Create an easy monthly memories journal

Gather and digitize your family highlights

By Heather Camlot

Collecting family memorabilia and photos to create a picture-perfect scrapbook sounds like a fantastic idea. But if you’re a time-crunched parent like most of us, a mere idea is what it will remain.

But what if all you needed was 30 minutes once a month?

Every six-to-eight weeks, Shari Gauch, a mother of two in Brookline, Mass., and her husband record precious moments in their daughters’ lives. “We were worried that if we didn’t write down all the wonderful, unique moments, they’d be out of our heads a week later,” she explains.

The Gauch family records

• personality-shaping events,
• moments that bring out a child’s character trait, and
• times when the parents are really proud of their girls.

“We don’t record the night we served a chicken dinner and our friends came over,” says Gauch. “We record the first time Helaina told us she loved us or the day Emelia and I went for tea and she thought it was such a lovely day.”

Easy does it — scrapbooking made simple

Our simple one-page template makes it easy for you to compile the month’s highlights through digital photos, scanned collectibles and text. Include any moment or event that moves you such as a birthday, a holiday, the arrival of a new pet or the day your child performs the starring role in the school play.

Ask your children to

• narrate the photos (you can transcribe the narration onto the template);
• provide fun memorabilia, such as artwork or concert tickets, that can be scanned; and
• review the pages with you.

“Look at the journal with your kids,” says Gauch. “It makes them excited and makes you excited to keep it.”

Using the template

To get started, download our template to your computer. Open the template in Word (File > Open > filename).

Our one-page journal will open with a little league theme. If you can’t see the baseball background, turn on your Print Layout view (View > Print Layout). Each of the elements — background, date, kid’s photo, scanned baseball ticket and text — can be altered.

Personalizing the template

Month and title. Highlight the text and then type in your information. Highlight again to change the font, size and colour (Format > Font).

You can also use WordArt for your month and title. Type in your text and highlight it. Then click View > Toolbars > WordArt > Insert WordArt > Select style > OK > Adjust font and size > OK.

Oval frame. Click on the frame and eight small circles will appear; use the mouse to pull on any one of them to change the shape. (The oval frame will disappear if you’re using WordArt.)

Photo. Click on the picture and hit the Delete key. You’ll see a white box underneath, for placement. Add your own photo (Insert > Picture > From File > your photo name). To reduce or enlarge the photo, pull on one of the eight small circles.

Baseball ticket. Follow the same steps in the previous paragraph. If your newly scanned image moves to the left side of the screen, click on the image and then on Align Right on the toolbar.

Text. The template is based on nine lines of text for each box. When you highlight and delete the text, the template will shift. Don’t worry. Just write out nine lines of text (or use the space bar to add blank lines) and everything will adjust itself.

To add a box around your text, highlight the text and go to Format > Borders and Shading > Box > select your size. (Ours is a half-point solid line.) To change the font, size and colour, follow the instructions for month and title, above.

Background. First, make sure any image you use is saved as a JPEG. Then click on Format > Background > Printed Watermark > Picture Watermark > Select Picture > find your JPEG file > OK > 100% > Washout.

Accessing the template

Now that you have completed the template, you’ll want to do something with it.

Option 1
You may print the page (and the pages of subsequent months). Then add the page to a nice binder, photo album or scrapbook. When printing, be sure to turn on the background printing (Tools > Options > Print tab > Background Colors and Images); otherwise you’ll lose part of your design.

Option 2
You may share the page digitally by e-mailing it to friends and family. Click File > Send To > Mail Recipient (As Attachment) > Outlook will open > add e-mail addresses. You may also post the page on Windows Live Spaces each month.

Option 3
You may also want to burn a copy to CD or DVD and store the disk away from your computer. A safety deposit box is an ideal choice if you have one. Precious moments disappear in an instant; be sure to preserve your memories for a lifetime.