While the idea of creating and looking at aesthetic scrapbooks is quite intriguing, it is not very practical in today’s busy lives. This requires continuous attention, dedication and of course, time.
If you are still in middle school, then you might manage to maintain a scrapbook but if you are a working mom like me who wants to keep track of all the amazing things her kids are doing, you might end up feeling disappointed. However, it doesn’t have to be like that.
Why go after traditional, cliche scrapbooks when you can try something a little unique? After all, be it your child’s first birthday or first walk in the park, the purpose is just to preserve memories, right?
What is a Multi-Year Photo Project?
After giving up on a scrapbook I once planned to create, I thought of creating a Multi-Year Photo Project, which is mainly worked upon digitally. This means that I do not have to get my hands all dirty with glue and then clean up my desk every week.
The idea is to capture memories from repeating events. For instance, the first-ever project that I started three years ago was for my children’s summer camp that they attended every summer. This proved to be a fun way to keep track of their growth and progress each year.
How to Start a Multi-Year Photo Project?
Unfortunately, this is not something that you can start spontaneously and requires some thought process and planning. Let me walk you through how I worked on my project.
To begin with, around 3 years ago, I created two folders on my computer: Final and Photos. Both of them consisted of another folder named 2016. So after each summer camp ended, I would collect pictures from my children’s fun activities and place them inside the Photos folder, according to that year. Once I had all the photos from that year’s summer camp, I would edit or crop the ones I liked and put them in their respective year’s folder within the Final folder.
After doing this for 3 years, I realized I had sufficient photos. And oh yes here is a tip all of you will definitely love. Any duplicate photos or photos that were almost identical to each other, I cleaned them up by using PictureEcho. This software will clean up all the unwanted images with unbelievable speed and accuracy.
Now load up all the selected photos into a design software at once and began designing my multi-year photo book. You could use Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or even some online tool for the designing part. If you can afford it, you can also outsource the task. Once the designing part was over, I got my book published by a local publisher.
As a result, I had a beautiful book full of cherishable memories. However, my project isn’t over yet. I am still collecting pictures and will hopefully create a second volume of my photo project in a few years.
Ideas for a Multi-Year Photo Project
Make your project as personalized as possible. So what if your children do not attend a yearly summer camp? There is so much more you could build upon. For instance:
- Annual Vacation
- Seasonal Sports Games
- Birthdays
- Last/First Days at School
Once you manage to make a multi-year photo project, you will thank me whenever you cherish your memories for events that took place multiple times. You will get to look back and have a recap of how things have changed over the years. It will feel great, trust me!
Don’t waste a moment. Get started on your Multi-Year Photo project right away!