It’s here! 2010 has officially arrived … which means it’s now time to get busy using your Memory Logbook!!! It’s also time to welcome Calendar Girl Heather Guenther, our lead Creative Team member for the month of January!

But first, we have some celebrating to do …

New Year Traditions Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who shared their New Year traditions in response to yesterday’s post! As of midnight (MTN), comments had been shared by the following:

1. Claudi
2. Rosemary
3. shanduck
4. cole19
5. scrappysue
6. debzanne
7. gerich
8. kathy jo
9. zonemama
10. CaroB71
11. Jenna09
12. Lainey
13. Zoezmom
14. suemoyer
15. smcpheeters
16. crecia27
17. Heather Prins
18. nof007750
19. erink88
20. dadon
21. winkasheart
22. grannymike
23. paperprincess
24. shamrock
25. jsilman
26. sheilah
27. Ravenwood1950
28. Ida
29. Dianne
30. terry
31. nannette13
32. conniemiles

Our winner (chosen by random number generator) and recipient of any one download of your choice from the Log Your Memory on-site store is …

22. grannymike

Congratulations, grannymike!!! … Please contact me with your email address & your choice of download and I’ll set you up with a link as soon as possible!

Year-End 100 Things Layout Challenge

Coming up with a list of 100 things is not as easy as it seems! But we did have a few scrapbookers willing to accept the challenge… you can check out their amazing entries, as well as the examples provided by our amazing Calendar Girls, in our Challenge Gallery. Our contestants included:

1. Claudi
2. Zoezmom
3. rsk
4. Ida

Now for our winner … chosen by random number generator, the winner of our challenge and a free print copy of List My Life is …

2. Zoezmom

Congratulations Zoezmom!!! … Please send me your shipping address & I’ll have your book delivered right to your doorstep as soon as possible!

"100 Things Challenge" by Zoezmom

Check out her winning entry!!!

We had a TON of entries for our December Challenge contest. Thanks to all of you who participated and shared so many fun holiday-related comments throughout the month of December! And now … the name you’ve been waiting for and the winner of our $50 gift certificate good toward any item(s) available directly from our on-site store is…

Terry!

Congratulations, Terry! Information on how to redeem your gift certificate will be headed your way via email within the next few days…

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our challenges & contests! Be sure to come back tomorrow for information on a special year-long “real life” scrapbooking opportunity at Log Your Memory!

Click on “comment” below to share your thoughts…

Welcome to Day 6 of our Countdown to 2010 … the last day of 2009! As of midnight tonight, we’ll begin officially celebrating (and logging) the New Year!!!

There seems to be no shortage of wonderful Christmas traditions. Just check out the responses to this December Challenge post and you’ll see what I mean.

But I haven’t heard about as many New Year traditions. So I thought I’d share a couple of traditions from within my own immediate & extended families … and then invite you to share a few of your own, as well! In fact, I’m even throwing in a little giveaway for one random winner from everyone who posts a comment in response to today’s post.

Rutten/Gunderson/Neill New Year family traditions …

• Each individual in the family writing down predictions for the coming year, folding them up, then sealing them in an envelope to be read aloud on the next New Year’s Eve. This is usually good for at least a few giggles and can sometimes be quite revealing…
• Enjoying a steak fondue on the living room floor in front of the TV on New Year’s Eve.
• Staying up until midnight to watch the ball drop with Dick Clark.
• Watching the New Year’s Day parades on New Year’s Day morning.
• Taking down the Christmas tree & putting away the decorations for another year.

New Year, New Tradition …

In the spirit of traditions and to help celebrate the New Year, we’re going to start our own special New Year tradition at Log Your Memory! Beginning tomorrow, “real life” scrapbookers of all backgrounds, mediums, ability levels and life situations are invited to submit their favorite layouts each month for a chance to win a prize as well as be featured in our latest project … the creation of a Log Your Memory “Real Life” Scrapbooking Idea Yearbook!

Winners will be chosen monthly – one for every single day of every month – plus one talented scrapbooker will receive the special honor each month of being the highlighted Scrapper of the Month. Daily winners will each receive a $10 gift certificate good toward any downloadable product in our on-site store, plus have their layout featured in our Yearbook, which will be published early in 2011.  And the Scrapper of the Month will receive a check for $25.00, in addition to the $10 gift certificate and special attention in our Yearbook!

Look for contest rules & information on how to enter in the next several days right here on our blog! Don’t want to miss the announcement? Be sure you’re on our daily update email list … you can sign up or manage your email subscription HERE.

Today’s Giveaway …

Now for today’s giveaway … to enter, simply comment below and tell us about any New Year traditions you already practice or might be thinking about starting this year in your family. The contest closes at midnight (MTN) tonight and then tomorrow, one randomly-chosen winner will receive their choice of any one download from the Log Your Memory on-site store! Good luck & Happy New Year!!!

Don’t forget … midnight tonight is also the deadline to enter the Year-End 100 Things Layout Challenge as well as our December Challenge!!!

Click on “comment” below to share your thoughts…

Welcome to Day 5 of our Countdown to 2010 … just one more day to go before we’re celebrating (and logging) the New Year!!!

Today I have a very special Story Board for you … a collection of fabulous year-end layouts! Perhaps they will inspire you to create one of your own … and if you do, be sure to enter it in our Year-End 100 Things Layout Challenge! Check this post for details… and enjoy these great pages!

"2009 Creative" by Wilna

"Favorite Photos 2009" by cintiascrap

"Year in Review 2009" by CindyS

"2009" by Manderin Oranges

"Neill in 2009" by pom

"2009" by dancingscrapper

"Our Year in Review" by Mary Rogers

Coming up in tomorrow’s Countdown to 2010: New Year Traditions

Today’s Story Board brought to you by …

Interested in seeing YOUR business, store, Web site or favorite designer promoted here? Sponsorship opportunities are available … to find out more, inquire through the Contact Us page.

Click on “comments” below to share your thoughts…

Welcome to Day 4 of our Countdown to 2010 … just two more days to go before we’re celebrating (and logging) the New Year!!!

"The Real Me" by Kristin Rutten

Today just happens to be my 40th birthday, the perfect excuse for a bit of reflection & self-evaluation. In fact, this whole year has been a bit like that for me as I decided at my last birthday to spend a little more time during this year documenting “me” as I approached this milestone. I started a scrapbook album specifically for that purpose, which I dubbed “Me: 39 and Counting!!!” I didn’t get quite as far on that album as I might have liked, but you can check out the pages that I did get completed in my personal scrapbook gallery here.

What does all this have to do with our Countdown to 2010? One of the first pages I created for my “me” album was a layout highlighting a practice started by my favorite scrapbooking role model, Ali Edwards. Ali chooses one word each year to help provide a little focus as she goes about her life. Check out her recent blog post and keep an eye on her blog for more on the topic in the next few days.

"Balance" by Kristin Rutten

I decided last year to give this a try and after a fair amount of thought, chose my word: BEGIN. You can read my blog post and check out the layout I created centered around that decision here. I found the whole concept to be very helpful, so I have now chosen a new word for 2010: BALANCE. I blogged about this choice as well, which you can take a peek at here. You might remember the layout above, which I created about my new word a few weeks ago. I blogged about it here on the site in this post.

If you haven’t participated in this little exercise before, I encourage you to give it a try this year. The process of choosing a word itself can be very helpful & enlightening … and once chosen, it’s a lot like having a little angel sitting on your shoulder as you go about your day, reminding you of what is really important to you. In the busy-ness of life, it can be easy to lose sight of that sometimes.

If you’ve chosen a word – or are thinking about doing so – I’d love for you to share it below in a comment!

Coming up in tomorrow’s Countdown to 2010: A Special Year-End Story Board

Click on “comment” below to share your thoughts…

Welcome to Day 3 of our Countdown to 2010 … just three more days to go before we’re celebrating (and logging) the New Year!!!

A popular way to document “real life” the past few years has been to take a photo every single day and then combine that photo with journaling in an album or scrapbook page. Many different terms have been associated with this idea … Project 365 and Photo-A-Day are among the most common.

I first heard about this concept mid-way through the year last year and immediately fell in love with the idea. I could have picked just about any day to start such a project, but it seemed only right to wait until the beginning of the year to initiate the project … and that time has finally arrived!

What I have not quite decided upon yet is just which direction I will take with this project, in part because there are just so many different options. So today I thought I would share some of the different ideas I’ve come across and encourage you to consider starting a project like this as well.

Photo Album + Journaling Approach Combine a simple photo album that provides slots for journaling cards.

Print File 2x2-20B 35mm Slide Preservers from Archivers USA

Pop in the photo, write or type out your journaling for the day, slip it into the album and you’re good to go! You could get a little more elaborate by combining different types of photo or negative sleeves in a three-ring album.

I’ve been considering using something like the 35 mm slide sleeve shown here, with cropped square photos and small journaling cards with or without embellishments alternated from pocket to pocket.

Scrapbook a Week at a Time Possibly the most popular approach, here a week’s worth of photos is combined with journaling in a single- or double-page scrapbook layout. There are TONS of digital templates available just for this purpose. Here are just a few examples of the different styles of layouts I’ve seen … you can find lots more in the Project 365 Gallery at Designer Digitals.

"365-47" by Jen D

"365 POTD Week 47" by Joey M

"Project 365" by Elena

"POTD 11-09" by roxygirl78

"Week of Nov 15-21" by zannella1108

Calendar Layout Start with a monthly calendar template and add your photos in each of the daily squares. You could add a few words to each photo or journaling along the sides of the calendar using the dates to tie everything together. Here’s a great example by Terry of how this might look with just the photos…

"November 2009" by MIDA78466 (aka Terry)

Blog or Photo Gallery Skip the scrapbooking and simply post a photo-a-day to your blog or other photo gallery, such as Flickr. For the latter, your photo caption  could serve as your journaling.

Other ideas to consider…

• Take your photo at the same time every day.
• Choose a theme for the year … or for each month … and take a photo based on that theme.
• Overwhelmed at the thought of taking a photo every day? Consider switching to a Photo-A-Week project.

If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them! Feel free to share with a comment below…

Coming up in tomorrow’s Countdown to 2010: One Word for 2010

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Welcome to Day 2 of our Countdown to 2010 … just four more days to go before we’re celebrating (and logging) the New Year!!!

Before the New Year can arrive, there’s still some memory preserving to deal with for the present one. Take those holiday cards and letters, for example…

Even though it’s much easier than it used to be to keep in touch with family and friends now that there’s email and social applications like Facebook & Twitter, I still love getting the family photos, pretty cards & year-end “wrap-up” letters in the mail this time each year. And even though it always feels a bit overwhelming in the holiday hustle and bustle, I even enjoy putting a letter together from our own family. By the way, here’s ours from this year.

And of course, being a person who can’t throw anything away that 1) includes a photo or 2) might help preserve a memory, I was always wishing for a better way to save all of those wonderful greetings of the season.

For years, I pretty much just tossed the pile of cards & letters in a drawer with the thought that “someday” I would do something with them. But then finally about a year ago, I came up with a better solution, which I shared via my personal blog in this post.

A year later, I’m very glad I took the time to start this album. I’ve already enjoyed comparing this year’s photos and letters to those from last year and have found it much easier to keep track of who’s who and what’s what in the extended family by having everything all in one place.

Give it a try – or come up with your own variation. And if you have your own system already or have other ideas to share, please do so … we’d love to hear them!

One other bit of exciting news … you can now subscribe to the Log Your Memory daily blog updates on Kindle! Simple search for Log Your Memory from the Kindle Storefront to begin your free 14-day trial subscription!

Coming up in tomorrow’s Countdown to 2010: Photo-A-Day Ideas

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Another Christmas has now come and gone. Does it leave you feeling a bit sad? It does me … but not for long this year! We’ve got LOTS to look forward to at Log Your Memory, not the least of which is finally officially putting our full 2010 Memory Logbook to use!!!

To help keep the fun of the holidays alive right through until January 1st, today I’m kicking off our official Countdown to 2010! Starting today and for the next five days, I’ll share fun little ideas, projects, suggestions and other tidbits to help get you inspired & ready for a great year of memory keeping! And then the real fun begins January 1st with TWO fabulous prize announcements – the winner of our December Challenge $50 gift certificate and the winner of our Year-End “100 Things” Layout Challenge – plus details about two very exciting year-long “real life” scrapbooking projects!!!

How will YOU document “real life” in 2010?

A new year is a great time to consider beginning a year-long memory-keeping project. Many scrapbookers have taken the “photo-a-day” route … and I’ll share more about this option on Monday. But today, I’d like you to consider using a tool you very likely already utilize on a regular basis … your social networking accounts.

If you maintain a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter … or any number of other similar sites … you have at your disposal a fantastic tool for preserving your everyday life story. Cathy Zielske teaches a wonderful class for doing just that called Everyone Can Write a Little. I took the class last spring and I highly recommend it if you have the opportunity.

The concept is fairly straightforward …  use your social networking “status updates” to record little pieces of information you want to remember about your daily life. Then transfer those updates to some sort of permanent memory-keeping device for future enjoyment.

If you’re not up for a full class (or don’t want to wait until it’s offered again) but this concept interests you, I’ve got another option ready for you in our bookstore. It’s a simple little book called Status: Updated and it will provide a place for you to permanently record your favorite daily status updates, with room for one update every day for an entire year!

Status: Updated is available in three versions – printed & coil-bound, print-your-own download, and eBook, which is writable right on your computer using the free Adobe Reader. You can check them all out by starting here in our on-line store.

Coming up in tomorrow’s Countdown to 2010: Saving Season’s Greetings

Click on “comment” below to share your thoughts…