10 Ways to Save Your Memories

  1. Get a Mac
  2. Buy an external hard drive
  3. Think on multiple fronts
  4. Start a blog
  5. YouTube
  6. Email your baby
  7. Time capsule
  8. Lists
  9. Arts and crafts
  10. Multimedia software

Wow! 5 months in already! It seemed like only a few weeks ago K Honey showed me the little lines on the pregnancy test that sparked the greatest change in my life.

My newest realization: time is flying past and if I don’t do anything, it’ll go by unrecorded!

Over the past few months, I’ve had my radar up for possible ways to capture those special moments. I’ve compiled this list with the inspiration of K Honey and some fellow bloggers who I’ve mentioned below. Thanks guys!

Megan Moronne from Jumping Monkey for her interviews with Archivist Allison, a professional librarian, and with Rookie Moms, authors of a parenting advice book. Allison outlines some basics that parents should know about when they start building a collection of memories. Consider this “Archiving for Parents 101″. Rookie Moms had a great idea for email accounts.

Luciano Passuello at Litemind for his review of Journal to the Self, an interesting book about different journaling techniques. He keeps/kept a journal himself and says the benefits are palpable.

Here’s an explanation of the ten reasons.

  1. Get a Mac - True story: I had hours of unedited video siting on my external hard drive for years when I had my PC. You see, every time I started to edit it, my computer inevitably froze and restarted. After spending a few frustrated hours doing this, I lost interest only to repeat this process months later; hence, years went by. It wasn’t until I was virtually coerced into getting a Mac (something I will be eternally grateful for) did I make progress. After about two weeks of owning the Mac, I had processed all those gigs of video content that had been fallow for years. Why is the Mac so much better?

    • Easy-to-use yet powerful software is already included for photos, video editing, and DVD creation. It’s hard to find an equal to it on Windows (oh, and it’s included with the computer for free).
    • all the hardware you need is standard (e.g. firewire).
    • everything is integrated, so it runs smoothly.
  2. Buy an external hard drive - Because of the switch from traditional film to digital storage, we take WAY MORE photos and videos than we did in the past. You’ll run out of space FAST, so I recommend getting a 500 GB or 1 TB external hard drive. Trust me, you won’t regret it! :-)
  3. Think on multiple fronts - Don’t keep your eggs in one basket, in other words. Systematically back up and distribute your memories in different ways. Burn some DVDs of all your photos and send them to the In-laws for safe keeping and make sure you have a back up of them on an external drive. You never know when disaster may strike and, if it does, it may cost thousands of dollars to recover the lost information instead of a few hundred and some time now.
  4. Start a blog - Think outside the box. I know that making a photo album is the traditional way, but a blog is just as good if not better. You can have photos, videos, text, audio content, and who knows what’s next (I can’t wait for smell-o-rama!). Remember, you can always make private blogs that only select people can see.
  5. YouTube - At the bottom of the article you’ll see two YouTube videos K Honey found. What a fantastic and creative way to remember these moments!
  6. Email your baby - Obviously, they won’t be able to read it for while, but that’s not the point. It’s a good way of capturing how you felt and what you thought at a given moment in your child’s life.
  7. Time capsule - The times change and it’s sometimes good to have a physical reminder of this. This is a great way to stimulate the kinesthetic or tangible memory.
  8. Lists - For example, “Baby’s Top 20 Things to Put in its Mouth”. A great way to remember the nuances that make life so rich.
  9. Get artsy - Even though we may be technically savvy, that doesn’t mean we can’t go back to the basics. Belly casts are a good example of getting hands on and creating something really memorable. Don’t forget, you can always bronze those baby shoes, just like your grandparents did. ;-)
  10. Multimedia software - Now here, there’s a lot to choose from and here’s asome software I have on my computer. Memory Miner is a great way of journaling a trip by combining maps, photos and videos together as well as make it accessible via the internet with a few clicks. Apart from your general video editing software, there’s also other third party resources that can make your presentations more interesting and different: Memory Miner is an award winning program that lets you make an interactive multimedia presentation and easily share it online with your family and friends. Pulp Motion is a slick little program that lets you easily make stop motion animations.

K Honey’s YouTube Pick


A creative stop-motion animation, very nice!


A great use of time-lapse!

Questions to the Readers

  • Do you use any techniques mentioned in the post? How do they work?
  • Do you know of any other ways of saving memories?

 

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