About a year ago, I was trying—again—to reestablish a regular memorykeeping practice. It just wasn’t working. I’d recently quit my job and was still in the thick of autistic burnout and passive suicidality. I didn’t have the brain space for a regular memorykeeping practice, and anyway I wasn’t doing anything aside from lying on my couch all day so there wasn’t anything to document. I wanted to do something, though. Something that took less effort and was basically impossible to fuck up. So I dug this acrylic album out of my stash and a stack of old ID (and similar) cards out of a container in my closet and made this very simple project.
To secure the cards, I trimmed off the top part of Photo Flips and, using the album cover as a guide, punched holes in the top center of each photo flip. It’s all clipped together with a binder ring.
The whole project took maybe an hour. The most challenging and time-consuming parts were deciding which cards to include (all old school and work IDs and drivers licenses, select business cards, old membership cards, and other IDs and various cards that hold the most sentimental value) and in what order (mostly chronological).
Many of the cards in this album are old school and work IDs and drivers licenses. Aside from the one school ID shown below, none of them are included in this post. I didn’t feel like doing the work required to block out all my personal information.
In addition to old school and work IDs and drivers licenses, I also included things like bank cards, health insurance cards, library cards (mine and my kids’), membership cards, neighborhood pool passes (RIP to living on the east coast where every neighborhood has an outdoor pool), National Parks annual passes, business cards (my own and others’), SmarTrip cards, the train schedule I kept in my work bag for the days I commuted by train, and key tags for some of the gyms I’ve belonged to.
Like my pandemic puzzles mini album, because this project is clipped together with a binder ring, it’s expandable so I can keep adding to it over time, which I love.
For the first time in years and years—and just in time to discover the memorykeeping industry as I previously knew it has all but disappeared—I’ve got a whole bunch of memorykeeping projects in the works. Perf! Here are four that I’m hyperfocused on right now.
Hike Passport
This Hike Passport is from Letterfolk. It is, of course, no longer listed on their website. They do still have the kids version and a handful of other Passports listed, though.
Each pocket-sized booklet has room for 20 entires. The left side of each spread is a little “form” that you fill out with information about the hike—trail name, distance, the day’s weather, any wildlife you saw, who you went with, etc. The right side of each page is blank (well, it’s printed with a dot grid) for you to do with it what you will: make a sketch, journal, affix a photo, etc. I decided to include a photo from each hike with its entry.
I’m waiting for the latest batch of photos to arrive before I share more of this project here. (I print many of my photos at home and order professional-quality ones only for special projects (I use Persnickety Prints).)
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Holiday mini flip album
In the memorykeeping world there’s an annual holiday project that a bunch of people take on. It’s called December Daily (more here and here and here) and it’s brought to us all by memorykeeping OG (and fellow Oregonian!) Ali Edwards (also here and here) and her creative team.
I do not participate in December Daily. I never have. I’ve tried—lots of times. It’s just never worked out. This is partly because I’m not a big holiday person and so generally don’t feel connected to the premise of the project. And it’s partly because my brain struggles real hard to do a daily themed project and not have each day’s “entry” be from that actual day.
(The way most people, including Ali, approach this project is to tell 25 to 31 different stories throughout the month (many people document only through Christmas Day; some through the end of the month), regardless of whether the story they’re documenting happened on the day of the month that corresponds to the number used in the album. My brain does not work like that.)
Still, I love—and I do mean LOVE—looking through everyone else’s December Daily projects. And still, there is one annual holiday tradition I do with my kids that I want to document. This will be that project. I’m very excited to get the photos back and put it all together.
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Museum Passport
Another Letterfolk product. Unlike the Hike Passport, the Museum Passport is still available on their website (for now).
Like with the Hike Passport (and all the others in the collection), each booklet is pocket-sized and has room for 20 entries. The left page of each spread is a little “form” you fill out with details about each entry—the name of the museum, the type of museum, admission cost, favorite pieces, etc. The right page of each spread is blank-ish (printed with a dot grid) for you to do whatever you want there. I chose to include a photo from each visit with its entry.
I’m working backward with this project, which is not my preferred way of approaching a memorykeeping project. It feels easier and less stressful to me to keep up with projects in real time. That isn’t always possible, and that’s okay. I do what I can with what I have and where I’m at.
I finished all the legwork for this project the weekend before Thanksgiving and placed an order the other day for the photos I’ll be including with each entry. I look forward to sharing more of this project here once I’m caught up with it all.
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Yearly memory album
This style of memorykeeping—which is basically a physical Instagram grid with some collage-style elements and techniques added in here and there—is also known as Project Life, modern memorykeeping, and pocket pages-style scrapbooking or memorykeeping. It’s been my go-to memorykeeping approach since I first learned about it circa late 2011/early 2012. In recent years—since 2020, really—I haven’t been as consistent with it as I was in earlier years. The pandemic and the halt to life as we knew it that it brought are only partly to blame. A pre-pandemic major and unexpected life event is also to blame, as are mental illness and the lack of space there is to store my supplies and work on my projects in the apartment I’ve lived in for the last four years.
Nevertheless, she (I!) persisted: I’m pleased to announce that since July of this year I have fully been back on my bullshit and have kept up with documenting the days and weeks and months in this 6″x8″ album. I’d like to share more spreads here on the blog whenever the dreary Oregon sky that dominates this time of year gives me some photo-friendly lighting to work with. Don’t hold your breath.
I’m the opposite of pleased to announce that I’m not sure how I’ll continue this practice (my main memorykeeping practice!) going forward—I’m almost out of room in this album and the brand that sold these albums (and the corresponding page protectors) recently pivoted to selling office stationery (sticky notes, desk calendars, notepads, etc.). It’s a brand “refresh” that I’m not alone in feeling deeply confused and disappointed by. Here’s hoping I can figure out how to keep at this project in 2025 and beyond.
Over the weekend I added photos for five additional puzzles to my Pandemic Puzzles mini album. I messed up on the very first one 😬.
Chickenology by Princeton Architectural Press. 1,000 pieces.
Ideally, the right-side page should be flipped so that “chickenology” is on the edge, facing in. The thing is, there was…a wildlife situation happening on the roof of my apartment building when I was putting these pages together. It was extremely loud and distracting (and, at times, sounded kind of like chickens). I would’ve gone outside to get a better idea of what was happening (I was watching it as best I could via the reflection in the top-floor windows of the building across from mine) if there hadn’t also been an aggressive and likely rabid raccoon terrorizing tenants in our parking lot. It was an eventful holiday over here (and, quite frankly, the most excitement in my life all year). Anyway. I was distracted by all the chaos and I messed up. Oh well.
I bought this ramen puzzle at Two Rivers/Weird Sisters, a super cute combination book store/yarn shop in North Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood. If you’re planning a visit to Portland, I highly recommend checking this place out while here. (Hound & Hare, a vintage shop a few blocks over, should also be on your St. Johns list of places to visit.)
I picked up this needlepoint puzzle (and a holiday-themed one I haven’t started yet) in October at Portland Puzzle Exchange‘s monthly event. It was my first time attending. There was a live band, free refreshments, and a lot of people—the line was through the community center that it’s held in, out the door, and down the block. It was sensory and social overload.
This tarot card puzzle is double-sided, which I didn’t realize until I got home and was a little annoyed about. I thought it would make doing the puzzle unenjoyably challenging. Fortunately for me, both sides of the puzzle pieces were coated differently, which made it easier to distinguish which side of any given piece was the side I needed.
Major Arcana (double-sided) by Galison, 500 pieces.
This Golden Girls puzzle was more challenging than I expected. Some of the pieces have a “normal” puzzle cut, some of them are shaped really strangely. The hair was the hardest part.
This puzzle was a very unexpected and fun find—I walked into it on the sidewalk while on my way home one afternoon. It was with a stack of other puzzles, left beneath a Little Free Library in the neighborhood. Incredibly, no pieces were missing.
It’s not uncommon to find free piles around the city. Portlanders (myself included) leave out all sorts of things—in various states of condition, and in various types of containers (or no container)—for others to take. There are almost always several free piles lining the sidewalk on my street, and I encountered a lot of free piles during my summer walks. This was the first time I came across puzzles. The Golden Girls puzzle is the only one I took and it’s for sure my favorite free pile find so far.
Back when my now-high schooler was still in daycare, the daycare they went to did an alphabetically themed show and tell each week. Week 1 of the year the kids brought something that started with the letter A, week 2 of the year they brought something that started with the letter B, etc. At the time, I was at the heyday of my memorykeeping practice and I decided to make a mini album to document what my kiddo brought for show and tell each week/letter.
Their class at daycare was learning to write around this time and I wanted to document my kiddo’s handwriting and their progress with their penmanship throughout the course of the year too. So I did. Instead of using alphabet stickers to accompany/introduce each letter, I used my child’s handwriting. I had them use a stylus on my iPad each week to write that week’s letter. Then, I centered the letter on a 6”x6” canvas in Photoshop Elements, typed out whatever item they brought for that week/letter below their handwritten letter, and printed the page on plain white card stock that I cut down to fit in a 6”x6” page protector. For the facing page of each spread I used a photo of my kiddo holding the item they brought for that week/letter.
I recently dug this album out of storage and flipped through it for the first time in years (a decade?). Opening it up, I knew I hadn’t finished it; I thought I’d made it through only the first few letters. Turns out (!), I made it to letter M. I’m definitely bummed that I left it unfinished, and I’m so happy that I made it through as much of this project as I did—I managed to document half the alphabet. Here’s a look inside.
I know it might be hard for some to believe a child would know what an abacus is and choose to bring one to show and tell. Here’s the thing: We are a family of autistics.
Fun fact: This copy of the classic children’s book Everyone Poops belonged to my kiddo’s dad when he was a kid and comes complete with his ripped pages and pen and pencil scribbles throughout. This book, along with B.J. Novak’s modern classic The Book With No Pictures got a lot of laughs in those early years.
Frank!!! Frank was a “fossil” I bought for about $15 at HomeGoods when the kids were very young. He didn’t come with the fedora. That belonged to my youngest. Frank’s head became its home when it wasn’t on my son’s head. Frank was a beloved member of our family for many years. In 2021 we gifted him to a family with an autistic child who LOVED dinosaurs. (We thought Frank was fun and enjoyed having him around. Despite the autism, none of us were (or are) into dinosaurs in the autistic way.)
What can I say? Like everyone with an Instagram account at the time, we had a fiddle leaf fig (and a monstera) in our home.
For this project I used an American Crafts cloth-covered album in seafoam (featuring one-of-a-kind accents of stains and smudges acquired from handling and storing and moving over the years). Sadly, this album is no longer available (sadly-er, many memorykeeping brands and supplies and forums and blogs have disappeared in recent years).
To the center of the front cover I affixed a metal-rimmed paper key tag sticker and then stuck a patterned alphabet sticker (blurred) of the letter of my child’s first name in the center of it. I bought a few packs of the paper key tag stickers from Michael’s years and years ago. I can’t find a listing for them on their website. Here’s a similar product from Amazon (sorry!) that you could use without the ring and with double-sided tape, or a double-sided foam sticker, or any strong glue.
For the title page (first photo at the top of the post) I cut down pieces of patterned scrapbook paper and white card stock, and used alphabet stickers and washi tape to spell out “show + tell.” At the time, I wasn’t sold on my title page so I stuck the stickers and tape to the outside of the page protector instead of the piece of white card stock. I wish now that I hadn’t. The alphabet stickers and washi tape are from a monthly scrapbooking kit that no longer exists (RIP). You can find a pretty big selection of alphabet stickers on Scrapbook.com or in-person at Michaels. You can find washi tape at a million places online and in-store at Target and Michaels and the like.
If I were to do this project again—or start it today—I would use a 4″x4″ album instead of a 6″x6″ one—and not just because no one seems to sell 6″x6″ albums anymore. Back in the day I chose the larger size because I thought 4″x4″ would be too small to document my child’s handwriting “enough” (does that make sense?). The smaller size would’ve been perfectly fine. You live and you learn. (Annoyingly, it seems you can’t buy a 6″x6″ album anymore but you can get 6″x6″ page protectors, and you can’t get 4″x4″ page protectors anymore but you can get a 4″x4″ album.)
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Related: There’s a monthly Show and Tell for Grown Ups Meetup in Portland that I think would be super fun to attend. I haven’t been able to make it yet. It’s a new group and they’ve had only two meetups so far, both on weekday evenings at times that are a few hours too late for me. If they ever do a daytime session on a Saturday or Sunday, I’m there.
Years and years ago when the kids were very young and little, my then-partner and I did a lot of at-home date nights after the kids went to bed. Sometimes we’d sit out front and listen to random police scanners while eating dinner or sharing a six-pack. Sometimes we’d buy teeny bopper magazines and do all the quizzes in them while cuddled together on the couch. Sometimes we’d do “Puzzles and Podcasts Night,” which quickly became my favorite at-home date night activity and was exactly what it sounds like: We listened to podcasts while doing a puzzle together.
(Fun fact #1: The first podcast both of us ever listened to was season one of Serial—which had just been released and was a local-ish case (we were working in DC and living in the DC suburbs at the time)—and we listened to it while doing our first-ever puzzle together (Crowd Pleasers by Jan van Haasteren, no longer in print).)
A few years later we broke up and as the kids got older life became more hectic for me—a newly single parent—and I stopped doing puzzles. I simply didn’t have the time or the brain space.
And then the pandemic hit.
Since the start of the pandemic I’ve done 23 puzzles. Twenty-one of them are documented in this mini album. I don’t have any photos of the first one I completed during the pandemic (which my then-roommate and I completed as a distraction from the cold during a combination snow storm/power outage rather than as a leisurely activity for fun), and the most recent one I did, I just completed the other day, weeks after I ordered this first batch of photos; once I complete at least nine more puzzles I’ll order another batch of photos and keep adding to this little album.
I titled this project/album “Pandemic Puzzles.” Right now the album includes only a title page and photos of the puzzles in the order that I completed them. I plan to eventually add a puzzle log at either the beginning or the end, and if I can find numerical stickers or stamps that I like I’ll number each puzzle in the center of each left-hand page (and each numbered puzzle will correspond to an entry on the log). Technically that means this project is still incomplete. Whatever! I decided to post it because I don’t know if it will ever be properly finished and I’m trying very hard to (1) get back my memorykeeping mojo and (2) not let perfect be the enemy of good.
The title page is just the phrase “pandemic puzzles” typed directly onto vellum (yes, typed with an actual typewriter), which is overlaid on top of repurposed cream card stock. I had a handful of other ideas for the cover and ultimately decided on this very simple design (“design”) because all the pages inside are pretty visually heavy and busy. A simple title page feels like a good visual balance to me. If I ever change my mind on the title and/or the title page, it’s easy enough to change.
Alright. Let’s get this show on the road.
Puzzle details are in each photo’s caption. While I bought most of these puzzles from local stores within walking distance of my apartment, I linked each puzzle below directly to the brand or a puzzle seller. Many of these puzzles are probably available on Amazon for less than their list price. When possible, I encourage you to shop local or buy directly from the brand rather than Amazon.
All of the supplies I used to make this mini album are listed and linked at the bottom of the post. Again, when possible, when shopping for craft supplies I encourage you to shop local or from any retailer that isn’t Amazon or Hobby Lobby.
These next five were picked out by and completed with two of my kids. My youngest is a big fan of the SpongeBob one and regularly checks in with me to make sure I haven’t gotten rid of it (I haven’t (I haven’t gotten rid of any of these puzzles)).
This mash-up of The Great Wave and Starry Night is one of the two most difficult and frustrating puzzles I’ve ever done. Most puzzles take me a day, maybe a weekend. This one took me months. I kept starting it and then shoving it under the couch for weeks at a time. Once, I even broke it down and put it back in the box (and the box in the back of the closet) after starting and stalling on it, which is not something I’d ever done before. I finished it out of spite.
To top it all off (!!!), it was missing a piece. I reached out to the company and they weren’t able to send me just a replacement piece. They sent me an entire other puzzle and I had to dig through all the pieces to find the missing one and, lol, because of how the pieces are cut, it didn’t even fit!!! What an experience (derogatory).
These next two were panoramic puzzles and, sadly, I had to crop out a decent chunk of the finished product to get them to fit on the page. The FANFUCKINGTASTIC one pairs well with this SHITSHOW one. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling one is a personal favorite.
Fun fact #2: I bought this boobs puzzle to do while recovering from getting a boob job in February 2022 (the irony of doing a “you’re perfect” puzzle while recovering from cosmetic surgery, I KNOW). I started it two days after surgery right as news broke that Russia invaded Ukraine. I listened to the news while I completed it, which felt like a full circle “puzzles and podcasts” moment of sorts.
This next puzzle is the first one I completed this summer and it’s the one I counted as the “puzzle” item on my sad girl summer 2024 summer bucket list. I walked to Puddletown, a local game and puzzle shop a few miles from my apartment, to buy it, and, fun fact #3, that walk was the first one I counted toward my “go for more—and longer—walks” summer bucket list item.
It reminds me of the Marian art at the El Paso Museum of Art, especially that framed image on the top left, which, sadly, I didn’t take a full photo of, I’m sorry!!
I love the imagery and creativity behind this parody puzzle. It’s by a local artist, Courtney Hiersche, who paints new scenes into existing paintings. I found it at Portland Night Market back in July. Along with the puzzle of the mash-up of The Great Wave and Starry Night, this is one of the two most difficult and frustrating puzzles I’ve ever done. It didn’t take me nearly as long as the Starry Wave puzzle but, just like with the mash-up puzzle, I absolutely did start it, then break it down and put it away before restarting and finishing it, which, just like with Starry Wave, I did out of spite.
Photos: 4 x 5.33-inch photographic prints from Persnickety Prints (janky website, unparalleled quality and customer service). $0.49 per (when you order less than 10), $0.44 per (when you order 10-19), $0.39 per (when you order 20 or more), plus $8.99 standard shipping (unless you live in or near Orem, UT, and can pick your photos up in person)
Photo adhesive: Tombow Mono Permanent Adhesive (used to adhere the backs of photos together to create pages). ~$10.00 regardless of where you buy
