A clean home doesn’t last. A fresh manicure doesn’t last. A fabulous meal doesn’t last.

So much of what we spend our time and money on doesn’t last. At the beginning of the year, I started to cringe thinking how I have 9,000 photos on my iPhone and not much to show for it. Sure, I have a blog and an Instagram and I cherish the fact those act as a virtual diary. But if I had to grab the 5 most sentimental things in my home, I’d be grabbing picture frames scattered throughout. My organized-personality was craving some sort of system for sorting memories. I mean, I didn’t even have a wedding album coming into this year.

I started small by printing photos of Maxi’s first year and I chose Artifact Uprising. I found them on Instagram and printed them all before her birthday party. You can see the pictures here. Then, came Father’s Day and I purchased Paul this calendar for his office. Next, we had Paul’s 30th and I made him this box from Artifact Uprising to store cards Maxi and I give him. I put a photo from his 30th birthday shoot on top. For our anniversary, Paul got our wedding album printed. You can see the small goal or printing that turned into a habit.

As it came time to talk about gifts for the holidays, I told Paul I wanted to create a tradition where we spend a date night together sorting our top photos of the year and making a book. A few weeks ago we did just that! We put Maxi to bed, we ordered take out and we went through our phones picking our favorite photos from the year. The next part was so easy and yet it was the part I had been dreading. We just uploaded them to my Artifact Uprising account {which already had a lot with my prior purchases} and the book has a layout sorter so this part took 15 minutes! In our book, we took the first page and wrote an update for the year with Maxi’s age, our current jobs, our family vacations, etc. My goal is to create one each year and then go through them all on New Year’s Eve! A new family tradition where we can look back on our memories and see how grateful we are. We didn’t really have any NYE traditions- in fact, we are quite boring on that holiday, so to start one feels nice. It sounds quite cliché, but you start to think, “In 40 years we’ll flip through and we will love these detailed books so the years and memories don’t just blend together.” What a beautiful gift to give your spouse or family. We also decided to print extra ones to give to our parents as gifts, because what grandparent doesn’t want 800 photos of their grandchild? I mean we could just mark our faces out and replace with Maxi and they’d be thrilled. Anyone else relate?! {AU makes this super easy, you can simply click reorder on your order history.}

While I was on this kick {Enneagram 1 problems. We get on obsessive kicks.}, I also ordered their version of a baby book, “The Story of You” in Orchidee-Copper. What I had found while sorting Maxi’s things was that I had so many loose papers and with this being set up like the chicest binder you’ve ever seen with folder inserts, you can store everything neatly. The photos I had printed last year for her birthday applied perfectly in the book. If you need to gift a mommy-to-be a gift, get her this!

Today I partnered with them to share a discount code with you all so that you can mark this off your to-do list for the end of the year! I’m thrilled to have gotten a project marked off my checklist, subsequently loved the company I organically used and partnered with them to bring you this!

To get the exact photo book I used:

Hardcover Photo Book – Full Book Jacket – Fabric Color “Parchment” – Book Size “8.5×8.5” – Base Page Count “50”

I found 50 pages to be great because you can switch your layouts up and have 4 photos on a page. If you were going to do a book for grandparents including multiple families {their children and grandchildren} you could definitely do more base pages! They also have other photo books here to select from.

So before you start January 1st with a mile long list of goals and 15 areas you want to deep clean, I hope this encourages you to work on this one thing that will last! Go through your iPhone and computer photos, delete the random screenshots, upload your favorite images and start getting organized. 🙂

Use code COF20 to get 20% off your until Monday the 26th!