It's not just a project, it's a process

My Revive55 Project began as a project to declutter and organize my mementos and photos.

I imagined spending the next year looking through my past to preserve the memories that were meaningful to me. I hoped to inspire and help others to do the same.

For the past month, along with looking at my past memories, I have researched, read and listened to podcasts to learn more about memories. I have reflected about my project and what would have the most meaningful impact on my happiness.

As I near the end of the first month of my project, I have recognized that it's not just about the past. It's about the present and the future.

Can looking at past memories make us recognize what is more meaningful in our lives? Can we create and re-create these types of memories?

As I work on the past, more memories are being made and getting cluttered in every day living.

Will I end my project with another year of memories to declutter and organize?

Would I end the project without plans to maintain the current memories?

When I was a Creative Memories Consultant and taught photo album-making classes, I used to tell my clients to bring their most recent roll of film to the initial class. They would make a photo album page using the most recent photos.

The lesson I taught then was to keep up-to-date with the photos as they were being taken and developed. When there was extra time, they would go back and scrapbook past photos.

I initially set a first 5 week period to take inventory and explore what I wanted my Revive55 Project to look like for the rest of the year.

An aha moment for me was to recognize that step one has to be to have a process in place for future memories.

As part of my Happiness Project Experience that I signed up for in January, I had chosen "Process" as my one-word theme of the year. My goal for the year was to put processes in place to be more productive and happier.

My Happiness Project and my Revive55 Project are coming together.

Childhood Souvenir with a Story

When my parents downsized from their house to an apartment, they decluttered many of their possessions. They donated many things and also gave my siblings and I some of the sentimental mementos that we wanted.

I love their mentality. They enjoy seeing us appreciate these mementos while they are still alive. Instead of having all the children split up the mementos after they have passed away, they get to see and enjoy us choosing what we love.

Every time we visit, they tell us to "put our name" on the things we care about. If they still want to keep them, the name is there for the future. Sometimes though, they are ready to part with the items and give them to us in the moment.

A souvenir that I wanted was a wooden sailboat that they had at the cottage. I had bought the boat for my father during my Grade 8 school trip to Southern Ontario that included Toronto and Niagara Falls.

I remember that I had $1.20 left. I saw this sailboat that was $1.10. I was very happy to have found something that I thought my Dad would like with the money I had left. I can still picture myself seeing it in the shop. I think we were given daily allowances for food so although I used to tell the story that I went home with $0.10. I don't believe that I starved on the way home.

After telling my parents the story that either I hadn't told them or they had possibly forgotten, I added a label with my name and the price I paid for it as a reminder of the story.

On a future visit, my father told me that he was happy to part with the boat. It probably didn't have the sentimentality to him as it does to me which is why I love the way that they are parting with their mementos.

They are sharing stories with their mementos and hearing the stories that went with the gifts we gave them. They now get to see us enjoy and display them. The sailboat is even more special now too because we have been reminded of the story that goes with the souvenir.

As I was writing this blog post, this reminded me of the gift my son bought for me at Canyon Saint-Anne on his Grade 8 trip to Quebec City and Montreal. I am now displaying the two gifts together as a reminder of our childhood trips.

Sharing stories and mementos while we are still together adds even more meaning to them. Adding a label or writing the story in a journal helps preserve the memories.

Making a Memorable Childhood Photo Album

I grew up enjoying photo albums. My Mom put photos in family photo albums and put extra photos in photo albums for each of the children. I left home for university with three magnetic-sticky photo albums. I then continued the tradition by storing my photos in photo albums.

When my son was born, I was introduced to Creative Memories who manufacture archival quality photo albums. I started to make Creative Memories albums with my photos from that time forward. I then made albums with the photos we had in other types of albums that cause photos to deteriorate and become discoloured.

I chose the best photos from my childhood albums and made one photo-safe Creative Memories photo album. Over the years, I found that it didn't fully tell the story of my life. It was great to see the photos in an album, but without the journaling that I hadn't finished, memories were fading.

I found other photos in childhood boxes that I wanted to add and also recognized that some photos that didn't make the initial cut were actually important to me.

For my siblings' 50th birthdays, I made them photo books. The first one was made in a few weeks with photos I had and photos that my siblings and mother emailed me. With a few years warning for the next two albums, I started scanning my parents' albums when I would go visit them. This meant that I scanned photos that I loved of my childhood that I didn't previously have.

I have procrastinated on improving my childhood album until now. As part of My Revive55 Memories Project, I started to collect all the photos that I have from my childhood that weren't in albums. I collected paper mementos that I would want to add like newspaper clippings, report cards, tickets and certificates. I took out my baby book and scrapbooks that my mother had put together and put everything out on the table.

The album on the bottom right is my Creative Memories childhood album. The scrapbooks at the top are filled with newspaper articles from our appearances in our local music festival and sporting events. On top of the scrapbooks are my baby books. Top right are some ribbons and report cards. I also have an album full of ribbons, badges and medals. All these things are still in a magnetic album that I wasn't sure how to better preserve.

On the left is a very useful tool that I'll speak about in a later post. It's a Creative Memories Power Layouts Kit that helps organize the pages of the album before sticking photos down.

Some pages in my childhood album had unrelated photos put together because I didn't have enough of one theme for a page so I had combined themes for miscellaneous pages. With extra photos now, I can separate them to tell a more complete story. I started to remove photos from the album to better organize it. I am adding pages and better grouping the photos that I have. Rather than having one childhood album, I will expand to two or three albums to include keepsakes and most importantly journaling my childhood stories.

While expanding, I am trying to remind myself of the quote in my last blog post that it's hard to see what is special if you keep everything. For years I had planned on expanding it to include all the photos and keepsakes but I now recognize that having an album with everything will not be more special.

By including the best and most memorable photos and keepsakes along with writing the stories to explain why they are special will make it into the album(s) I dreamed of.

The next step is to look at the scanned photos I have on my computer. I want to choose my favourite ones to print.

Then, I will look at mementos and keepsakes like trophies, souvenirs and other things I saved from my childhood. I am thinking that taking a photo of some of them to include in the album will make it more complete.

Once all the photos and keepsakes are together, I can get a better sense of what to include and what to leave out. With the album memorable and complete, hopefully I will also be ready to declutter what doesn't get included.

Thank you for reading.

Sorting Greeting Cards

I opened a childhood box to start the decluttering and organizing process. I didn't really have a plan but there were a couple of piles of greeting cards inside the box so I decided to focus on this today.

Someone told me once about her friend who discards greeting cards as soon as she receives them. We were both shocked. I was surprised because at that time I kept 90% of the cards I received. Her friend felt that the purpose of a greeting card was to convey good wishes. She felt that she received the wishes and the card no longer had a purpose. She didn't even put them on a mantle for a few days and discard them later. She opened the envelope, admired the card, read the wish and recycled it.

This blew my mind but it got me thinking. Why did I keep all my cards? As the piles increased the older I got and as my family expanded, how many cards should I keep? Every year we receive twenty to thirty Christmas cards. Multiply this by 20 years and that can add up to over 500 cards. We are four in our family. We receive cards for our birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Mother's and Father's Day, Graduations, etc. The number of cards entering our house on a yearly basis was too much to keep them all. With the quantity increasing, it becomes more difficult to see and enjoy the most meaningful ones.

 It's hard to see what is special,
when you keep everything

A few years ago, I didn't go as far as the friend who discards them all but I did start to recycle cards that didn't have a meaningful message or picture. I enjoyed the cards for a few weeks but I didn't keep them all after that.

About a decade ago, I started to recognize that all the cards were mixed together and as the years went on,  I didn't know what year they were from. I started yearly folders so that cards, tickets and programs would be organized chronologically.

With cards in various places around the house, I began today by sorting through the ones in my childhood box from my bedroom. I separated them into categories:

• to and from my husband
• to and from our children
• our wedding
• travel
• correspondence (cards and letters with personal messages)
• new baby
• various occasions (wedding invitations, congratulations, favourite cards, cards from family and friends, etc.)

I had another box in my study that was full of cards so I then added them to the organized piles.

Once they were all separated, I stored them into a folder and small boxes that I gathered inside a larger box. All these cards are now in one place.

This initial effort did not involve decluttering. It looks like I had already decluttered these card piles.

I was surprised that there were only a few Christmas cards. I think I stored my Christmas cards inside my Christmas decorations boxes to look through them at Christmas time.

Although my Revive55 Memories Project just started, I am seeing the progress I had already made in the last few years of decluttering and organizing. There is a lot more to do and I am excited to delve deeper into preserving these memories.

I think one of my 10 mini projects will involve greeting cards and correspondence. Although I didn't declutter any today, I'm sure that once all the cards are together and I focus more on them, it will be easier to only keep the special ones. When I have a plan for what I want to do with the most meaningful ones and save the messages, keeping all these actual cards will no longer be necessary.

I'm happy that the jumbled mess of cards are separated and organized. As I continue the decluttering and organizing of other boxes and folders, I will separate the cards and organize them with these so that in the end they will all be in the one place.

I can then decide what I will want to do with them.

Revive55: Day One

My 55 week Memories Project is officially starting today.

What I envision at the end of the project is for the mementos that I care about to be on display or easily accessible. I will also journal the memories that I have and don't want to forget.

My Memories Project will have eleven 5-week projects. The first step is to take an inventory of my keepsakes and organize them so that everything with a similar theme is together.

Most of my paper mementos are in boxes and folders.

While going through the boxes and folders, it's important to see what items are memorable and worth keeping. By decluttering first, there will be less to deal with during the project and it will be easier to recognize what is most important.

Once I have a clearer idea of what is important and worth keeping, I will divide them into 10 categories to be tackled in ten 5-week projects.

I grew up keeping a LOT of papers and mementos related to multiple themes like travel, school, childhood, sports, family, friends, events, correspondence, gifts, etc.

I need to look at what I have and organize what goes together. In my childhood box, for example, there are travel mementos, correspondence, sports, events, newspaper clippings and school.

Upon initial reflection, some categories seem easy to choose. For example childhood, travel, concerts, sports, photos and videos seem obvious choices for me but we'll see if these are the categories I choose.

Do I want to organize chronologically or by theme? For example, do childhood trip mementos go with childhood mementos or travel mementos? Do sports and music trophies go together with ribbons and certificates? Or do I separate them by theme; putting sports trophies with sports mementos and music trophies with music keepsakes?

Do I want to organize by type of memento? For example do concert t-shirts go with clothing or concert mementos? Do postcards all go together or do trip postcards go with trips and art galleries postcards with art?

Do I want to organize by type of project? For example do I have a category for things to frame and choose framing as a project category or do I leave those mementos in their category like travel, sports or photos?

Which items bring back the happiest memories? Which ones do I want to see every day? Which ones are beautiful that I would want displayed in a main area of our house and which ones are more personal?

These are the types of questions I will be asking as I go through my boxes and folders and begin my Revive55 Memories Project.