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What to do with the stuff your kids create

I’m not a terribly sentimental person when it comes to stuff. I don’t get attached to much and like to get rid of as much as I can. In fact, this past year I’ve been slowly trying to get rid of the excess in our house and reduce the amount of clutter around here.

But I’m trying to hang on to at least some of the stuff my kids create around the house and things they bring home from school. The papers, art projects, coloring pages, homework assignments, church activities, tests, etc. sometimes seem endless and I wasn’t sure what to do with all of it. As more of my kids started going to school and bringing home more stuff, piles of school work starting accumulating.

2015-04-12_0006 Things that they worked extra hard on or seemed particularly proud of get a spot on our magnet wall or on the garage door for a little while. Other things get some praise from mom and dad, left on the counter for a few days, and then I quietly slip them in the garbage (of course I mean recycle bin) and put a paper towel over it so the kids don’t see it in there.

2015-04-12_0001 Some of the original stuff we decide to keep gets put in protective pages and put in a binder. It will be fun for them to be able to flip through some of the original items when they get older. But I only keep a handful of things from each year.

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We don’t (can’t) hang onto everything and I was trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. Then I saw this great idea from Becky Higgins. Some (most) of the things (especially big things hard to hang on to, or stuff we don’t necessarily need an original of) I’m taking photos of and putting them into pages using the Project Life App. I know some people scan their kids artwork, but I’ll never actually do that (and some of the stuff is too big to scan). So when the piles get big enough, I take 10-15 minutes and take photos of the pages with my phone and then put those photos into layouts using the App.

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Some tips for doing this:

**Put the original item on a white table (or posterboard) or wood floor, and get it as close to a natural light source as possible. I do this when the sun isn’t shining directly through the window. You could also open a door.

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**Hold your camera directly over the item. You may need a stool to get higher up if needed. Try to keep your elbows braced by your body so you keep the camera steady.

**Turn off your flash. Natural light will always look better for this type of photo.

**Occasionally include photos of your kids hands holding the artwork and/0r photos of them while they’re actually writing or drawing. I take these type of photos with my “real” camera. Otherwise, my phone camera works just fine.

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**If there are several similar items you could photograph them all together.

**Use the Project Life App (or other photo collage app) and make layouts of the different projects.

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Fast, easy, and significantly reduces the amount of paper clutter in our house. And makes it a tiny bit easier to convince the kids to throw stuff away if they know we have a photo to preserve it. But only a tiny bit. I usually still have to hide the stuff under paper towels in the garbage.

For more tips on photos you take with your phone, check this out.

And for more ideas on organizing different parts of your home, you can follow my “Organize” board on Pinterest. One day I’ll work my way through all of those ideas and have a smooth runnin’ house.

Weird winter.

It forgot to snow this year in Utah. It pretty much forgot it was winter completely. I think it only snowed 3 times at our house. Huge bummer for someone like me who loves seasons.

The plus side was not having to deal with snow clothes on kids. Not my favorite. So the one time it did snow a few weeks ago, I pretty much forced these two to put their snow clothes on and let me take some photos.

A few photo tips for anyone who cares.

When taking portrait type photos like this, I get them as close to a window as I can. This front room in our house has the best natural light so it’s where I take a lot of our photos. I also try not to ask them to look at me for at least a few of the shots. If I’m always saying “look at the camera” I miss photos like this one.

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Then I’ll get a few looking at the camera photos but I still try to let them do their thing and show a little personality without giving them much direction.

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When I’m shooting a close-up photo like this, I always always always focus on their eyes.

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I always try to take at least one or two “detail” shots.

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And then I just let them go and try not to interrupt what they’re doing. I just sit, observe, and take a boat load of photos. And watch them shovel the road instead of our driveway.

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HOW to help when someone is in need.

A few years ago I got an unexpected package in the mail. There was a CD and a note. It was from my little brother who lives in another state. My little family was getting knocked around pretty good by life. Thing after thing after thing kept happening. He’d catch wind of it through various complaints by me over social media or through phone conversations or e-mail. So he made me a CD of some of his favorite songs, wrote a note about how music helps him when life gets rough, and mailed it to me.

It was a CD of music. Nothing seemingly big. But it was unexpected, thoughtful, unsolicited, more needed than I realized, and something I’ll never forget.

I have multiple examples of things like this in my life. A neighbor I barely knew dropped off rolls after I had a baby, a friend brought a sign over she saw in the store and said “I saw this and it reminded me of you so I had to buy it”, my sister kept showing up at my house day-after-day when I had my fourth baby even though I said I was fine (I wasn’t), a friend I hadn’t seen in years dropped off some bread and a note saying she’d been thinking of me and our kids with anxiety (she has a kid with anxiety too and just wanted to say she understood), another neighbor dropped off a game after our son broke his leg and a friend brought a meal after the same kid broke his arm, and a friend who brought over a scented plug-in after I was at her house and said I loved the smell. Seemingly simple things, but anything but simple to me.

We all know the stories. A friend/family members gets diagnosed with cancer. The infertility treatment didn’t work, again. A child dies. Someone loses their job. A child is diagnosed with an incurable illness. Their dad unexpectedly died. The neighbor lost their job. A friend with small kids has the flu. A friend has depression. Someone’s just having a hard day. A new baby is born. An addict continues to wreak havoc on their family. We can’t stop thinking about a certain person even though they seem fine.

The stories are endless. And we find ourselves saying “What can I do to help?” and/or “Call me if you need anything.” The problem isn’t that we don’t want to help. The problem is we really want to DO something. But often can’t figure out what to do.

We hear these stories. Our initial response is that we want to help. We want to DO something. But often we can’t figure out what. So often we just don’t do anything.

I read a book, Love Does that changed my entire perspective on what Love means and what Love is (if you haven’t read it, you need to–trust me). In the book, Bob Goff says:

“I reflect on God, who didn’t choose someone else to express His creative present to the world, who didn’t tap the rock star or the popular kid to get things done. He chose you and me. We are the means, the method, the object, and the delivery vehicles….God usually chooses ordinary people like us to get things done….

…it becomes clear that we need to stop plotting the course and instead just land the plane on our plans to make a difference by getting to the “do” part of faith. That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.“

LOVE DOES things. Love doesn’t just think about doing things. Love actually does things.

I spent a LOT of time talking to friends, family, acquaintances who have been through everything imaginable. I then compiled these ideas of things we can actually DO when tragedy strikes, when illness comes, when new babies arrive, when friends just have a bad day, when someone needs to be SEEN and LOVED.

These ideas and thoughts were compiled from dozens of people who have BEEN through these situations.

Here’s the rough breakdown of categories inside:

The Helping Others Guide is 18 pages full of ideas for ANY situation, good or bad.

General ideas of how to help anyone in need for any reason. Specific ideas for specific situations. Things to take over to boost someone’s spirits or to strengthen in a time of need. Acts of service we can do.

Although every specific life event isn’t addressed directly, there are ideas in here for any person in any situation.

To buy the Helping Others Guide, just click “I want this” below!

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Great gift for parents who are hard to buy for

My parents aren’t easy to buy for anymore. I’d run out of great ideas and needed something new and meaningful to give them. So with my siblings, we came up with this idea for our parents. This works as a great Christmas gift, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day gift, Anniversary, or Birthdays.

I asked each of my siblings to choose and print photos they had taken over the years of their family doing things. My parents don’t get to see many of the things we do and often don’t see the photographs of the vacations we take, or the everyday moments of our lives. So we each picked about 200 photos and printed them. The number of photos will vary depending on how many people are in the family and how many albums you want to fill–we filled two albums and there are 6 kids in my family.

Each sibling mailed me their photos (we don’t all live in the same state) and I mixed all the photos together and assembled them using Project Life albums and kits. You could also just put them in regular photo albums, or print them as a photo book from companies like Shutterfly, My publisher or Blurb. If your siblings live close, you could get together and assemble the albums together.

I mixed up the photos, but you could keep them together according to family if you wanted.

I used one Project Life kit per album. I put the photos in first and then added the Project Life cards to make it look a little better.

We didn’t do it this time, but next time we do this I’ll have each person write on the back of each photo the year the photo was taken and where it was taken. That would be helpful for posterity’s sake. And for my parents as they didn’t know where each photo took place. Instead of writing on the back of photos you could also write the info on Project Life journaling cards next to the photos.

Huge hit with the parents. And it’s also fun to get the albums out when we’re all together and look through the photos. This type of gift takes some pre-planning and due-dates so you can get everyone’s photos printed in time. Assembling the albums took 2-3 hours but would go faster if a group of you did it together. This could easily be a recurring gift. Each year you can print out a new batch of photos and assemble them into books. A meaningful gift that helps preserve and document the lives of our families.

*For a gift for your kids, check out this idea.

*Check here for ideas on how and where to print your photos.

*For more photography related posts, check the Photography section in the menu bar.

How to tell a story with your photos.

If you haven’t figured out by now, I’m sort of obsessed with story. Especially real stories. I’m a sucker for a good memoir and I love the stories of people’s lives.

I also love a wordless story. Photograph’s that tell a story. And show what our every day lives are like.

Often a single image can tell a story and show who someone is or what they’re doing. And can be very powerful on their own.

But many times, we can really tell a complete story if we’re intentional and thoughtful about the photos we take. There are certain components to any story, whether told through words or photos, that help tell a great story. The scene, environment, or background. The character. Moments of conflict, learning, action, or struggle. Emotion. Details. And an ending or conclusion.

When taking photos of our everyday lives, I try to be mindful of these elements.

Here is an example using these components of story.

1. SET THE SCENE

Step back, use a wider angle, get the surroundings and set the scene of where the story is taking place. (This also slowly warms the kid up to the camera so they resist the urge to look at you and disengage from what they’re doing.)

I try a few different angles when setting the scene.

2. THE DETAILS

Get in close and get some detail shots that help tell the story and help you feel something, not just see something. Detail shots are my favorite. It forces me to take a closer look at the story and really pay attention. Look for different angles and different elements of the story. Details that help paint the whole picture.

If you’re using a phone camera, get in close (don’t zoom–physically move closer). If you’re using a dSLR, learn to use aperture priority mode and lower your aperture to around f2.8 to get great detail shots.

See those dirty I’ve-been-playing-in-the-yard-without-shoes feet. That’s an extra bonus detail.

Look for some detail shots that don’t include the person. These come in handy when displaying the photos.

Sometimes my girls cheat and use duct tape to help them remember where to put their fingers.

Look for different angles as well. Don’t be afraid to experiment with angles. Get up higher using a chair or stool. Get on the ground. Move around where the action is taking place. You never know and may be surprised at what you’ll end up liking.

3. MOMENTS OF CONFLICT/LEARNING/ACTION/STRUGGLE

These are the money shots and usually the ones people are aiming for. The moment where the action takes place and the story unfolds. While these photos are critical to the story, they are just a part of the whole story. The other elements we’re discussing are equally important to the story as a whole.

Normally I’d shut down the whole climbing on the piano thing, but he knows when the camera is out he has extreme amounts of freedom to ad-lib at will.

4. EMOTION

These shots can be tricky and require some patience, but they’re definitely worth waiting for and add so much to the story. They show WHO the character is. Wait for an expression or a “look” that shows their personality. The photo you look at and say “Oh man, that is so them.” The little quirks that make the “character” unique. These are shots that make you feel. The emotion shots.

5. THE CHARACTER

I purposely saved this towards the end. Of course we want to know who the character is. And what they look like. And it’s fun to have photos where we can see into their eyes. But I usually save this one until after I get the conflict/action shots and the emotion shots. Because once we ask them to look at the camera and they disengage from what they’re doing, they may never re-engage. And then we miss a huge part of the story. So I wait towards the end and then occasionally will ask them to look at me really quick. Many times I just slide in and take the photos of the everyday moments, and slide out without ever disrupting what they’re doing.

I purposely didn’t wipe off or photoshop out the mess on his face because he’s 3. And he constantly has some sort of residue on his face. It’s there in real life, so it stays there in the photo too.

6. THE END

This is the photo that wraps it all up. How the story ends. You could end with the portrait shot, but it’s fun to have one finale shot as well.

As I mentioned before, many of our everyday photos will just be a “one and done” kind of deal that tell a story with just the one photo. But keep these ideas in mind when trying to tell a story with your photos. It takes some practice to do this instinctively and remember all the elements, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it. The key thing to remember is that it takes practice. And some effort. Like all good things in our life.

A few more things to keep in mind:

**Pay attention to the everyday moments that make you FEEL something and photograph those stories.

**Don’t ask your subject to look at you. Resist the urge to say “Look at the camera” or “Look at me and smile”. Try to capture the story and leave your subject engaged in what they’re doing.

**Move around and try different angles.

**Find good natural light (which may mean re-locating in some instances. If possible, set the scene where there is good light)

**Resist the urge to always clean up the surroundings. Every day photos are interesting when they’re as real as possible. Which includes surrounding mess and clutter.

You can apply this process to most situations and any age of kid or adult. You can also use any type of camera. Here’s an example using only my iPhone.

Photography can be such a gift as it helps us pay attention more and appreciate the everyday stories of our lives.

I love this thought from my friend, Chris Jones. His son, Mitchell, died when he was 10 years old and this is what he said about taking everyday photos and telling our stories using photography:

“I began taking photos long before we discovered Mitchell’s diagnosis, but upon learning his life would be cut short, I began to see moments differently. I stopped taking photos of what things looked like and focused more on capturing what life felt like.”

Try to pay attention to what life FEELS like instead of just what life looks like. And then photograph those stories regardless of what kind of camera you have.