After seeing this post from @lindalovescreating in early July, I decided to start including monthly ephemera pages in my 2025 album, beginning with July. I think it’s such a fun way to include extra bits of life that normally wouldn’t make the cut.
From left to right:
a scrap of paper from a basket of street tacos I ate on my walk home after finally visiting an interactive art experience I’ve wanted to visit for the last two years (featuring a line of test stitches from my new-to-me sewing machine)
a piece of a ripped-up $1 bill I found on the ground while out walking
part of the tear-away freshness seal from a pint of ice cream
part of a flyer announcing yet another neighborhood library construction closure
a gold star I found on the ground while out walking
the wrapper from a candy at the nail salon
a $1 bill found in a library book after I brought it home
the tag from a new bikini bottom
a lion decal I found on the ground while out walking
a portion of branded packing tape from the company I order my creatine from (it’s the only creatine that doesn’t make me bloat—if creatine makes you bloated, I recommend trying this brand)
These pages will live in the back of my album alongside those documenting the media I consume this year. Each month will get one 6″ x 8″ page protector that’s divided into 12 smaller pockets. Only the front of the pocket will be filled. I like the idea of seeing through the gaps, and of seeing the backs of the items in the pockets.
I haven’t yet decided how I’ll include lists of each month’s ephemera. I might type up each month’s list on a 3″ x 8″ piece of paper and slip it into a 3″ x 8″ page protector in front of the corresponding 6″ x 8″ page. I might make one big list and slip it into a 6″ x 8″ page protector. Not sure. For now, I’m keeping track with a sticky note adhered to the front of each 12-pocket 6″ x 8″ page.
Last year, I decided to more completely document the media I consumed throughout the year in my Project Life album: docuseries, movies, podcasts, TV shows. I didn’t include books (I didn’t read much last year) or music (I don’t really listen to music). I used 6″ x 8″ page protectors divided into 12 pockets, each measuring 2″ x 2″, and printed 2″ x 2″ thumbnails for each piece of media, six to each 4″ x 6″ piece of photo paper.
Because I didn’t have the idea to do this until mid-November, it’s not a complete, and therefore not a completely accurate, record. I did the best I could by pulling from memory and going through my watch and listening history in my streaming apps. It’s complete and accurate enough.
I considered organizing each category chronologically. That quickly became too complicated. Not every streaming service tracks when you streamed what (only what you streamed and in what order), and anyway, do you list things in order of starting them or finishing them? What about things that don’t have a clear finish date, like podcasts or TV shows that release episodes weekly instead of seasonally? Or docuseries or TV shows or serialized podcasts that you started and are still watching or listening to at the end of the year but haven’t fully finished yet? I decided to organize each category alphabetically.
They’re not the most attractive pages. Frankly, I think they’re an eyesore. Visually overwhelming. Because they live in the back of my album, their unattractiveness and overwhelmingness bother me less than they would otherwise.
I decided not to include thumbnails of the movies I watched in theaters with those of the movies I streamed at home. Instead, I saved the ticket stubs for those movies in standard 6″ x 8″ page protectors divided into 3″ x 4″ pockets. These I organized chronologically. (These “ticket stubs” can hardly be called ticket stubs. They’re nothing more than shitty receipts. My outrage over the harbinger that is the disappearance of well-designed and quality crafted ephemera is deep and wide and intense.)
This year, I’m keeping a note in my phone to document each category of media as I consume it, and plan to again organize each category in my album alphabetically. Every four to six weeks, I go through said note in my phone, grab a thumbnail for each entry I’ve added since the last time I reviewed the list, add those thumbnails to a template in Photoshop Elements, and check it off in my phone. This way, I’m not scrambling at the end of the year, completely overwhelmed by doing everything all at once.
Printing is the only thing I plan to put off until the end of this year or early next. Partly because I don’t want to misplace printed sheets of thumbnails. Mostly because I know I’ll be tempted to immediately cut out each thumbnail and slip all of them in pockets, which, because I’m organizing them alphabetically, will create more work for me, which will frustrate me, as I’ll inevitably have to remove and rearrange the thumbnails as new media are added to the list.
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For the curious:
Most-enjoyed docuseries in 2024:
Untold: Hall of Shame
Most-enjoyed movies (streaming) in 2024:
His Three Daughters
Run
Most-enjoyed podcasts in 2024:
Diss and Tell
Even the Royals
I Said No Gifts!
Extreme: Muscle Men
Normal Gossip
Scamfluencers
Smosh Reads Reddit
Most-enjoyed TV shows in 2024:
Bad Sisters
Boy Swallows Universe
Call the Midwife
Dark Winds
Ripley
Severance (rewatch)
Slow Horses
The Perfect Couple
This is Us
Your Honor
Severance is an obvious choice. Along with it, Bad Sisters, Dark Winds, and Slow Horses stand above the rest (especially Dark Winds).
For the first time in years and years—and just in time to discover the memorykeeping industry as I previously knew it has all but disappeared—I’ve got a whole bunch of memorykeeping projects in the works. Perf! Here are four that I’m hyperfocused on right now.
Hike Passport
This Hike Passport is from Letterfolk. It is, of course, no longer listed on their website. They do still have the kids version and a handful of other Passports listed, though.
Each pocket-sized booklet has room for 20 entires. The left side of each spread is a little “form” that you fill out with information about the hike—trail name, distance, the day’s weather, any wildlife you saw, who you went with, etc. The right side of each page is blank (well, it’s printed with a dot grid) for you to do with it what you will: make a sketch, journal, affix a photo, etc. I decided to include a photo from each hike with its entry.
I’m waiting for the latest batch of photos to arrive before I share more of this project here. (I print many of my photos at home and order professional-quality ones only for special projects (I use Persnickety Prints).)
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Holiday mini flip album
In the memorykeeping world there’s an annual holiday project that a bunch of people take on. It’s called December Daily (more here and here and here) and it’s brought to us all by memorykeeping OG (and fellow Oregonian!) Ali Edwards (also here and here) and her creative team.
I do not participate in December Daily. I never have. I’ve tried—lots of times. It’s just never worked out. This is partly because I’m not a big holiday person and so generally don’t feel connected to the premise of the project. And it’s partly because my brain struggles real hard to do a daily themed project and not have each day’s “entry” be from that actual day.
(The way most people, including Ali, approach this project is to tell 25 to 31 different stories throughout the month (many people document only through Christmas Day; some through the end of the month), regardless of whether the story they’re documenting happened on the day of the month that corresponds to the number used in the album. My brain does not work like that.)
Still, I love—and I do mean LOVE—looking through everyone else’s December Daily projects. And still, there is one annual holiday tradition I do with my kids that I want to document. This will be that project. I’m very excited to get the photos back and put it all together.
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Museum Passport
Another Letterfolk product. Unlike the Hike Passport, the Museum Passport is still available on their website (for now).
Like with the Hike Passport (and all the others in the collection), each booklet is pocket-sized and has room for 20 entries. The left page of each spread is a little “form” you fill out with details about each entry—the name of the museum, the type of museum, admission cost, favorite pieces, etc. The right page of each spread is blank-ish (printed with a dot grid) for you to do whatever you want there. I chose to include a photo from each visit with its entry.
I’m working backward with this project, which is not my preferred way of approaching a memorykeeping project. It feels easier and less stressful to me to keep up with projects in real time. That isn’t always possible, and that’s okay. I do what I can with what I have and where I’m at.
I finished all the legwork for this project the weekend before Thanksgiving and placed an order the other day for the photos I’ll be including with each entry. I look forward to sharing more of this project here once I’m caught up with it all.
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Yearly memory album
This style of memorykeeping—which is basically a physical Instagram grid with some collage-style elements and techniques added in here and there—is also known as Project Life, modern memorykeeping, and pocket pages-style scrapbooking or memorykeeping. It’s been my go-to memorykeeping approach since I first learned about it circa late 2011/early 2012. In recent years—since 2020, really—I haven’t been as consistent with it as I was in earlier years. The pandemic and the halt to life as we knew it that it brought are only partly to blame. A pre-pandemic major and unexpected life event is also to blame, as are mental illness and the lack of space there is to store my supplies and work on my projects in the apartment I’ve lived in for the last four years.
Nevertheless, she (I!) persisted: I’m pleased to announce that since July of this year I have fully been back on my bullshit and have kept up with documenting the days and weeks and months in this 6″x8″ album. I’d like to share more spreads here on the blog whenever the dreary Oregon sky that dominates this time of year gives me some photo-friendly lighting to work with. Don’t hold your breath.
I’m the opposite of pleased to announce that I’m not sure how I’ll continue this practice (my main memorykeeping practice!) going forward—I’m almost out of room in this album and the brand that sold these albums (and the corresponding page protectors) recently pivoted to selling office stationery (sticky notes, desk calendars, notepads, etc.). It’s a brand “refresh” that I’m not alone in feeling deeply confused and disappointed by. Here’s hoping I can figure out how to keep at this project in 2025 and beyond.
