If you've ever wanted a fun, low-pressure way to make a trip more memorable for your kids — and actually turn the photos into something they'll revisit — this episode is for you. I'm sharing how two tiny souvenirs from our Japan trip became a creative travel activity, and eventually a custom children's storybook made in Chatbooks.

What we cover

How Eden Cat and Paigie Cat got their names (and why Eden named everything Paige on that trip)
The moment the cats went from "cute souvenir" to "characters in a story"
Every stop they made: the glass-floor gondola in Hakone, the pirate ship, the subway handles, the first pedal bike ride, pigs in Tokyo, TeamLab Borderless, and more
How I made the cover using ChatGPT + Canva (with the exact prompts)
Why I used Chatbooks for this project — and what made it so easy
The friendship pages at the back of the book
How to try a version of this on your next trip — and why it works

Try this

Pick one small character — a toy your kid already has, a tiny souvenir from the trip, anything portable — and let it become part of the story. Take photos of it in different places. When you get home, make a simple book.

It doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to exist.

The simple formula:

Find a character (buy it there or bring it from home)
Let your kid name it and take ownership
Place it in scenes throughout the trip — let finding the right spot become a little game
Make the book while the memories are still fresh

How I made the cover

I generated the cover illustration in ChatGPT using these prompts:

Cat cover:

"Can you create a square illustrative cover for a kids book that features two cats that look similar to the picture having adventures in Japan?" (I shared a photo of the real cats along with this prompt)

Girls friendship cover:

"Can you create a generic cover with this same illustration style for two little girls (they're three years old) — one is brunette with hazel and green eyes and slight curly hair and the other is blond with blue eyes with straight hair and bangs?" (I did not share a picture of the girls)

Then I brought both images into Canva to add all the text, using the font Sawarabi Mincho — it has a slightly playful, Japanese-inspired feel that worked perfectly for the kids' book vibe. You can use the template here.

Hey, welcome to Postcards for Posterity. Make the memories, keep the story. I'm Maddie, and this show is for moms and anyone who takes the pictures and holds the stories in their families, but doesn't want to miss their life while trying to document it.
Today I want to tell you about two little cat clips from Japan that cost less than $5 combined and somehow became one of our favorite memories from the whole trip. This episode is partly a travel story, partly a memory-keeping idea, and entirely a permission slip to stop overthinking and just find something small and let it become the thing.
The Japan Trip
Last fall, my husband and I took our three-year-old to Japan, which — yes, it was as ambitious as it sounds. My in-laws joined us for the first half, which was incredibly helpful, and then it was the three of us for the second half.
We started in Tokyo, then made our way to Kyoto, did a day trip to Hiroshima and Nara. And then after my in-laws flew home, we rented a car and drove to Hakone.
If you've never heard of Hakone, it's this beautiful mountain town known for its hot springs, its views of Mount Fuji on a clear day, and this whole ecosystem of gondolas and a pirate boat and something about black eggs. And it was there in Hakone, at this little dumpling restaurant, almost as an afterthought, that we found them.
Finding the Cats
They were in a small basket near the register. Little cat figures. Each one made from what seemed like a clothespin covered in a soft sock-like material with a tiny cat head. The magic part is they clip onto things — bag straps, handles, my daughter's finger, whatever. They're simultaneously adorable and completely functional.
Now my daughter Eden has a best friend named Paige, and we had missed Paige's birthday while we were away. So throughout the trip I had been trying to find something that would be a nice birthday gift for Paige, maybe something Eden could also share. And I had this thought when I saw the cats — what if we got one for each of them?
So we bought both cats and together they came to, I think, the equivalent of about five US dollars.
How They Got Their Names
One cat was pink, and pink is Eden's favorite color. So naturally that one became Eden Cat. And the other one she named Paigie Cat after her best friend. This wasn't super surprising because throughout the whole trip, anytime there was something that she wanted to name, she named it Paige. So I knew that she missed her friend a lot, and it was so fun to have Eden Cat and Paigie Cat with us now to come along for this adventure for the rest of the week.
And that was really supposed to be it — a sweet souvenir and small birthday gift. I figured she would maybe use them in the hotel or something.
The Cats Take Over the Trip
But the next day when we were heading to the Hakone Ropeway — the gondola that takes you through the mountains at different stops — one of the gondolas that takes you up into the mountains over the volcanic sulfur fields with views of the lake below, we got lucky and we had one of the special gondolas that has a glass floor panel so you can look straight down.
I had the cats in my bag and I just thought, well, let's try something. I put them on the glass floor so it looked like they were flying over the mountains, and got a photo. And then we just kind of kept going.
That day at the volcanic sulfur fields, we had them looking at the fields and the steam. And when we got to the lake and there was a full-size pirate ship, we set the cats up on the ledge looking out over them. So we didn't go on the ship, but we had them clip to each other and hanging on, because of course they were a little nervous about the pirates.
And then when we left Hakone and went to Tokyo and we were there for the rest of the week — on the subway, we got pictures of them hanging on. Because if you've been on the Tokyo subway, you know it moves fast and it gets crowded. I clipped both cats onto the overhead handle so it looked like they were holding on as tight as they could, which honestly, very relatable.
When we went to the Cup Noodles Museum, where you get to design your own cup of noodles and watch it get sealed, the cats were very invested in coloring on the cup and in the shrimp flavoring that we added to the noodles.
My Favorite Photo
And then there's my actual favorite photo from the whole cat adventure. We went to this park in Tokyo where you can rent little kids' bikes and ride around a track. Eden was riding a two-wheeler with training wheels, and this was one of her first times on an actual pedal bike with training wheels. And I clipped Eden Cat and Paigie Cat onto the front basket of the bike, and there's a photo of them riding along — and it just captures everything about that moment, Eden smiling in the back. It was just a really cute moment and the cats were there for it.
We also visited an animal café in Tokyo where a few little pigs were wandering and we fed them and pet them, and of course the cats had to meet the pigs. And then at TeamLab Borderless, this immersive digital art experience where the artwork literally flows from room to room and you feel like you're inside it, we put the cats in our family photo, set them along this moving light.
By the end of the trip, finding the right spot for the cats had become part of the day — a little game we were playing together, and a reason to look more closely at wherever we were. And my daughter was completely in on it.
What I didn't expect was how much it made us pay attention. We were already there, already doing the thing. Now we were also looking for that moment, and it made the whole trip feel more like a story we were building together as we went.
Making the Book
When we got home, I had all these photos of the cats in all these different places, and I realized this would be a great kids' book. So I made one — not for all the kids, but for Paige and Eden.
And I should say I'm not the first person to do something like this. You may have heard of the Flat Stanley Project, where kids send a paper character out into the world and photograph it in different places. People have done versions of this with toys, figurines, little objects. It's a fun travel tradition. But this was my first time doing it, and what made it feel different was that I got to turn it into an actual story — one that my daughter could hold and read, and that was specifically hers. And something that she contributed to in creating.
For the cover, I generated an illustration in ChatGPT, and then I brought that image into Canva where I formatted all the text using a font that had a slightly playful feel. I tried to generate the text in ChatGPT actually, but it was a little harder and less control to do that. So it was easier to generate the image first and then format the text in a different platform, and I really love how it turned out. I'll share both the cover image and the exact prompt I used in the show notes.
And then I used Chatbooks for the inside — simple layouts, easy to work from your phone, really affordable. The whole thing came to about $30, and I had a discount code, so each copy ended up around $20. And I ordered two — one for Eden and one for Paige.
My husband helped me with the writing. He's a really good storyteller and helped me refine it. But the story was all already there in the photos.
I'll read you just a little bit of the beginning:
"One misty night in Japan, Eden Cat and Paigie Cat found the Jacobs family. The very next morning we set off together on an exciting adventure."
And then it goes through the whole trip — the gondola, the pirate ship, the sulfur fields, the subway, the Noodle Museum, the bike ride, the pigs, TeamLab, Tokyo Tower, Disney Sea, and the airplane home. Every stop, a photo of the cats. Every page, a line or two written for a three-year-old.
It ends with: "Until the next adventure, meow meow for now." And I will take credit for that line.
Then, because I had extra pages, I added a section at the back. I generated another illustration in the same style, this time of the two little girls, and titled it "The Adventures of Eden and Paigie," and filled those pages with photos of the two of them together over the past two to three years — their friendship, growing up, side by side. That part might be my favorite part of the whole book.
The Takeaway
Okay, so here's what I want you to take from this, because it's not really about Japan and it's not really about cats. It's about giving a trip — or just a memory — a creative throughline. Something small and tangible that becomes the lens for the whole experience.
The cats didn't cost anything meaningful. They weren't planned. They showed up because we happened to be in a dumpling restaurant. But they gave us something to do together, a sort of game to play, a reason to pay closer attention to everywhere we went. And then they gave us a book that my daughter can hold and read and look back at.
A few things that made this work that I think you can apply to any trip:
Give your kid ownership. My daughter knew these were her cats — that mattered. Kids engage differently when something belongs to them.
Let constraints be the creative tool. The cats clip onto things — that was part of the game. Find something to clip them to. Sometimes that was to each other. That limitation made it fun, not overwhelming.
Simple beats perfect. A Chatbooks photo book with straightforward layouts. AI-generated cover. $20, done. I didn't need to make it beautiful. I needed to make it real and make it fast while the memories were fresh.
The object doesn't have to be expensive or fancy. It just has to be theirs and it just has to travel with you.
So if you have a trip coming up — whether it's a big international adventure or a weekend road trip, or even just a day somewhere new — I'd encourage you to find a small something. A little figure, a stuffed animal, something clippable. Honestly, your child may already have a stuffy or something that is already going to come with you. So bring it along and see what happens. And then when you get home, make the book while you still remember the feeling.
Closing
If you want to see the book cover and some of the photos from the trip, I've linked them in the show notes along with the AI prompt I used to create the cover illustration, in case you want to try something similar. And if you're trying to figure out which photo book platform actually makes sense for what you're building, I published a full comparison of the four services I've used over the past 15 years — Chatbooks, Artifact Uprising, Blurb, and Shutterfly — and when to use each one. That link is in the show notes too.
Until next time — make the memories, keep the story. Letters from today, for the days ahead. Postcards for Posterity is connected to my Love, Maddily blog, and that's where I share additional resources, links, and freebies — ways for you to stay more connected to the memories and people in your life.