10 Ways to Capture the Artifacts of Our Lives

The artifacts of our lives, the media that you treasure most, take many forms — photos, videos, music, postcards, letters, emails, and newspaper headlines from the day. It’s these artifacts that should be captured in your time capsule, your history project, to preserve and share those memories.

1. Take pictures of your favorite greeting cards that you receive (for example, holidays and birthdays) and add them to your history project.
2. Add your favorite family recipes to your history project. Now you never have to worry about losing them and can easily share them with others!
3. Invite others, such as your brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and whoever else, into your history project so they can add their memories and perspectives to your story.
4. Be nostalgic! Upload your favorite songs to your history project and play them while working on your story.
5. Record a parent or grandparent retelling the story about the origin of one of your family’s traditions and add it to your history project.
6. Go through that box of old family photos that’s been sitting in your parent’s garage for as long as you can remember and take pictures of your favorites through your phone then add those to your history project (bonus points if you record a voice note of your parent or grandparent giving the story behind any of your favorite photos).
7. Get together with a sibling or cousin to recount a favorite past family memory and add it to your history project. Then find and add photos from the event, add music, add voice notes, and a short written story about it.
8. Include your children, nephews, and nieces by asking them to share their favorite family tradition — record their story in your history project so they’ll be able to enjoy listening to it when they are grown up.
9. Share your history project with family. Give a live tour of your story you’ve built for family during the next get-together and reminisce old times together.
10. After the next family celebration or get-together share your favorite photos from the event with family by uploading them to your history project.

Start your History Project.