December is a wonderful month to focus on memory keeping because there are so many opportunities to capture both the festive and the everyday moments. It’s a time of year when traditions, celebrations, and little joys come together to create something truly special.

I’ve been voting by mail for years and have always felt a little left out that I didn’t get an “I Voted” sticker. I’ve seen a lot of posts online from people who have mentioned that they will miss this little token of celebration this year as they vote by mail. Even the included stickers aren’t all that exciting, and I can’t print them out for creative projects. So, I created this file of printable “I Voted” stickers to share with all of you. No strings attached. Just a free download. I simply hope these will inspire you to vote!

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m really working on adding more designs and tools to help myself and others document monthly memories. These also are great for daily, weekly, or any type of scrapbooking. I’m excited to share them with you! I also have a brand new free download for you so be sure to check out the entire post.

(And if you like free stuff, I’ll be including another gift in my newsletter so be sure you are signed up!)

When the new year hit, I knew that one of the projects I really wanted to tackle was to make my habit of doing a monthly roundup even better. I wanted to provide the best designs and memory keeping tools to help others embrace this really accessible way to document their lives.

Do you ever have a big idea that keeps going and going? That’s what my design brain has been doing lately - just pumping out the ideas! I’m working on a bigger (and yet more simple) approach to my monthly roundups and suddenly, a brand new collection came to life. So fun!

Now that we are a few weeks into 2022, it’s a good time to think about how you want to approach memory keeping for the year ahead. You don’t have to have a full fledged plan at this point, but it’s nice to think about some general ideas.

I don’t really feel ready to start the new year until I get my last roundup done from the previous one. It felt good to finish up December of 2021 and know that I did a roundup (and scrapbook pages) for every single month last year! This is a habit that I love so much and that really makes my memory keeping a lot easier.

Here’s what our December looked like:

We made it through another year! If you’ve been doing roundups all year long, this will be your final one of the year and you will be all ready for a year-in-review album or journal entry. December is so rewarding for the roundup schedule because even if you haven’t been doing them each month, you can still take this as an opportunity to reflect on the year that has just ended. There are tons of recap news articles and Best/Worst lists for the year. Be sure to save those and use them in your journaling!

I’m personally grateful to be at the end of this calendar year and to turn a new page into 2022. Here’s hoping it’s full of health and happiness!

Now I’m ready to use my roundup prompts to document the month. I also love creating scrapbook layouts using these topics, but there is no right or wrong way to do this. Just record the main events of November and find somewhere to share and enjoy them!

I happen to love year-end reviews because they give me so much material to use for recording our memories of the year. Of course, they are a lot more fun to read when the news is better than it has been over the past year, but it’s still important to take some time to reflect on what has been happening around us in the world. It’s also a great way to jog your memory to think about what was happening in your own life that coincided with these events. I’ve been saving links to some great resources as I find them, and I will continue to update this list if I see anything else worth adding.