Some memories deserve more than a spot in your camera roll. These are the tangible gifts — thoughtful, creative, sometimes nostalgic — that turn a moment into something you can hold.
Below are a few of my favorite tangible memory-keeping gifts — things you can give to someone else or yourself to help preserve what matters most. I’ll keep adding to this guide over time as I discover more.
The Y oto Mini is a great, compact, way to let your child hear different stories before bedtime, on a road trip, and more. It’s almost like the equivalent of having a CD player with a CD pack. And it’s something that can grow with them!
Remember those old-school reels from childhood? This one lets you create your own with personal photos. It’s nostalgic and meaningful. Perfect for parents, kids, or anyone who loves a throwback.
I love that this is an evolving and fun way to display my daughter’s recent creations and also have room to store them too.
This is in the name, but these very cute little books are also magnetic and a fun way to display memories. I love that they come in a set of 3 and you can customize each book. They even have a small bookshelf you can fit up to 12 books on. My daughter especially loves pulling these off of our refrigerator and looking through them.
We’ve loved having this frame that allows us to upload any photos through their app. I’ve loved it so much I’ve bought it for other family members and I’m able to add photos to their Aura as well. Highly recommend.
This locket is simple and beautifully made. I wear it every day and love the reminder of my family within it. Any locket is a nice little wearable reminder of people you love, to always keep them close.
After four years and twenty thousand photos on my phone, I realized what I was doing wasn't going to last. This is the whole system I’m building — the trunk I use as a limit, three albums covering birth through eighteen, and the video problem I still haven't solved.
If you've ever looked at your camera roll and thought I should really do something with all this, this is the whole system I use. Four categories, the tools that go with each one, the trunk I bought to stop myself from keeping everything, and the backup setup I put in place after losing every photo I had.
My mom, Donna, on scrapbooking, memory-keeping, and what she's learned helping clean out the homes of people who've passed. Episode 10 of Postcards for Posterity.
If you've ever stood in front of the CVS photo kiosk wondering whether it actually matters where you print, this post is for you.
I finally started my daughter's photo album this spring. And because I apparently cannot do anything the simple way, "starting her album" turned into ordering 111 prints from ten different photo printing companies so I could figure out — once and for all — where those photos deserved to be printed.
I recently finished The Art of Making Memories by happiness researcher Meik Wiking — and this episode is about the ideas that hit hardest as a parent of a young child. The reminiscence bump, what the science says about baby memories, and the family story I had to rewrite as an adult. Plus: why "they won't remember it" isn't the point.
I've used Instax at baby showers, a bridal shower, a 90th birthday, and a bachelorette in Hawaii. Here's the kit I bring, three ways to keep the photos afterward, and why I don't treat these as heirlooms.