone. And I'm proud to announce that I think I've finally figured out how to do it!
Bird #1: Journal keeping & Blogging
I want to a place to record events in our life, fun memories, and thoughts I've had on being a parent that I can pass on to my children. I never seem to have time to stay current by physically writing in a journal...and I never get around to printing out the blog posts I've done. Plus I want to still write updates to keep family informed on what's happening with us since we live so far away from everyone.
Bird #2: Scrapbooking photos
Like many moms out there...I an sooooo behind cataloging the pictures I take. I want to be able to look at our pictures and know the date, place, and the story behind it. Doing an actual scrapbook takes FOREVER and if if you do stay on top of it, you only have 1 complete scrapbook. It can be expensive, and if there were ever a fire or flood or a destructive 3 year old...all that work would be lost forever.
Bird #3: Archiving
This is more of Pat's bird, but we want our pictures and posts to be reproducible. Pat wanted something he could digitize so that if something were to happen, he would have a copy and we wouldn't lose anything really important.
MY STONE!!...to kill the birds.
I've figured out how to do an extremely simple digital scrapbook page that I can post to my blog! I can just format a page with photos, dates, and explanations. I then simply post the page. This way I can keep blogging and get my scrapbook page done at the same time! I then just print out the page on photo paper (that I get for $1/50pack at Staples) and put it in a sheet protector in a binder. That way the girls' memory book is instantly done. I like having a physical book that we can sit and look through. What's even better is that I can easily print out more than 1 copy so that each child can have one so it's not a big deal when they leave home. They'll each have a log of vacations, daily memories, and my own thoughts on life. This has become especially important to me since my Dad passed away and I realize there's a lot of stuff I would've liked his input or advice on. That way if anything ever happened to me, I could still pass at least a chunk of my tips and advice on life that my children can look back on when they have children themselves.
Some other info...
I can't put movies into my scrapbook pages so instead I'll have the explanation of the movie on the page and the movie will be located below the page.
If the text is too small to read, simply click the page image....and then click it again. This will enlarge the page to it's original size.
I can't believe you actually have your own blog! Welcome! So, you should totally have a little tutorial thing on how you do those little scrapbook pages, or just tell me how you do them/what program you use, because that's a GREAT idea. And that schedule is a really good idea! She's just like a mini-you and needs things planned out. So funny.
ReplyDeleteOr you can use another site called Blurb that allows you to import your blog into a book format and print them as a book. I do that for each of my kids and copy a cd for the inside of the book of all the pictures took throughout the year. IT costs me about $125 a year to do. Glad to see you have your own blog. It is a fun tradition. Look forward to following.
ReplyDeleteTanjua Merrow
Love the blog! The video of Lydia reading her schedule is priceless! xoxo
ReplyDeleteCool idea! what do you use to make your scrapbook pages? I've been doing digital scrapbooking too but i'm using photoshop but yours looks much simpler.
ReplyDeleteI use InDesign right now. I've told myself that I'm only going to do a white background and Comic Sans font until I get current. That way I don't spend too much time on one page and never get it done :) Doing the basics of the program allows me to get a whole page done pretty fast.
ReplyDelete-Ashley