Summer was half a year ago, and I’m sitting here wearing my hygge robe, drinking hot tea. This last summer was a hot one, and the one coming, well who knows. Not to be a Negative Nancy, but I don’t have my hopes up that this one will size up to last year’s, given our climate in Upstate NY! But I digress.
Although I’ve learned to appreciate our long cold winters for the most part, there’s no doubt that I love summer. That feeling when the sun just warms you up, down to your bones, it’s just hard to beat. And of course, the memories from long fun-filled summer days are part of what keeps me going during our ice-age winters.
That’s why I’m so glad that last summer I made a unique photo album of the summer adventures we had.
I knew I wanted to do it in a way that wasn’t a chore, and as much fun making a photo book or -blech!- a scrapbook sounds, I needed something simpler. So with a stroke of genius IMO, I decided on making an 8×10 photo collage of each of our summer adventures from 2018!
Last summer, I made it a point to try to go on several small adventures with the kids. Soon after we got home from one of our little trips, I went ahead and created a single 8×10 collage print on Walgreens.com (we have one very close to our house!). There are lots of options for colors, text, cute art overlays to decorate with, and within 10 minutes, boom. Done.
I’d select the pictures I’d want to feature, maybe 15ish, then I’d use the website to create the collage. Nine times out of ten, I liked it exactly as the computer created it. You can customize it any way you’d like, but usually it was perfect at the start. Next, I’d give it a title, then add some color and artwork, and voilá! We’re talking about 10 minutes, start to finish.
On top of that, Walgreens almost always has a photo coupon code you can use, so I don’t think I ever paid full price for these collages, which only run $4.49 at full price anyway. Throw it in a sheet protector, snap it in the binder, and away we go.
By the end of summer, we had a cute binder of fun 8×10 collages to enjoy all year round. Something about the energy that this binder seems to contain, it’s just way more fun than looking at pictures on my phone or just an album of prints. It took very little investment of time and money, for a fantastic product- my favorite kind of investment!
OK, so maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say this was The Smartest Thing I Did Last Summer. I suppose wearing sunscreen and having my kids learn how to swim were even smarter things. But this was ??? all the way! Occasionally, I’ll leaf through our little photo binder and relive the warm, sunny memories from summer 2018.
Feel free to try my idea if it sounds good to you, but either way, I encourage you to find a simple way to continue to experience the joy from fun family times!
And, if you’re curious as to where all of our adventures were, here is the list:
- The W!ld Center, Tupper Lake, NY
- Fort Stanwix, Rome, NY
- The Fire Truck Spectacular, New Hartford, NY
- Enchanted Forest Water Safari, Old Forge, NY
- Green Lakes State Park, Manlius, NY
- Boston, MA
- The Great Escape Theme Park, Queensbury, NY
- Lake George, NY
And who knows? Maybe next summer I’ll make a new one, or maybe I’ll just add to this one and change the cover. The goal was to keep it simple and keep our memories in a fun and accessible place. Check!