Keeping Memories Alive

 

This Saturday, May 6, is International Scrapbook Day, and if you’ve kept up with any of my blog posts, you know that it’s definitely a holiday I do celebrate. This year, I’m planning to hang out with Christen here at home, documenting memories while watching history unfold in the coronation of King Charles III. I’ll probably scrapbook that, too. English breakfast tea, anyone?

People often look at me in surprise when I mention scrapbooking. “Do people still do that?” they ask. My snarky answer would be to ask them if they still have memories, because, of course, they still do, but usually I just happily answer, “Yes, but you just don’t hear about it as much because all the scrapbook stores went out of business when everyone started shopping at mega stores like Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Scrapbook.com. In all honesty, there are a lot of people who quit traditional scrapbooking when smartphones became our go-to for a camera, photo storage, and memory keeping all in one. Most people don’t print their photos anymore, they just post to Facebook or Instagram, therefore they have no need for a physical photo album or scrapbook…or so they think.

I want to go back to my first answer. As snarky as it sounds, it’s actually a valid and very important question. Do you still have memories? Are there parts of your life that have never been documented by either photo, diary, or /journal? Is your entire life up in the cloud? What will happen when that technology becomes obsolete like 8mm film, Betamax, VHS, and 8-track tapes? Will your family be able to see and keep those precious photos you took on your phone? What about that movie of little Billy making his first touchdown in a high school football game? And what will you do with all your memories of Aunt Etta’s award-winning chocolate pie and Grandma’s penchant for sneaking candy to all the grandkids when Mom wasn’t looking? Who will remember those things if no one documents them?

We’ve talked about the importance of documenting our stories many times on this podcast, both with photos and in writing. When we document our lives, we are preserving precious pieces of history that will not be remembered when we are gone – but they deserve to be. People have been documenting history since the beginning of, well…history. Early man created pictographs on the walls of his cave to tell the stories of his generation. Egyptians painted hieroglyphs in the pyramids, and much of the early history of the Jewish people has been documented in the sacred texts of the Torah. And lest anyone think that their story is not important, I must ask, “How do you know?” Did Anne Frank imagine that her little diary would someday be read all over the world in many different languages? How would you feel today if you found a personal history written by your grandmother or great-grandmother? 

There are many different ways to document your life and the lives of your family. We’ve discussed many of them on the podcast and here on the blog (I’ve included links to a few of them below). If you are a beginner or have little experience keeping journals or scrapbooks, it might seem daunting, but it really can be as simple as you’d like. To demonstrate some of the different styles (and hopefully inspire you!), I've created a video walk-through of different methods which I’ve posted on my Crafty Neighbor YouTube Channel. I hope you’ll check it out. And if you do decide to start documenting (or if you already do), please tell us about it in the comments below or start up a conversation in our MMC Chat Facebook group.

Modern Musings blogs and podcasts about memory keeping:

• A Little Christmas in November, Oh My - blog

  November 1, 2021

• December Daily podcast 

  November 3, 2021

• Two New Halloween Traditions - blog

  October 29, 2022

• Tell Your Story - blog

  November 1, 2022

• Crafting When You Travel podcast

  November 30, 2022

• I Love to Craft When I Travel - blog

  December 1, 2022

• Creatively Flexing My Muscles - blog

  December 3, 2022

Creatively Flexing My Muscles

This week on the podcast we talked about taking our crafts when we travel. I have to admit, I’m a proCRAFTinator. I just made that word up. I honestly don’t normally craft when I travel. Last summer, when I went to New Orleans, I took my craft bag with me on the trip and didn’t open it once. That being said, I do take some sort of craft when I travel…and that means across town as well.

I am a beast of burden. I carry my backpack with me everywhere, and in that backpack, I may as well have bricks for all the use its contents do for me when I travel. Every day to work I carry my backpack full of crafty things and occasionally I will carry my craft bag with me as well. In my backpack, I have practical things that I need for work such as my laptop and planner but I also have a plethora of other things I carry with me that I don’t necessarily use but hope for a fleeting moment of free time to get a little craft in.

Crafty things I always have on me:

• All three sets of my pens: In my backpack, I carry three sets of pens in three different pen bags in case I need them. I carry my gel pens (Papermate™ and Pilot™) in case I want to write something down in my APN (all-purpose notebook) in many different colors. I carry my flair pens because sometimes you need a bit of flair instead of gel. I also have my Sharpie™ pens because they can be used for a completely different purpose than my other two sets of pens.
• Scissors and glue: You never know when you need to cut or glue something. If I remove either of these things from my backpack, I always find an occasion when I should have had them.
• My list journal: This is a given. My list journal is one of my current projects that I am always working on. I carry it with me if I get to add to it. I also use all three sets of my pens in this journal. I mentioned this list journal on our “Current Projects” podcast.
• My art journal and pastels: I usually carry my art journal with me as well, and if it is not in my backpack, it is in my car. I don’t use this journal regularly, but it is always nice to have it when I get the inspiration to draw or collage (this is where the scissors and glue come in).
• My All-Purpose Notebook: I carry this with me everywhere. Other than my planner and gel pens, this is the one thing I carry with me consistently. I started keeping an APN when I was in middle school but I started carrying it with me everywhere when I was in high school. The full ones are dated, numbered, and cataloged on my bookshelf.
• My Happy Planner™: This is where I do all of my planning. I mentioned my planner and how it transformed my life on my Day Planners blog back in April. I carry my planner with me everywhere and I keep everything I do not keep in my APN in my planner such as my daily activities, my classroom activities, and my grocery lists.  Sometimes I have things in both.

Other things I carry with me everywhere:

• A book: I always have a book in my purse.
• Crossword puzzles: I always have my ColorCross™ book with me.

My takeaway is that you don’t always have time to craft when you travel, but, I have the things I enjoy with me in my bag in case I get those little stolen moments to craft (or read). I want to hear from our readers. What do you take with you for your downtime when you travel? Let’s continue the conversation below or on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.

I Love to Craft When I Travel

 

Yesterday on the podcast, Amber, Christen, and I talked about some of the crafts we take with us when we travel, whether it’s to the doctor’s office or an extended vacation like a Caribbean cruise. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine what that might look like, so I thought I would use my blog today to share photos and video walk-throughs of some projects I’ve worked on while traveling.

The largest, and most obvious, projects I’ve done are my travel albums. I’ve done everything from digital 12” x 12” scrapbook layouts to tiny little sketchbooks completed with nothing but a pencil, a pen, and some colored pencils.

New Orleans Smashbook:

For this album, I used a Smashbook to record our trip to New Orleans. 

Aggie Moms Cruise Traveler’s Notebook:

I used a mixed-paper travelers notebook to create this chunky album on the fly while cruising with friends.

Las Vegas Traveler’s Notebooks:

For this album, I used three small traveler’s notebook inserts – one for each day of our trip. As Amber mentioned in the podcast, Christen and I had a lovely time crafting in our hotel room during a bit of downtime.

Arkansas Sketchnote Traveler’s Notebook:

As I mentioned in the podcast, I took minimal supplies on a recent camping trip with my family. This prompted me to try my hand at sketchnoting the trip. The project is a hybrid of sketchnoting with smashbooking since I added photos of our trip as well as the sketches. I haven’t created a video flip-through of this one yet, but here are some photos of the unfinished project. 

I’m hoping to add flip-through videos of all my travel albums someday. I hope these albums have inspired you to take a bit of scrapbooking or other crafts with you on one of your upcoming trips. It’s a great way to wind down after a busy day, and if you’re scrapbooking, you have the bonus of documenting those memories while they are still fresh. 

Have you taken your crafts with you when you travel? I’d love to hear about it! Tell us what you think by commenting below or joining the conversation on our Facebook group MMC Chat.

Starting Two New Halloween Traditions

I hope you’ve enjoyed our week of Halloween traditions; I know we’ve enjoyed sharing our fun with you. Sometimes, I think just talking about how much we love the holidays makes us even more excited, as we are inspired to add more traditions when we hear about all the fun things that others do. I know I’m always inspired to do more because everything just adds to the fun!

On the podcast, we talked about our favorite "Halloween" movies, and I made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of horror flicks. But, while we were talking about it, we started listing off a lot of non-scary movies, as well as some old horror favorites that I grew up with that may have been "scary" at the time, and it inspired me to make my own custom list of movies for Halloween. Do note, however, that some of these movies do lean toward the scary or at least disturbing, so watch at your own risk!

Download the PDF

Another fall tradition I’ve been inspired to try this year is a month-long “October” mini scrapbook album. I’m a huge fan of several social media influencers like Dearly Dee, Traci Reed, Krystal Iduñate, and Ashley Horton, who all do October/Halloween themed albums, so, when Ali Edwards announced a new Halloween-themed kit, I knew I had to give it a go.

Part of the Ali Edwards Halloween kit.

I’ll be the first to admit that I need another project like I need another hole in my head. I am already way behind on my Project Life album, and I still haven’t finished my little camping traveler’s notebook from last year, nor my 2020 planner journal, to name just a few. But, much like the draw of my beloved December Daily project each year, I just couldn’t resist taking on another “quick” album. So, here I am, with a handful of printed photos and a lot of scrappin’ supplies, trying to find some time to work on a project that I just know will be super cute if I can ever get it done. Hopefully, I can find some time this weekend.

In the meantime, here is what I’ve completed so far (not much!), and if you’re interested in a project like this, even if it’s just to look at the inspiring work of others, be sure to check out those influencers I mentioned above, and tell me what you think in the comments below.

My, How Time Flies!

Welcome to another week of the Modern Musings podcast and blog. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ve probably heard us tell the tale of how Amber, Christen, and I had each thought about hosting a blog, vlog, or podcast of some sort, and how we came to the inspiration of doing one together. That was about a year ago, and it feels like a whirlwind came along and swept us off our feet, because here we are, counting down the days until we launch our 50th episode this Wednesday. Yes, you read that right – FIFTY episodes!

Somehow, while we were busy recording, editing, writing, posting, and living our lives, we managed to launch 50 episodes (that’s counting all the bonus ones like Eckhart Tolle and “Excuse Me While I Read My Tarot”), and we are simply amazed at how quickly the time has flown by. For the podcast this week, we thought it might be fun to share a “look” back at some of the hits and misses, laughter, tears, and even snoozes that happened while we were busy having all this fun. We’ve talked about a lot of different topics in that time, and many things have happened and changed since that magical day last November when we launched that less- than-impartial discourse about December Daily. I thought now might be a good time to fill you in on those changes and updates, and maybe talk a little bit about what’s coming up.

To get us started, I want to circle back to where it all began – with December Daily. I told you when we started this thing, I am obsessed with December Daily. I’d have to be, right? Only someone obsessed would talk about a one-month project all year long. But I swear, I am not the only one! A quick search on Facebook reveals 20+ groups, both public and private, before I quit scrolling, the largest of which is the “official” group with upwards of 13,000 members. Likewise, a quick look on Instagram revealed more than 20 hashtags that I know are linked to the project, with likely dozens if not hundreds more that I don’t know about – the most popular among them being the simplest #decemberdaily with 366,000+ posts.

One of the reasons we started with December Daily was because of timing. Christen and I wanted to share our enthusiasm for this project, and it just so happened that a December Daily event was going to occur on November 6 – the Saturday after our first podcast launch. But really, the excitement for December Daily begins for us in August, when Ali Edwards, the creator of this phenomenon, announces the launch date for her line of December Daily products. And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about it here, today. As of this writing, my cohorts and I are eagerly awaiting the introduction of her new products so that we can jump online on release day (August 31 here) and scramble to grab all the merchandise we want for our album projects before it sells out. It’s a big game of hurry-up and wait because the products won’t even ship until some time in October. Once we receive our orders, we have to wait some more until November, when the classes launch. From then on, we are working on our albums, often setting up pages in advance so that all we have to do is add photos and a bit of journaling when December rolls around. 

That’s the plan, anyway, but I always seem to wind up so busy that I get behind about mid-December, and then it takes several more months to get it finished. In fact, I didn’t finish my 2021 December Daily  album until June (watch for a YouTube flip-through coming soon), and some participants deliberately hold off on finishing, dragging it out all year so as to be “done by December” in time to start again. I admit, December Daily may not be it for everyone, but it definitely is a big deal to a lot of crafters, and it’s something I look forward to all year, which is why you’ll hear me reference it a lot. 

Three other topics that we talk about on the podcast from time to time are our One Little Word projects, Happy Planners, and Cultivate What Matters PowerSheets®. All of these projects also have fall “launch” dates that enable participants to purchase kits and supplies in advance of the new year. I like to get my planners and PowerSheets® set up and ready to go by the end of December so I can get right to work on January 1. I also usually choose my word of the year in the fall, so that I’m ready to start living my word with the new year. I’m already starting to think about my word options for next year, and I’m thinking I may take Christen’s lead in choosing something a little less challenging for 2023. The last few words have been a lot of work for me, and while they’ve brought about a lot of change in my life and my outlook on life, I think it might be time to look at something more fun or easy. Alternatively, I might try something like create or craft, which both have multiple meanings but embrace the idea of digging into my art a little more purposefully. I’m sure we’ll do another reveal sometime in the fall and we hope you’ll share your words with us, too!

Rereading “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle was not in my original plans for 2022, but what a powerful book this has been in my life this past year! When I first read it, I felt like so much finally made sense, and I was so excited to share it with Christen and Amber (and with the world) that it was worth reading again, this time with a more studious eye. I often worried that it was just a bit too much because we presented it in such a drawn-out way. There was so much information, so many concepts, and such deep thoughts that it sometimes felt like we were just shoveling it into a big heap on top of our listeners. I can only hope that as you read along with us, you were able to decipher what we felt so challenged to share. I only know that it has been an instrument of profound change in my life, more on which I will share at another time. 

Now, as we head into fall, I am excited and looking forward to all these familiar patterns, routines, and habits, but I am also looking forward to all the fun topics we have coming up in the next 50 episodes and beyond. Amber, Christen, and I sat down a few weeks ago and started brainstorming new ideas for topics in 2023, and I’m really excited about all the conversations we’re going to have about everything from Disney Princesses to menopause, and from horror movies to making your bed. It’s going to be interesting. We hope you’ll hang around to share it with us.

Share your thoughts about our first 50 episodes below or join us on Facebook in our MMC Chat group.

A Little Christmas in November? Oh My!

Hi! It’s Cindy Murray again, and I’m here with our first official blog post to discuss one of my favorite topics – December Daily®. Why, you may ask, are we talking about December in our very first blog post when it's only November? Well, it’s sort of a long story, but if you’ve got a few minutes, I’d love to share it!

I have long been a “Christmas Purist”. I love the holidays, but I feel like Halloween should be celebrated in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. I don’t listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, and I get really annoyed at Hobby Lobby and other retailers who start pushing Christmas decorations in June, but then only offer Thanksgiving décor for a few short weeks in November. What’s the deal with that? Either offer it all year long, or only at the appropriate time…but I digress….

 

I know this makes me sound like a total scrooge, but really I’m not. I love Christmas. I love everything about it, and I like to go all-out from the Friday after Thanksgiving until January 1^st. We have family activities all month long, and my kids sort of move-in with me again for a couple of weeks while we celebrate. We decorate the tree together, bake cookies, make crafts, and just about every other cliché Christmas activity you can name. On top of that, my birthday falls in December, and who doesn’t want to celebrate their “birthday month” in grand style? As far as I’m concerned, December truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

 

I’m also a scrapbooker, shutter-bug, and burgeoning genealogist, so it’s always been important to me to document our family history, recording as many details about our family exploits as I can possibly capture. So when a friend told me about December Daily® (also sometimes called “December Documented”), I was fascinated. The idea is simple…December is about so much more than just Christmas day, and by only focusing on December 25, we miss out on all the other things that happen in December. I can totally relate to that, because, as just about anyone with a December birthday can attest, our special day tends to get overlooked in all that merry making. Rather than make a scrapbook or photo album that only includes Christmas, December Daily® prompts us to capture the spirit of the holidays by telling one story every day for the entire month.

 

I started my first December Daily® album in 2019, and I loved it so much I did it again in 2020. You can see flip-through videos on my Crafty Neighbor YouTube channel. My daughter, and co-host, Christen has joined me both years, and we’ve even coaxed my 10-year-old granddaughter into participating. We enjoyed the process so much that we quickly adopted it as one of our favorite holiday traditions. We even have a tradition of going to Starbuck’s on December 1^st to kick off our documenting with a tasty beverage before heading home to get crafty. But the fun of December Daily® really starts long before December 1^st.

The creator of December Daily®, Ali Edwards, has been facilitating this fun project since 2007, and through her company, Ali Edwards Designs, she offers high quality memory-keeping supplies geared towards this project, including stamps, papers, and a wide assortment of ephemera and embellishments. She also offers online courses to help inspire participants with new tips and techniques. Her products and classes are wildly popular, and many of her fans make a whole production of getting ready, prompting Ali to begin a December Daily® Prep Day tradition where participants join in live streams with Ali and her design team. 

 

The 2021 Prep Day is scheduled for Saturday, November 6, and I, for one, am super excited to spend a day in November doing something that I once would have refused to do until December. Does that knock me out of my membership in the Christmas Purist club? I’ll let you decide…I’ll be too busy crafting Christmas layouts for my December album while I snack on all the leftover Halloween candy.

For more information about Ali Edwards Design, Inc. or December Daily®, visit AliEdwards.com

To see a flip-through video of my 2020 December Daily album, click here:

2020 December Daily Flip-Through