About This Site

The Log Your Memory mission is to provide tools, education, inspiration & support for those interested in documenting and sharing the stories of their “real life” through scrapbooking and/or journaling.

The busier & more full the life, the more there is to scrapbook … and the less time to get it done. Rather than hoping stories will be remembered or relying on an unorganized collection of calendars, notes & memorabilia, Log Your Memory offers a system for ensuring memories get documented – easily and consistently.

Our central product is our annual “Memory Logbook” … a datebook/planner consisting of daily and monthly calendar pages, weekly challenge prompts, examples of “real life” layouts, a variety of questionnaires, and lots of room to jot down memories or sketch ideas, all designed to help busy scrapbookers focus on the everyday memories, experiences & pieces of life they most want recorded for future generations, but may not have time to immediately scrapbook. With this information conveniently documented all in one place, it is easily accessible when there IS time to scrap … a wonderful tool to help “jog” the memory and get the creative juices flowing.

Supporting the logbook and the “real life” scrapbooking mission is the Log Your Memory online community at www.LogYourMemory.com.

This community includes:
• A Layout Gallery where members can share their scrapbook pages, including special albums for each of the 52 weekly challenge questions included in the annual Memory Logbook. The Log Your Memory Creative Team, comprised of a handful of talented scrappers with a knack for “real life” scrapbooking, provides unlimited inspiration through layouts posted in response to the Memory Logbook weekly challenges. Additionally, all Gallery members have the opportunity to post comments on the layouts that inspire them, creating a collaborative atmosphere that leads to further growth and enjoyment for all involved.
• A Community Forum where members can share ideas and get to know one another better.
• Regular blog posts including a variety of informational & inspirational topics, including new Log Your Memory product highlights and the Story Board – a post every Wednesday featuring examples of “real life” scrapbooking pages found in galleries throughout the Web.
• A member Chat Room where registered users may gather and chat “live” or participate in scheduled Log Your Memory chat sessions.
• A variety of links to scrapbookers well known for their “real life” style and emphasis on life storytelling, as well as other real life scrapbooking resources.

About the Owner

Log Your Memory was created in the fall of 2009 by Kristin Rutten, a work-at-home mother of four with an avid interest in telling her story & that of her family through scrapbooking.

A lifelong photographer, writer & scrapbooker, Kristin has been a fan of graphic design & desktop publishing for as long as she can remember. This interest grew substantially during her five years working for the Lewistown News-Argus, her community’s local newspaper. Though hired on as a reporter, Kristin quickly saw an opportunity to lead the transition from cut-and-paste layout to full computer pagination, teaching herself QuarkXpress, Photoshop, InDesign and basic print shop skills along the way. She was eventually promoted to Managing Editor, then shifted into a part-time page designer position before leaving the newspaper altogether to pursue other interests.

A few years (and a couple babies) later, she started working from home under the business name Spring Creek Design to enable her to spend more time with her family. In addition to newsletter design and layout, she provides basic Web site maintenance services for a local non-profit and is a contract grant-writer for a local community economic development firm.

An avid – and busy – digital scrapbooker, Kristin has tried a variety of methods to capture her family’s memories. Her biggest challenge has been finding a way to remember all of the details – the funny things her kids say, the great layout ideas she sees in her favorite magazines and books, the many milestones experienced by her family – particularly during those times when she simply doesn’t have time to sit down and create a scrapbook page. She has tried a little bit of everything … sticky notes all over her computer tower, a desktop calendar full of notes, various datebooks and planners, the school calendar on the fridge, and many, many notebooks partially filled with scribbles & drawings. None of these really provided the organized, all-in-one, consistent solution she was seeking.

And so Log Your Memory and the first Scrapbooker’s All-In-One Memory Logbook were born, designed & edited by Kristin with plans to publish an updated version each fall.

Kristin is active in the online scrapbooking community, with her own family’s layouts posted in various galleries around the Web under the username “krutten.” She and husband Jacques Rutten, current publisher of the News-Argus, live in Lewistown, Montana, with their four children – Karstin (14), Kody (12), Skylar (3), and Danica (1). When not scrapbooking, tweeting (kmrutten) or chatting with her digi-scrapping friends on Facebook (Kristin Gunderson Rutten), she can generally be found shuttling her kids to one of their many sports, musical or outdoor activities. You can get to know her better through her personal blog, All Things Creative.

For more information about Log Your Memory or Spring Creek Design, please contact Kristin via the Contact Us page at www.logyourmemory.com.