Hi all, it’s Catherine. Today I’m sharing four really simple ways to document memorabilia in your pocket page albums, no scanning required.

Here’s a confession: I thought I’d transition this year to documenting exclusively with photobooks, but I quickly abandoned the idea. I realized I wanted a way to easily include ephemera among our photos, all the little pieces of paper that we use for just a moment in time, which can symbolize or serve as a tactile reminder of that particular moment. Things like receipts, ticket stubs, programs usually find their way into my nightstand drawer or the recycling bin, but those little items can also transport me back to a memory in a way that’s very different from a photo. Today I’m sharing four of the quick and easy ways I do this.

As with all things memory-keeping, I’m staying simple and sticking to a few key supplies: two-sided tape, a paper trimmer (or scissors), the paper “stuff” from our week, white cardstock and a piece of vellum.

I’m also channeling my inner Caylee (global traveler extraordinaire) and sharing a layout that documents a week our family spent in Paris. Here’s the full layout:

And a close-up of the left side:

And the right side:

Tip no. 1 / Tape it

For little bits of paper, like our metro tickets or museum passes, I simply use two-sided tape to adhere them to a piece of (in this case) 3×4 or 4×6 paper.

This is a good place to inject some white space into a busy layout. I added a little caption to the tickets and taped them to the plain white 3×4 card.

For our museum tickets, I trimmed them just a bit and added them to a 3×4 inch woodgrain patterned card so the white would pop.

Tip no. 2 / Fold it

We were fortunate enough to have a family friend with an apartment in Paris, so for our first day in the city we had a tour guide. She even offered to babysit the boys so Nick and I could get out for a date night. We found a lovely note from her that night, which she wrote since she’d be flying to Rome the next day. I wanted to make sure I included it, but I didn’t want to cut it up, so I folded it and tucked it into a 4×6 inch pocket.

I added a piece of vellum printed with some of Liz’s hand-lettering as a title card for the layout. The translucent paper reminds me that a note is tucked in the pocket, and it allows me to pack a bit more in the layout.

Tip no. 3 / Trim it

Sometimes it’s not necessary to keep an entire item and keeping a little piece is enough to preserve the memory. We used a small city Metro map to navigate our way around Paris for most of the week, so I thought it would be fun to include. I trimmed it to size and slipped it in a pocket. I thought about covering it up with the Metro tickets, but I ended up liking it on its own.

Later in the week, I ducked out during nap time to visit a museum on my own. I trimmed a piece of the brochure, which picked up the orange-y red in some of the other photos on the page and had a painting of the iconic Eiffel Tower. I didn’t take any pictures at the museum, so this little bit of paper is my sole reminder of that afternoon.

Tip no. 4 / Transcribe it

I wanted to include the details of our itinerary for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn’t documenting every photo from the week in this layout, but I wanted to remember what exactly we did during the week. Second, just having a list of what we did each day is enough for me to recall a memory, even of the things we didn’t necessarily photograph.

I used the camera roll on my phone to remind me of all the little things we did throughout the week, typed them up and printed them on white cardstock. They’re tucked in a 5×7 inch Project Life insert and embellished with some Paislee Press word art.

There are lots of ways to digitally preserve some of these artifacts, like scanning and photographing them, but sometimes it’s nice to have the actual piece of history in hand. How do you like to preserve paper artifacts?

You can find out more about what I’m up to on Instagram or on my blog, check out more of my projects here or see what’s inspiring me on Pinterest. Let me know if you have any questions about the layout!

xo, Catherine

Products used: 4×6 photo templates vol. 1 (they’re free!), 4×6 photo templates vol. 4 (minimalist + vertical), 3×4 photo templates, 3×4 photo templates no. 2, pictures + words no. 9 (“week of” word art), mantras photo templates (“light” word art), smitten photo templates and word art, smitten journal cards (“love lives here” card).