A Quick Photographic Fix

When I started keeping this blog back in February of last year, I hoped that it would encourage me to craft more and to write more. And it has definitely done both of those things. What I didn't anticipate is that it would also encourage me to take lots and lots of photographs of our daily life. I realized the other day that I have taken 6 times as many pictures just in the last year as I did in my first 5 years of motherhood put together! And while I think it's important to find a balance between documenting a moment and living a moment, I'm so glad that I have so many visual memories from the past year. I do not bring my camera everywhere with me, by any means, but I do think having the blog has inspired me to take pictures of things that I wouldn't otherwise notice or think were worth remembering: the kids painting, or making sushi, or playing with their toys. I love being able to look through our digital photo albums and remember these simple, real-life moments.

a literary potty moment

snack time

the guinea pig maze
(from when Luke and Jaz's class pets came to visit)

walking to the car, post-soccer game

Most of these pictures don't make it to the blog, and they don't make it anywhere else either. A couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that we didn't have any pictures of our family hanging on the walls in our house, and that I was the only one getting to appreciate this recent increase in photographic documentation. So I took advantage of some great post-holiday/new year sales, and ordered some prints for our walls from an online photo shop.

For a long time, I've wanted to have a few large prints on canvas, so I made 3 using some of my favorite pictures from the past year. They turned out really well (especially considering that the photos didn't have quite high enough resolution to be blown up so big).


I also made a poster collage by selecting 23 photos from the last 12 months that I felt provided a good representation of all of the seasons and many of the best memories. Because the online photo shop was having a special sale on anything calendar-related, I decided to make a calendar poster collage. Once it arrived, I just trimmed off the calendar part, and the collage fit perfectly into a 10" x 20" frame. It was a very quick and easy way to frame several photos at once.

We all love the end result, but no one is more pleased with it than Zeben. He studies it carefully, going from picture to picture, pointing out who is who and what everyone is doing.

I hung the framed collage in the playroom, at Zeben's height so that he can continue to enjoy these snapshots of the past year.


I'm so glad that some of my photographs are getting put to good use, and that our walls are finally displaying some of our best memories in picture form. It may even become a yearly tradition to add more.