Lifeables to Preserve Family Memories
If you came to our house, you might be surprised to see our “tunnel” of photos down from our kitchen to our basement play room. It took my husband 3 tries to get to this particular iteration.
The first version was plexiglass box frames velcroed to the ceiling and walls. It worked great until summer’s humidity hit. The photos kept falling down and bonking people on the head as they came down the stairs. Ouch!
The next iteration was the cork board. My husband special ordered huge rolls of cork board and Gorilla Glued it to the walls and ceiling. He then used tacks to cover it in photos. Too bad the tacks fell out, pointy side up. The kids don’t wear shoes in the house either. Double Ouch!
Now, the photo wall utilized staples and it’s just right. My husband has included not just photos of our kids but also their closest friends over the years. The play dates have fun finding themselves on the wall, especiallyl now that they are in 5th or 7th grade.
I also have two cabinets chock full of old-school photo albums from our pre-digital camera days. PickyKidPix loves to see particular albums of just her. Yes, she is a middle child. And yes, I made separate albums of just her after she complained as a preschooler that her older sister had piles of albums with just the oldest and she wanted the same as a middle. Middle child rights. Yes, we support that in our house.
So, the idea of making digital and physical albums of the kids has great appeal to me. I discovered Lifeables from Capability:Mom’s post and wanted to see if it would work for me.
I like the idea of Lifeables … using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr to capture and preserve memories of your kids. But I have issues. I try to keep my kids out of my social media. There are just too many questions as to what is prudent and safe. Facebook and Twitter, when loaded into Lifeables returned zero photos of my kids. I guess it is as it should be.
I’m not using Instagram or Flickr now either.
Lifeables would have been perfect for my husband’s Facebook account. He posted oodles of great photos of the kids for our family and friends. Too bad our middle child got sucked in Zorpia. It was some viral social media website that tricked my husband and me into letting them into our email and Facebook accounts. Then, like a virus, it kept spamming all our contacts into joining Zorpia.
Zorpia was very difficult to shut down. My husband thought it was a pfishing scheme. Honestly, I’m still not sure what it is. As a result of Zorpia’s intrusive attack, he shut down his Facebook account. And now, a few weeks later, he says he doesn’t miss it at all. Too bad our photo albums are gone from there too!
My social media yielded no photos. I had better luck with my computer hard drive. My old PC desktop computer also got me years of photos when the kids were young.
It was easy to upload the photos to make a digital album. I liked the easy sharing as did my kids who received the albums. Now I need to add my more far flung relatives … my mom, brother and sister who live on the West coast. And my husband’s family who live in California too.
Lifeables for sharing and preserving memories … memory keeping has never been so easy or pain free. And it doesn’t require a bandaid like the falling tacks (or an icepack like the falling plexiglass frames.)
Get 10% off a Lifeables print book.
Use code LIFEBOOK1 at checkout. Offer valid through 12/14.
I received a stipend for reviewing Lifeables. My opinions are my own as is my adorable new digital photo album I just made and shared! I probably will never use Facebook or Twitter to post images of my kids but I would use Lifeables to upload photos from my computer to share with my family.
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BEST #OWNVOICES CHILDREN’S BOOKS: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages 1-12 is a book that I created to highlight books written by authors who share the same marginalized identity as the characters in their books.
I think it’s so cool that you have all those photos on the wall!
I love printing my photos as books – and my kids love looking at them.
Hi MaryAnne,
It’s a labor of love for my husband but it’s also the feature that everyone likes most at our house. I am an old-fashioned photo album person myself!
Yes, kids do love printed albums! Just clicked your link, going to check it out!
I LOVE your photo tunnel!
Thanks Ann,
Let me know what you think.
Love the tunnel – I have walked through it many times and never been injured in any way 🙂
I’m also cautious about my children’s footprint on social media sites – check out Common Sense Media for good tips on that. Also, we were spammed by Zorpia – it was sent as an email to one of my kids and once you open it you are doomed. I put on my pretend law degree (I have many pretend degrees) and wrote a Cease and Desist Letter – just write “cease and desist” in the subject line and write that you wish this contact to stop and your information to be removed from their lists. Worked for us!
Hi Nancy,
Hmmm… I should have written a Cease and Desist letter. Instead I wrote many angry emails to Zorpia. It still spammed my email contacts a month later. My husband shut down his Facebook because of Zorpia’s spamming. That site should be shut down!