Hi! Welcome to Nic’s Blog at Photagio! Here I share with you my tips on celebrating your family’s stories, hints on digital photography, and fun ways to celebrate your moments. Be sure to sign up and Photagio will email each new blog directly to you!
Your photos record your family throughout the year. But often a typical album doesn’t capture your family’s stories. You’ll want to preserve all the memories for your children and grandchildren and yourself – so you can celebrate your own moments! Read on for seven fun ways to capture your family’s history.
Play Dress Up
Pick an outfit that has meaning to your family – a special dress, bathing suit, or hat, and photograph your child in the same outfit every year from 1 to 18! See your child grow into grandma’s wedding dress, or Dad’s favorite hat. I use the little Hawaiian slip dress I picked up on our honeymoon (and no longer fit into!). Take the photograph a few days before your child’s birthday, and write down a few notes about your child or your own feelings. For example – what new achievements did your child reach this year? What will he or she be doing to celebrate his or her birthday? Add the notes to your photo album along with the picture.
Create a Theme Album
Do you go to the same vacation spot every year? Enjoy the same traditions for a particular holiday? Consider picking one annual family event, and either copying or taking those photos from each year and putting them into one album. For example, you could have a Thanksgiving album or a Summer Holiday album. You can see your family grow from year to year. You could take this idea further and reorganize all your photo albums by season or holiday instead of year.
Cook Up a Family Feast
Do you have a favorite meal or heritage recipe? Snap some photos of your family preparing, enjoying or even cleaning up the meal. Then include the recipe in your album, along with those photos. Choose a favorite photo for a recipe design from Photagio (http://www.photagio.com/shop1700.htm), and you can give a Photagio wood mount to each of your children when the get their first apartment. They can hang it on the wall in their kitchen for memories of home – and they can cook up that favorite recipe whenever they feel nostalgic for home. Perhaps you’ll even get a phone call!
Jot Down your Favorite Things
Once a year, jot down your family’s favorite things – food, music, books, movies, and outings. How did your children feel about their school year, teacher, friends, or summer vacation? Did anyone take up a new sport or hobby? Change jobs or get a promotion? Snap a picture of each person or the whole family altogether. Then, give each person his or her own page in your photo album, to jot down his or her favorite things.
Capture a Favorite Family Story
How did Dad and Mum meet? Does Uncle Fred have a story about the fish that got away? Did the family dog encounter a skunk? Choose a story that’s fun and amusing to everyone. It’s best to choose a grown up’s story – be careful not to choose a story that a child could still find humiliating (such as when little Tommy got lost). Record the story and photograph your hero with a prop. For example, my husband likes to tell the story about how the very first time he went skiing; he accidentally launched himself off a snowboarding ramp. So I took a picture of him with his ski poles. You can put the picture into your album along with the story or choose a Photagio design (http://www.photagio.com/shop1900.htm) and hang your photo and story on the wall!
Celebrate your Child’s Achievements
If your child is trying a new sport or hobby for the first time, such as piano lessons or soccer, photograph your child before she leaves the house. Record her thoughts – is she excited? Nervous? Happy? Uncertain? Then later on in the year, try to get an action shot of your child. Finally at the end of the session, take another photo of your child – how does she feel about the activity now? Did she meet new friends there? What did she learn? Put the photos all on the same page in your album, along with your child’s comments.
Honor a Favorite Family Member
Have your children write down their favorite things about their grandparents (or any favorite family member). Take a picture of your children with their grandparents. Then put the photo in the album along with your children’s words. Or use the photo to honor each grandparent with a gift from Photagio (http://www.photagio.com/shop2300.htm).
Stay tuned…in our next blog we will share our tips for sharing holiday memories. Can’t find the design you are looking for? Contact us (www.photagio.com/contactus.htm) and we’ll be happy to create a custom design for your photos.
by Nicole Gallant
Creative Director
Photagio
www.photagio.com
Copyright © 2008 Awesome Memoirist and Photagio. All rights reserved.
Tags: album, baby, family, history, kids, memoir, photo, scrapbook
