On Documentation

I realized, when moving house this summer, and coming across my old photo albums, that I had been doing a pretty crap job of keeping a photo album.

I’ve never been one to preserve extensive documentation of my life and I am, in fact, in the habit of burning my journals as quickly as I fill them up.  For so many things, I don’t need to remember them, it was enough to live them.  However, I do like to keep a bit of documentation…snapshots of close friends, places I go often, things that are special to me, and remembrances of travels.  One of my prize possessions is an album of photos from my childhood.

So, I decided to ease back into some documentation of my life.
My rules:

• It’s got to complement what I’m already doing (taking snapshots with my iPhone, posting on Instagram, and saving little bits of paper from events).
• It’s got to be simple.  
• It’s got to be cheap.

I think I’ve found a solution:

What’s this?  Well, I’ve used Printstagram to print some of my Instragram photos and I’m glueing them into a SmashBook with notes and odds and ends.

I picked up a Smash Book at Joann’s.  I think I first heard about Smash Books on Instragram…it’s a pretty neat concept, it’s spiral bound and has thick, patterned papers already in there, some with doodles.  There are different styles of Smash Books, I liked the modern, neutral look of this one:

At Joann’s (and I’ve also seen them at Meijer–a Michigan grocery store and at Target) it’s possible to flip through the books and see which you like best.  They have different papers and themes.  But if you want to take my word for it that the red one is awesome, you can order through Amazon over here: Smash Book in Red Doodle ($13)

I’ve been doing pretty well at keeping up with this book!  I even put Christmas in there already.  I don’t celebrate Christmas, but ye ol’ boyfriend does, so I did my best not to ruin it for him.

As long as we’re talking Christmas, look at what I did to the tree…selvedges as tinsel!

The bottom is bare because a certain puppy likes to eat socks and I figured the same would go for selvedges.

Better safe than sorry where little Vin and her little nose are concerned!

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