SYW287 – Memory Keeping with Video

[00:00:24] Jennifer Wilson: Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is episode 287. In this episode I'm joined by Natalie Strand to chat about video as a form of memory keeping and the process she's refined to ensure this dynamic format is part of her annual documentation.

[00:01:22] Hey, Natalie. Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way.

[00:01:24] Natalie Strand: Hi Jennifer. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so honored to be

[00:01:27] Jennifer Wilson: I've been looking forward to this conversation for a little bit now, and I think it's going to be a really juicy one. Can you start by sharing a little bit about yourself?

[00:01:36] Natalie Strand: Sure. My name is Natalie Strand. I live in a suburb of Baltimore with my husband of 18 years and we have two kids. My daughter is in seventh grade and my son is in fifth grade.

[00:01:47] Jennifer Wilson: Very cool. And have you always lived in that suburb of Baltimore?

[00:01:52] Natalie Strand: I have not. Um, we've lived here for, let's see, my daughter's almost 13. So almost 13 years. Um, and we came before that we were living in Syracuse and before that we were in Champaign, Illinois, where I think you are, right?

[00:02:07] Jennifer Wilson: Yes.

[00:02:07] Natalie Strand: Yes. My husband and I went to the University of Illinois for grad school, and that's where we met.

[00:02:11] Jennifer Wilson: Very fun. Yeah. I love having those small world connections. So it's a, it's a very neat and interesting town. And I never expected to live here, but I also don't want to leave. So.

[00:02:24] Natalie Strand: Yeah, it was, it was wonderful there. And actually we drive out to my in laws who live in Iowa at least once a year. And we always stop in Champaign because there are some restaurants there that we really like.

[00:02:35] Jennifer Wilson: Like, like what?

[00:02:36] Natalie Strand: Well, we really loved Dos Reales. That was like our go to place. When we were, yeah, it is. And it's like cheap and fast.

[00:02:44] Jennifer Wilson: We used to live right by there so that was like our, our once a week Mexican place for a while.

[00:02:49] Natalie Strand: Oh, That's basically what we did once a week at Dos.

[00:02:55] Jennifer Wilson: So Natalie, what is exciting you right now, both inside of scrapbooking and in your everyday life?

[00:02:59] Natalie Strand: Well, inside scrapbooking, I have really gotten into junk journaling, like pretty hard recently. Um, I started doing, um, junk journal July and junk journal January challenges. And I think the idea of not being really precise with my paper crafting was very attractive to me after many years of being pretty type A.

[00:03:23] Honestly, I'm a pretty type A person. Um, and so it's been very freeing and I just completed a junk journal for my son that is, um, also a scrapbook. So there's pictures in it and places for him to write his own journaling. And I'm excited to incorporate that freedom and like messiness into my regular scrapbooking. Um, in the future, I guess.

[00:03:48] Jennifer Wilson: Can you talk a little bit more about what junk journaling is for someone who's never seen it and doesn't really have a context, um, as it, of what it, what it looks like and what the experience is in contrast to, um, what they might see as scrapbooking.

[00:04:03] Natalie Strand: Okay. So junk journaling, I think is a pretty broad thing. Um, the way I take it is it's kind of like an art journal, but you don't have to be really painty about it. It's more about using

[00:04:16] found scraps. So it's kind of dangerous. Now I have a whole folder full of tissue paper and packing paper and security envelope linings and old book pages and music and things like that. And it's a lot of collaging and layering. I rarely use scissors when I am junk journaling, certainly not a trimmer. And so it's, um, and then I really love layering mixed media on top of it. So, swipes of paint, layered stamping, splatters, um, I incorporate. textiles into it, like fabric scraps, lace, um, thread bundles. And it's a very, um, it's very artistic. And it can be as layered or not. And I, a lot of the junk journalers I follow have more of a antique or vintage vibe to them. Um, and I like to try to, you know, I tend to buck that trend and do things that are a little more bright. Although I do really love old book pages and old music pages. So like combining that with whites and brighter paint colors so that it's like a fresher look with a little bit of that aged part underneath.

[00:05:31] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, that sounds really fun.

[00:05:32] Natalie Strand: I'm not really sure. Yeah, I'm not really sure if that really captures it. But I think it's pretty much whatever you want to do, honestly. And it's that's, that's why I mean, it's like that in scrapbooking, too.

[00:05:44] But you can do it in a journal that you've made yourself, you can do it in a pre made journal, you can take an old planner or a book and do the stuff on top of the pages. It's also a lot of not blank backgrounds. Like starting with a background that's in a printed page or something like that.

[00:06:04] Jennifer Wilson: Could you use some of your scrapbook supplies to like, get started with this and then start adding other things you find around your home?

[00:06:13] Natalie Strand: Oh, absolutely. In fact, that's how I did start the first few times. It was like a wonderful way for me to use up some of my older stash. Like I really liked the pieces, but they didn't really fit with the projects that I was working on, but I didn't want to get rid of them, but I didn't want to keep them.

[00:06:28] And so I would take like piles of embellishments that I wouldn't use in my scrapbooks, and I would cluster them onto a junk journal page. Um, I often use patterned paper scraps as part of my layers or part of the bases of journals that I might make. So yeah, I mean, you could totally do it with scrapbooking supplies.

[00:06:45] Jennifer Wilson: Very cool. I will. I think what we'll do is we'll link like a hashtag or two from Instagram, um, in the show notes for the episode for those who are new or curious or just want to explore more. Yeah, because I actually, I do, I have a box of stuff I've been keeping of like, just random packaging and just, you know, uh, scraps from other things that I've made. I'm like, well, I'm not going to throw that away. Like that could be used for something, but it's just kind of sitting there and I haven't really done anything with it. So it's, it's waiting for that burst of inspiration.

[00:07:16] Natalie Strand: Yeah. And actually one of my future plans, you know, in all the free time I have is to take some of those bits and pieces from like memory pieces, like something that's only has like a few lines of a story and just make a junk journal. And then just slap those things in maybe with a little label on it or like a little bit of writing to explain what it is. But then it would be contained, but not in a scrapbook.

[00:07:38] Jennifer Wilson: Interesting.

[00:07:39] Yeah. I have lots of these like little weird things from my grandma. Like I have all, cause I inherited all of her, her sewing things. And, and some of it's like, okay, what am I ever going to do with this? So I either need to like make a shadow box type thing and, let the rest go. Or I could see maybe doing more of a junk journal project and then maybe incorporating a little bit, like a few photos and some journaling just to kind of, you know, have a sense of completeness around using these items. So.

[00:08:12] Natalie Strand: Yes. Yeah, I have a couple boxes of recipes that were my grandma's and they're not handwritten ones. They're like, she really liked to cut out recipes, but like she has notes on them and things in her handwriting. And I can't bear to throw them away. So I was thinking of making that the base of a junk journal, like collaging them together as the pages and then using that for something else. So then it's like. The memories are honored, but I don't have to save them as recipes because I'm not going to make them.

[00:08:37] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. I mean, you don't want to put like jello and chicken together.

[00:08:44] Natalie Strand: There are some things that should not be done.

[00:08:48] Jennifer Wilson: All right. So we've gotten off track already. I think this bodes well for the rest of our conversation, but what is the non scrapbooking thing that is exciting you right now?

[00:08:57] Natalie Strand: Ok so it's costume season for us. We, um, have a family tradition of going overboard for Halloween, even though we don't really do a lot for actual Halloween. I just love dressing up. I love costumes. And so this year, um, I am doing, we're, this year we're making a trunk for our church's trunk or treat based on The Princess Bride. So I am, yes, I'm currently in the process of altering a couple patterns to combine them into one dress to make the red buttercup dress for my daughter. And I'm making Hogwarts Quidditch robes for my son, and we're going to, Disney and Universal in the beginning of December. So they're going to do double duty when we go to the Harry Potter section.

[00:09:44] Jennifer Wilson: Nice. I love the, the, the dual thinking there.

[00:09:48] Natalie Strand: Yes. It's pretty nice when you get to use the costume again. Like I never actually sewed real clothes for my children very frequently. Cause I was like, Oh, they grow too fast. And the, but yet I spend more than a month putting together a one time use costume because I really love the idea of cosplay. So they're often ridiculously overboard to try to be screen accurate.

[00:10:10] Jennifer Wilson: But awesome. You know, you do such a wonderful job. I'm a little, I take more of a crafting than a sewing approach to Emily's costumes. And now that she's is 13, she's definitely, she has, she uses procreate on her iPad and she has sketched out this whole thing. And she's like, mom, if you just buy like two sets of these wings from Amazon, I can wear one and then use the rest of these feathers for like, my, you know, uh, like a kind of a, I don't even know what it's called. Like if you make like a, a very long cover, your breast bone necklace with feathers, and then like a waistband type skirt with these feathers, she's got this whole thing all figured out. And I don't know really what it is other than a feathered female something.

[00:11:00] Natalie Strand: That's amazing. I love that. I hope that you'll share a picture of it because that sounds.

[00:11:05] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, yeah, and she's been like, Mom, have you ordered that yet? Like it's we only have a month I need some time to like to work on this so I ordered everything yesterday that she asked for. And I fully believe that she is going to to make it come to life. Just as we did when she wanted to be Cinderella's dog when she was six years old or seven years old. She never wanted to be Cinderella. She wanted to be Cinderella's dog. So.

[00:11:31] Natalie Strand: That's fantastic. I love the unique costumes, although sometimes it gets exhausting to be like, well, actually we're such and such character, not who you thought we were.

[00:11:40] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah, I tried to be Steve Jobs last year and nobody got it. So it was cold and I'm like, I have a black turtleneck. I can do this. And then nobody, like nobody thought nobody figured it out. But that's okay. I was warm.

[00:11:54] Natalie Strand: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:55] Jennifer Wilson: So Natalie, what is on your memory keeping bucket list? So this is a story that you haven't yet told yet, but it feels really important.

[00:12:02] Natalie Strand: Okay. So this is a really hard question for me because I have so many. And it's really hard to choose. Um, I think the last time I was on the podcast, which was like three years ago, I said my honeymoon. And I still haven't even touched that. Um, so that's definitely still on there. And I have projects that I want to finish that I feel like are important to finally get across the finish line. So I think I'm going to go with that for today. Um, we took a big extended family trip to Disney world in 2016. And it feels like, it was like a milestone trip, I guess, for our family. And so I want to finish the documentation of that so I can put a bow on it and say, this is done. These were amazing memories.

[00:12:49] Um, and then the other sort of on the opposite end of that is in 2019, I tried to do a version of Project Life where it was like documenting my everyday life. And so I took all the pictures and I wrote a lot of journaling and notes to myself, but I've only gotten through, February. And so I, and every time I pick it up, I'm very glad that I have all of that written down because everything changed in 2020. And so I would like to finish that. Um, but it's a matter of getting into the right mindset and setting aside the, the bandwidth and the time.

[00:13:25] Jennifer Wilson: Do you think you want to proceed with like your original plan or is there a course correction that you need to do?

[00:13:30] Natalie Strand: Yeah, I keep thinking about that and I can't figure out what the course correction is. I would, I, I'm also okay with just like, trying to do a month, a year. Or maybe, and sometimes when I get into a project, I kind of get momentum and I can accomplish more than I expected on it. Um, cause I'm sort of a, I realized I'm a one project at a time kind of girl.

[00:13:56] Like I can't move, between them. I kind of have to focus on one thing. And when I do that, I can sometimes really make a lot of progress, but it's a, it's a pocket page, um, album with inserts of full page layouts. And so when I get into it, like I set aside, I make a kit for myself for the month. And I have, I have all the pictures printed for March and April. If not more. And so then I just sit down and I construct the pages. It's just, when is that going to be the project at the top of my list?

[00:14:30] Jennifer Wilson: And that makes sense for sure. Yeah. I mean, and to know yourself and know that I really need to focus on this one thing, because if I don't, then I'm not going to do anything. It's because it's always like, okay, well, I have these choices. Now what do I do? Okay. I'm going to scroll Instagram instead, because I don't want to make that decision.

[00:14:48] But if you have that one thing in front of you. It's often easier to jump in. So, well, I, I fully believe you're going to get it done. And I also, I understand having these projects. You're like, I really need to focus on these things because there's just like sitting on my shoulder, reminding me like, Hey, do you want to finish me?

[00:15:09] Natalie Strand: Yes. And they do, they do actually weigh on me. So it would be nice to get some of these off my plate. Yeah.

[00:15:16] Jennifer Wilson: So. The topic of this episode is memory keeping with video. Because this is something that I haven't really explored much myself. The only thing I do is I keep all my videos in one place, and I guess it sorts it chronologically. Can you start by sharing how long you've been taking digital videos of your family?

[00:15:35] Natalie Strand: Sure. So I looked back and it looks like the first time I started really, um, deliberately keeping my videos in the same place was in 2012. And that tracks because my daughter was born at the end of 2011. And so I think I was starting to take a lot more videos because she was a baby and my in laws live really far away and my parents aren't super close. And so I wanted to be able to share videos of this, you know, the first grandchild on both sides. I wanted to be able to, um, share those videos. So I think. 2012 is when I have the first designated folder for videos.

[00:16:17] Jennifer Wilson: And why do you love it? Like, what does it mean to you? And in terms of a contrast with photos.

[00:16:22] Natalie Strand: Well, I think part of it is sort of an obvious thing. Like you can't capture movement in photos. Like I kind of like the idea of like the Harry Potter world where, you know, those, the moving pictures where they almost interact with you. But, and so, but we don't have that so videos are, are what we've got. Um, I like that, um, you can capture mannerisms and the way people move, people's voices and the sounds of the time in a way that obviously photos don't have that. I don't know that I set out saying, I love video and so I'm gonna take a lot of it. It was kind of like I need to capture this thing and video is going to be the right way to capture it. And so it's kind of morphed a lot over the years.

[00:17:08] Jennifer Wilson: Well, and nowadays it's so much easier and better quality to take a photo from a video that I know when we're traveling, Steve takes a lot of videos and then he like will save an extra photo from that, for me, if like, for example, I'm in it. So, um, you can kind of get best of both worlds sometimes. It just, it wasn't as easy to do that in 2012.

[00:17:30] Natalie Strand: Right. Yes. And frame capture has, yeah, has gotten so much easier and like, yeah. That it's very valuable because then you don't have to choose between one or the other on the same device. You can say, Oh, well, I'm going to be able to get a photo out of this because I want to make sure I catch the moment in the span of the video.

[00:17:48] Jennifer Wilson: Yes.

[00:17:48] Natalie Strand: We'll go back and pull that moment out.

[00:17:50] Jennifer Wilson: So I'm curious, do you have any like, uh, context or background growing up in a household with home movies? Um, and I'm just kind of thinking like, has that somehow even subconsciously informed, you know, using this as part of your process?

[00:18:05] Natalie Strand: Yeah, I think. When you ask this question, I think actually it does. So growing up, my parents took a lot of home videos. Um, I remember like on Christmas, we would have to wait until my dad got the video camera set up and the lights on. And there was little markings of tape on the floor. Like, don't go outside of these boundaries because then you won't be in the shot kind of things.

[00:18:26] Like he would have it up on a tripod so that we could have our present opening recorded. Um, and there are there were lots of videos of performances. My brother and I were both very involved in music. Um, and so there's a lot of that. And actually recently my dad just digitized all of them. So there's VHS tapes, there's eight millimeter tapes, and he, did some on his own, sent some off. And then he took the time to chop them into segments, like, um, clips that were all related together. And just this past summer, he gave my brother and I each a giant, uh, thumb drive full of all of the videos.

[00:19:09] Jennifer Wilson: That's amazing.

[00:19:10] Natalie Strand: Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, it's like such a treasure. Because we took a lot of pictures too. Um. But this is like, there are things in the videos that I remember, but there aren't pictures of. Um, and there's like, friends of mine who I'm still friends with in those videos, like, in first grade.

[00:19:27] And so I'm excited to eventually share those videos with those friends. Um, and what's funny is I hated watching home movies when I was a kid. I hated seeing myself. I think I was embarrassed. I didn't like the way my voice sounded. I thought I was bossy or whatever, and I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see it. But this summer, uh, my dad gave us the thumb drives while we were on a big family vacation. And so a couple of nights we sat down and watched the videos together as like just the adults, my kids were in bed. But it was hilarious. It was so funny to look back, and then it was also fun to see my daughter in myself. in myself

[00:20:11] Jennifer Wilson: Yes.

[00:20:11] Natalie Strand: As a kid, or my son, I think is very like my brother in some ways. And just being able to see those connections in the mannerisms and the, you know, the way we talk the what we are interested in. And my parents didn't just record the big stuff. They recorded us going outside and riding a bike around the yard or climbing on the swing set. Um, and so, it's a real treasure.

[00:20:36] Jennifer Wilson: For sure. Yeah. So I'm, I'm sure that had an influence whether you knew it or not. And even, I think all of us who are, I would say many of us who are scrapbookers today, I think, uh, we can attribute some of that to just, having that lifelong appreciation of photos. Whether that was within your family or someone else in your life, um, or even something you discovered on your own. It was like, this, there's something special here. And now we've just evolved that to adding more crafty things with it.

[00:21:07] Natalie Strand: Yes, absolutely. And I think it goes back even a generation. Because my mom has home movies that she would watch, when she was like when I was growing up. I remember my uncle digitized a bunch of or not digitized. He got them on the VHS. There was no digitizing. But, um, he got them on VHS and she'd always, always kind of joke around with us. Like who wants to watch movies of me as a kid? And my, my, both my parents have a lot of photos from their childhood. So I think it, it was definitely an unconscious influence, but it was like something that clearly was valued. And so I took it forward.

[00:21:43] Jennifer Wilson: I remember watching slideshows in my grandparents basement of their trip. Like, they did a lot of stuff, like, after, my dad and his brother were fully grown, my grandparents were big travelers, and they always took video and photos. And they went snowmobiling every winter, and, like, they had lots of, lots of stories. So.

[00:22:03] Natalie Strand: That's awesome.

[00:22:04] Jennifer Wilson: Let's talk about your process and I think we'll get to some of kind of the challenges and how we manage all of this. But what is your ultimate goal within a year for your family videos?

[00:22:15] Natalie Strand: Okay. So since, uh, 2018, I've been doing a one second a day project. And so that's kind of the focus right now. Um, with my videos. But I also, I think an overarching goal of my photo and video management, my husband does joke that my photo and video management processes are like a whole nother hobby beyond scrapbooking. But I have this, like, I don't know if it's rational or irrational fear of not being around and people being like, why do these videos exist? Why did you save these? And why did you save these photos? Like, what's the reason? And so my goal is, is to have them cataloged in some way or documented in some way so that a person who got, who acquires like my, maybe my kids, maybe somebody else can look and see why, why was this worth saving? What was the point? And so I have been pretty diligently, um, cataloging my photos for a lot of years now. And so I do the one second a day project. I heard about it, um, many years ago, I think a blogger or two had mentioned it and I started looking into it. And the idea is that you take one second of video and you combine those clips for a whole year. And at the end of the year, you have. You know, over a six minute video. And it just is a little snippet that just goes from one to the next. But it kind of captures the whole year in a way that is, I would say, accessible, like something you want to watch. Rather than like, I will say, even though I love having the concerts that my parents recorded of me, and I like to show them to my daughter and be like, see, I actually did play the flute really well. I don't want to sit down and watch the whole concert. But I do want to remember that I did that concert. So this is kind of like that. Like, I want to remember that we did these little things without having to watch a whole home movie of them.

[00:24:25] Jennifer Wilson: Do you think your 2019 videos satisfies that Project Life project that you haven't finished? Like, is that maybe one of the reasons why you haven't felt as strongly about getting it done?

[00:24:36] Natalie Strand: No, actually.

[00:24:37] Jennifer Wilson: Okay. Okay. That's fair.

[00:24:39] Natalie Strand: I, I, I didn't, I did not do the video project in

[00:24:43] 2019. So I did it, I did it in 2018 and we loved it. Um, and in, but it was a lot of work. I was

[00:24:51] learning what, what my process was. And I was like, always like, Oh no, I forgot to take a video or, Oh no, I need a video for today.

[00:24:58] Like, let's do this. And it kind of stressed my husband out. And so he said, can you take a break, please? And I said, okay. You know, like I wanted to honor that because it was our whole family who ended up being involved in this. Um, and so I did not do it in 2019. And I, and I think instead I was like, well, I'll document it in a Project Life way then.

[00:25:17] Jennifer Wilson: OK, ok. Yeah that makes sense then.

[00:25:22] Natalie Strand: Yeah. So then we realized actually we did like it. So I went back to it in 2020. And I've been doing it ever since.

[00:25:31] Jennifer Wilson: Now, did you make that decision in 2020 before, after the start of the pandemic?

[00:25:35] Natalie Strand: Before. Yeah. I always started on January 1st. And so I had no idea it was coming. And it's really weird to watch that video because you see like us doing all sorts of things and all of a sudden it's like home, home, home, home.

[00:25:49] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. Okay. So this is a one second a day project. Now, I know there's an app called 1 Second Everyday. And is that part of your process? .

[00:25:57] Natalie Strand: So actually it's not. Um, I, when I heard about this project, it was in sort of the context of that app. But when I started looking into it back then, um, the reviews of the app were not good at the time. Now, I have no idea that I'm sure that it has gotten better because it's been a lot of years. Um, but because I was seeing people saying that maybe the data would get lost or the projects would glitch or something like that.

[00:26:27] I thought, well, I'm not going to pay for an app that might cause problems. So I sort of looked at what I already had, and I have an iPhone. And so I had iMovie and I thought, well, Why don't I just do it manually in iMovie and then I have complete control over it? Like it's sort of a tradition of mine to make things as complicated as possible.

[00:26:51] Jennifer Wilson: I don't think that's only your tradition. I think many of us share that tradition.

[00:26:55] Natalie Strand: I will say though that because I've been doing it in iMovie, I have learned a lot about how to use it. I'm not like some kind of expert in video editing. That's like, I think that's a whole separate art. But I've learned how to combine things. And so not only do I do the one second every day app, but each basketball season, I take a lot of video clips of my son when he plays. And so I'll assemble sort of a highlights reel for him each year. And, that is a way to capture those moments. And not set like what I used to do back in 2012 when I started taking videos of my daughter is I would pick the ones I wanted to share, put them in a Dropbox folder, and then the grandparents would have to go in and watch each of the clips individually. And so iMovie has let me say, okay, well, this was an event, or this was the day we went sledding and it was really fun. Or this is the season of basketball, and I can make sort of a self-contained video of it. So it's not, well, here's this clip and here's this clip. It's all sort of smooshed together, so you don't have to make the decision.

[00:28:01] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. So can you talk a little bit more about the process of making your video in iMovie and what do you do with it when you're done?

[00:28:14] Natalie Strand: Okay. So, um, the process sort of goes hand in hand with my video management process, if that's all right, if I talk about both at the same time. So, um. What I do is I gather all of my videos together and I keep a yearly folder on my, on my laptop or my external hard drive. And within that year, I have each month. So that it doesn't get too, unwieldy with all the video clips. Um, and I put all the clips from the month into a folder and ideally each week I go in and I look at the clips from the past week and I delete the ones that I don't want to keep at all. I change the file name a little bit. Like I keep the date and then I add maybe a word or two of description in the file name so that it's easy to find it later. And then I have a text file where I put the file name and then I write a little caption or brief description. Sometimes it's more, but um, sometimes it's just as short as this is what the garden looked like today. Um, and then from there I go into iMovie and I bring all of the clips from the week in. So I do a week at a time again, so it doesn't get too unwieldy. And I bring in the seven clips from the week. I do Sunday to Saturday. And then I go in and I use the, the cropping tool in, I guess it's the cropping tool. I, I clip the video to the one second that I want. And then I use one of the headings to date it at the bottom. Because I want to see the, the date that it was happening. Um, and then I export that week and I store those in a separate folder within that year that are just the weekly one second videos. And then each quarter, I take the 13. weeks, and I put them all together into one video file. And then at the end of the year, I combine all four quarters.

[00:30:17] Jennifer Wilson: That seems like a really safe way to do it. In terms

[00:30:20] of like, trying to do 365 in one iMovie file to me is, would be scary.

[00:30:27] Natalie Strand: Yeah, it's, it's terrifying. And you don't know, like, Oh, did I already do that one? Like, I do watch it through many times, or I skim through with the little tracking tool in iMovie to make sure that I didn't duplicate a week or that my dates are all formatted the same way or something like that. But yeah, it's. But if I do it each week, then it's only seven that I need to keep track of. And then for the quarters, it's only 13. It definitely reduces the load.

[00:30:55] Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. So you said you have a text file in the, each weekly folder that has like notes about each day.

[00:31:02] Natalie Strand: Um, it's actually each monthly folder. I, I only, um, go to the month sub level. Yeah. And so that it's literally a plain text file. Because I can't remember exactly what happened, but I think at the I was trying to put them in emails. Like the captions when I would send them out to these, the grandparents from Dropbox, that kind of thing. And I would, I think somehow I lost a bunch. So I thought I'm going to put it in a text file because this is the most basic way to save anything. Like any computer can read a text file. And so I copy and paste the file name. And then I put a colon, and I write the caption, and then I save it. And so it's labeled with the year, the number of the month, and then, like, so, for instance, 2024 underscore 06 underscore June video captions. Is the title of that text file, and then it's just a list.

[00:31:57] Jennifer Wilson: And do you combine that at the end into one text file?

[00:32:00] Natalie Strand: No, I don't. Those, no, those, those monthly text files live in the folder with that month's videos. And actually I don't share those because, it's, you know, about, it's at least 30 video clips a month.

[00:32:15] Jennifer Wilson: Sure.

[00:32:17] Natalie Strand: And so it's a lot. And some of it is something that, I mean, I probably could delete some of the more mundane clips later, but I'm afraid to, like, what if I do want to see more of that video some other time?

[00:32:31] I don't know. Yeah, we could get into storage issues there for sure. But for now, I don't delete any of the video clips. And there are days when I've got, you know, if we go to the zoo and I take a bunch of clips, like there's 5, 10, or we have a week of vacation, or VBS at our church was a big deal this year. And my daughter was, you know, in the music team. So I took videos of all of her songs. That that's a lot of videos.

[00:33:01] Jennifer Wilson: And so how do you store them all on your computer's hard drive, on external drive? Do you use any cloud systems, what about backup? Like, can you talk about that, like the actual file management part?

[00:33:11] Natalie Strand: Sure. Yeah. So I keep the most current years on my laptop itself, the hard drive of my laptop. Um, I obviously videos take a lot more space than, um, photos do. So I have to offload them. So currently I have 2022, 2023 and 2024 on my laptop. And that's probably at the end of this year, I'm going to have to move 2022 to my external hard drive. So I have a solid state external hard drive that I use as extra storage. It's not a backup, it's just extra storage. And that's where I keep my archived videos and photos in school. And actually I put my dad's home movies, I copied them onto that too, just so I had another copy of them. Um, and then my laptop and my external hard drive are all backed up with Backblaze to the cloud. So I have that as a, like a safety as well. And then, important videos, particularly the final like year long one second videos, I actually put onto my, the server that my dad has at his house, um, for like a offsite backup.

[00:34:29] Jennifer Wilson: Excellent. Yes. Now you shared those with our community as well. Um, did you post it on YouTube? Like unlisted or I'm trying to remember the format.

[00:34:38] Natalie Strand: Yeah. So the one second videos, then I do upload to YouTube for sharing. Because they are, they're not small file, they're smaller, but they're not super small. And so I do upload them to YouTube. And I do keep them, um, private. So only the people that have the link can see them. Just because, you know, it's my family and often friends and relatives and stuff. And I don't like go around and collect permission from all of them. So I want to make sure to honor their, their privacy as well. But I do share, I do share them in the community. So it's Simple Scrapper members can see them.

[00:35:15] Jennifer Wilson: Now, have you thought about going back at all pre 2018, um, and trying to do something from that 2012 to 2018 time period?

[00:35:25] Natalie Strand: No. I mean, I think the, I had not until you posed the question. Um, and I don't think I would do it. I think it is too big of a project. And I also don't think that I have enough content. Because of the project, I take a video every day, but before 2018, I was not thinking that way. And so I only took videos of what I thought was worth taking a video of. So there's not going to be like the random one of me washing dishes or taking bread out of the oven or a panorama of my garden. Um, those are things that I started taking once I started this project. And so I do have videos combining, like, like I was saying, like a, you know, a day sledding or something like that, like individual projects. But I don't think I, it would be overwhelming, I think, to go back and try to fill in the gaps of a, you know, one second.

[00:36:32] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, I think I was thinking more along the lines of a summary type of project of, you know, I didn't do this for these years, but here's the videos I do have in one place at whatever. They don't even have to be one second, but like, let's have them all to like three seconds or five seconds. Um, just to say they're all in one place.

[00:36:52] Natalie Strand: I had not thought of that. Um, I would say probably I shouldn't cause I have, I have so many other projects.

[00:37:02] Jennifer Wilson: I think that only comes from the videos that I have saved. They're primarily of Emily because you know, we take more videos of our kids probably than ourselves. And I do see that either at her eighth grade graduation or high school graduation, I just want to like take all those and make a video that can play in the background type of thing. So.

[00:37:23] Natalie Strand: Oh, I had not thought of that. Well,

[00:37:28] Jennifer Wilson: You have time.

[00:37:29] Natalie Strand: My daughter's in seventh grade, so I have a few years still.

[00:37:33] Jennifer Wilson: Have time.

[00:37:34] Natalie Strand: Or maybe I'll have her do it.

[00:37:36] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah, that's true. That could be a fun project. They are so tech savvy. I am, I am ready to hire Emily within the next year or two to do stuff for the business. Because she's so much, so much better at some of these things than I am.

[00:37:47] Natalie Strand: Yeah. I don't even know where they learn it, but it's like osmosis or something. They just live in the world and they figure these things out.

[00:37:54] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. I'm probably like, I always joke about how I can use a lot of the Adobe products, but not Illustrator, but I'm pretty sure that she could just teach me that at this point. So.

[00:38:02] Natalie Strand: Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:04] Jennifer Wilson: So Are all the videos that you're taking, are these all coming from your phone or do you have multiple devices that are bringing in video?

[00:38:14] Natalie Strand: I would say the vast majority are from my phone. That has not always been the case and is not. It's so currently it's mostly my phone. My husband will take some sometimes. Sometimes I will ask my friends or family to share something with me. Um, especially it's really nice with AirDrop to be able to just have them quick send me a thing. Um, I also make use of live photos now that I know how to do that. And I, again, my kids are involved in a lot of musical performances like, um, I was as a kid. And so, um, sometimes they actually take a professional video and then share that. And so I will sometimes take clips out of those, but right now it's mostly my own phone.

[00:39:03] Now, I also have a waterproof camera for when we're at the beach or the pool or something like that. And so I will bring those on. And the reason I use my laptop is actually because that's how it's easiest to get all the videos in one place. When I started doing this, I was using iMovie on my phone and it would be a huge hangup when I would get to weeks where we are at the pool or the week of vacation with the beach. And I would have to go through the rigmarole of getting the stuff off of my camera, onto my computer and then onto my phone just so I could do the video project.

[00:39:39] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah, that's, I mean that's hard and plus you're on the smaller screen and it's harder to like use your fingers to do something really small.

[00:39:46] Natalie Strand: Yes. Yes. And for the most part, I have found that the iMovie app on my MacBook is has more features than the one on my phone. At one point, something changed on the one on the phone. And so that was like the turning point for me because I'd already been thinking of doing it. I don't remember what it was, but it was a few years ago. And I was like, you know what? Just doing it on my computer now and it has been a lot easier.

[00:40:12] Jennifer Wilson: Well, and I think if somebody like wants to or needs to do it on their phone. Using an, an app that can do that in a more, uh, automated way to clip the videos or to help you do it probably can be helpful. So I can, yeah, I can see why though, if you're, if you want all that full control or you need it, then having the bigger screen and a mouse and, uh, or a track pad, anything is going to be a little bit easier. So.

[00:40:41] Natalie Strand: Yeah, it totally can be done on a, on a phone. And I've done other projects on my phone just because it's sometimes it's, it's quicker, especially for like shorter projects. Um, yeah, it's totally doable on the phone. I just don't have much patience.

[00:40:57] Jennifer Wilson: Okay, so we talked about your text files that give, and you're also your file renaming to, to make sure you have metadata connected to each video clip. Are you doing anything in within the metadata of the file itself? Um, and I'd also love if you talked a little bit more about what you're actually doing with photos. Because I know you're also adding a lot of information there too.

[00:41:19] Natalie Strand: Sure. Yeah. So I don't actually know if I can add things to the metadata of movies. I would love to know if that's possible. I should probably research that, but if anybody knows and leaves a comment, that'd be great.

[00:41:33] Jennifer Wilson: I think so. I mean See if I can find a video file here I'm pretty sure you can in this very similar way that you can but I actually don't know the real answer.

[00:41:43] Natalie Strand: Right. And so I guess also that just made me think I didn't have, I had a very old version of Lightroom for a long time, and I just recently upgraded to the, um, Lightroom Classic cloud version. Um, and like the, the subscription model, I guess I should say. And I can deal with videos in Lightroom now. To a certain extent. And I wonder if there's a way to add the metadata there, like I do for my photos. Like right now, the only metadata that I'm changing of the video is.

[00:42:14] Jennifer Wilson: File name.

[00:42:15] Natalie Strand: File name. And then everything else is going to that text file. But for my photos in Lightroom, I will go into the, like in the library module. On the right hand side, there's all the stuff you can add, like you can add keywords, you can add um, uh, and then you can add a bunch of metadata. And so I will use the caption field.

[00:42:39] And you can enter the, enter text in there, and then it gets saved as part of the photo file itself. Like it is attached to the file. And it can be when you do it in Lightroom, at least, I don't know about other photo management software, but it is transferable outside of Lightroom. It's not just something that's in the Lightroom catalog. And so that was really a light bulb moment for me when I realized you could add text to the metadata of a photo file. Cause it was like, it was like the old days where we would get our pictures printed from film and then you'd turn them over and you'd write everybody's name on the back and the date and maybe where you were. And this, sort of satisfies that, I don't know if you call it a training. But I remember my mom, whenever I would get a folder of photos, she'd be like, you make sure you write down people's names on there. Cause you want to remember who they are later. And my friends would laugh at me because in high school, I'm sitting there like labeling all of all the people in the photo.

[00:43:41] And they're like, are you going to forget me? And I was like, maybe. I want to make sure I don't. And so that when, when I first got a digital camera, I was kind of stressed out. Because I was like, how am I going to label these? And so this is, this is that, but digital.

[00:43:59] Jennifer Wilson: Correct, yeah, I mean it's I think it's something we all have various amounts of Of patience and persistence on to, to get a handle on all of it. So I briefly tested looking in Lightroom cause I had it open and you can't, when you, uh, when you're looking at a photo, you can choose to save metadata to the file.

[00:44:22] You can also set it up to have it do it automatically. And that right click, it doesn't happen on a video. But I imagine if you then maybe re export it, that the caption might be there. But I don't know if you can really, can you export videos?

[00:44:38] Natalie Strand: Honestly, the right now, because I had such an old version, it would mess up my Lightroom to have videos in it. So I never. Yeah, I never put it in there, but with this new version, like the current version, um, the only way I've used videos so far is to get, um, screen captures from them. Like exporting a frame as a photo. So I'm going to have to do some experimenting because that's a very interesting idea.

[00:45:03] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. Okay. I just exported a video that I put a caption on. I'm not seeing it in the file information. So, yeah, we'll have to like, figure out more of that because it's got to be possible. It's just knowing and then remembering and using all of the steps to make sure that it's where that information is where you want it to be.

[00:45:23] Natalie Strand: Absolutely.

[00:45:24] Jennifer Wilson: Oh, my gosh, this has been so, so fascinating and so interesting. What have we not covered? So comparing, have you tried Project Life since 2019?

[00:45:34] Natalie Strand: No. Actually I have only ever completed, well, I've only ever tried and because I'm me, I had to complete them, um, two years of, no, three years of Project Life. So I did one in 2010, I did one the year of my daughter's first year, and then I wanted to do the same for my son. So I did one for his first year. And I, I hated it. I love the final results, but I just did not like the process. And so to me, this video project is so much easier. Like there's no journaling involved unless you're like me and decide to caption every photo you keep on your computer. Um, it's not, there's no making sure the photos are printed. It's like all very contained to me. And it's very modular to me in a way that the Project Life or everyday documenting like that, any kind of form like that, isn't that easy for me. I do very poorly with daily projects. And so this has been so much easier for me. And I have also learned a lot about myself and taught myself a lot about not being overly rigid in the project. So I don't take a video every day. I forget a lot. And especially if I get stuck, like I'll get stuck when the there's too many videos for a day, or I'll get stuck when it's a performance video and I need to wait for it to come to like actually get access to it. Or I want to know which song was my favorite or was my child's favorite from their concert so that I get a clip from that one. Um, and so I'll get stuck and then if I get stuck for too long, then it sort of gets out of the habit and I forget to take videos. And so I have some tricks with that where I when I realized, oh my goodness, I've gotten a little behind on this. I have like B roll ideas where I will take a video of the weather that week or the garden is an easy one because I'm always out in my garden, you know, harvesting or taking care of the plants or whatever. Recently, at the end of last school year, I realized I was getting behind. So one morning I took several clips of videos of me preparing my kids, different parts of my kids lunches. So like making the peanut butter and jelly or slicing up the strawberries. At the end of the day, when I realized I haven't taken a video, I will often take a picture of my feet in front of the TV and the opening credits of whatever show we're watching.

[00:48:09] Cause that captures just a little bit of life and you don't need to have good lighting for that. Um, And so I have figured out ways to fill in the blanks. I try not to use videos that are like plus or minus a week or two. Because the seasons do change. And it is, it is kind of obvious when it doesn't feel like it in real life, but when you're seeing it just one second at a time, you're like, oh, yeah, it did get cooler there.

[00:48:37] The weather was like this, or whatever. But I can usually catch up and I also will use live photos to get a video clip when I've forgotten to take an actual video. You can export the live photo with all photos data and it includes the It's usually like two to three seconds of video that was recorded at the same time. And I can use that in my video. And actually I recently learned that you can combine a series of live photos into a longer video in right in the iPhone. So that has saved me.

[00:49:14] Jennifer Wilson: Yes.

[00:49:15] Natalie Strand: A few times. And then at last resort, well, not last resort, but getting there is I will use a still photo and I'll use the ken Burns Effect. where it's like the pan and zoom. So it looks like it's moving still kind of. And then every once in a while, I just skip it. I skip the day, which was a really hard thing for me to learn.

[00:49:37] Jennifer Wilson: I, I'm noticing this trend in multiple things that we've talked about here about giving yourself permission for, for imperfection for lower standards. Um, so that all sounds very healthy and wise.

[00:49:53] Natalie Strand: Yeah. Yeah. It's taken me a while to get there. But I'm finally giving myself some of that freedom. Like, it's okay. Like the, it's what, it's the end result that really matters. And it is very cool when it's an actual thing on the actual day. But capturing the mood of that week or that month or the season is the important part of the project.

[00:50:15] Jennifer Wilson: So it sounds like you have really great strategies for making sure the content is there. What about if you are feeling behind on actually processing it? When you, if you're behind on working with your videos and, uh, following your full process.

[00:50:32] Natalie Strand: Yeah. So full disclosure, that's where I'm at right now. So I'm dealing with, at the moment I'm back in June with my project for this year. Um, and it, when that comes into play, I have to put it as more of a priority on my projects list. So earlier I talked about how I'm like a one project at a time kind of person. And I have to say, this is my project for these days or this week. Rather than trying to do some of the other things I'm working on. And so I will sit down and it's often, like I said, when I get one of those roadblock moments where there were too many videos for the day or whatever. And I just have to sit down and do it.

[00:51:15] And sometimes getting behind quote unquote, is good because I can look back with a less invested perspective. And I can say, well, this is a more interesting video for the one second. Sometimes, you know, you're like, well, this thing was really important, but it won't be captured in one second. And so maybe this other clip is better in this case. I've been known to go to my husband and have him adjudicate between clips for a day. Like, do you think this one is better or this one? And he's pretty good at being sort of dispassionate about it. Like he can actually cares very much about this. He loves the project now. Um, but he'll be like, this one's better.

[00:51:52] And then that's nice. I'm outsourcing the decision. And I, he said something to me one time that was really impactful. It was toward the beginning of this project. And I was asking him, should I do this video of what I did today? Or this video of something the kids did. And he was like, well, this is your project. It should be what you did. It's about you. And I was like, that's a really good point. This is my perspective. This is not necessarily documenting my kids. I do that in other ways. This is about how I saw the year. And so it's okay to choose my video. And I liked that he sort of articulated that permission that I was not quite ready to give myself at the moment.

[00:52:30] Jennifer Wilson: Well, and I like how this, uh, using this format, this type of media, uh, gives you that opportunity to accept a different, you know, point of view or perspective on the project itself. Um, shares a certain type and subset of our memories and you still have other projects to satisfy creative urges and memory keeping goals. Um, which is, that's why none of us seem to have only one type of craft or hobby.

[00:53:02] Natalie Strand: That's right.

[00:53:05] Jennifer Wilson: I guess one more question here is, what type of accountability have you used to get yourself to work on this when it feels like, oh, I really need to catch up.

[00:53:15] Natalie Strand: Sure. This is not, my favorite project to do. It's one of my favorite final results, but it is, it is something that I have to definitely, um, schedule into my day. Cause I'm not going to generally sit down and be like, Ooh, yay, I get to caption videos. Um, but I use Monday co working in the Simple Scrapper membership as a really powerful accountability technique. Where for two hours we sit down and we work on stuff. And that generally is a really good time for me to focus on what I would consider more of the hard tasks of memory keeping. Where I'm doing photo management and video management. And because we are saying, okay, for 52 minutes, we're going to quietly focus on one thing. I can, if I get into the flow of it, I can really accomplish a lot in one sitting. And so that's, that's generally where I aim to work on both my photo and my video management. And my goal, you know, right now I'm definitely behind, but my goal in like, quote, unquote, normal times, is to be able to deal with the past week in that one of those hours.

[00:54:20] And when I'm on top of things, and I haven't let things slide, it takes me less than an hour to go through the videos and the photos and then construct that week in the iMovie with just the one second clips. And it's really satisfying.

[00:54:34] Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. And especially just, you know, Mondays are for eating those frogs. And so if you can feel like you've tackled some of the parts that you're grateful for, but don't particularly enjoy, then the rest of your week only gets better from there.

[00:54:47] Natalie Strand: Right. And I will often, because I've spent that time on Mondays, then I feel a little bit freer to do other things during other free periods in my week that aren't photo and video management.

[00:54:59] Jennifer Wilson: Yes.

[00:55:00] Natalie Strand: Because I've, you know, I've done the chores and so I can play.

[00:55:05] Jennifer Wilson: We all, we all want to feel that and to have that sense of balance between the things that we know we need to do and should do. Um, and we can sometimes give ourselves permission to put them off, but in the end they need to get done. Um, and so how can we, we balance things so that we are spending time on ourselves and for the projects that are important to us.

[00:55:24] Natalie Strand: Yeah, and I would say one other way that I sort of keep myself accountable is I always aim to have this one second video project finished by the first week of the next year. Because I don't want to bog myself down with trying to catch up and start the new one. And also I feel like there's that new year energy. And if I'm going to share this, people aren't going to want like in February to see my past year in review. Right. So I want to get it out while like people are, might be interested in it.

[00:55:53] Jennifer Wilson: I like that. I like that. That's a great goal. I know a lot of people have that goal for their December Daily projects as well. Like, I need to, I need to wrap this up or, or even their Project Life if that's a project they enjoy doing. Um, so that it's, it's not bleeding over into what I'm starting next.

[00:56:09] Natalie Strand: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:56:10] Jennifer Wilson: Do you have any other advice for memory keepers or listeners who want to get a better handle on their videos and maybe do something with them?

[00:56:18] Natalie Strand: Yeah. I would say just start where you are. Don't try to like go back a bunch of years and fix up the past. Just start now. Kind of like your photo crush mentality where you start now and you set up your systems and you move forward with them. And then if you have the time and the desire to go back, then you already know the system that you're using and you can work backward. But there's so many ways and you can talk to me if you want to talk about them, like how to make things harder. I'm really good at making things harder. Um, and that is something obviously I'm still learning is don't make it harder than it needs to be. You don't have to do a whole year in one second. If you want to try it, just do a month. I have a friend who releases hers monthly, and I think that's a really cool way to do it. And it keeps her engaged in a different way with the project. And, um, I think just find what's easiest. Because as you were saying to me before, just doing anything is more than most people. And that's a, that's a powerful thing to be able to say, I know what videos I have, and I combined a few clips into one and now look at this fun thing that we can look back on together.

[00:57:35] Jennifer Wilson: Yes, yes, I can see it working so well for Week In The Life or Day In The Life projects or holiday projects. Anything that you can put, if you, if you don't feel like you could handle or stay consistent with that or not ready for it yet, doing it for something that's more time bound, I think it'd be really fun.

[00:57:52] Natalie Strand: Absolutely. Oh, that'd be so fun for like, I've tried to do it for like vacations and things like that. And I love that idea. And like there's whole ways you could make it more complicated, like adding music and stuff like that. But I think I actually deliberately do not do that for the year project. Because I want to hear the ambient sounds in the videos. There's a lot of things you can do, but starting simple and small, I'm preaching to myself here. Simple and small is the way to start.

[00:58:22] Jennifer Wilson: Natalie, can you share where our listeners can find you online if they'd like to connect more with you and anything you might be working on later this year?

[00:58:30] Natalie Strand: Sure. So I post, um, less frequently than I used to, both on Instagram and my blog. My Instagram is natalie. strand and my blog is vegetablog. wordpress. com. Um, and I do have a YouTube channel, but I rarely post there. Mostly it's flip throughs or short, short videos and on I'm also, I try to be active in the Simple Scrapper community and I do, I do post the one year videos there. So.

[00:59:06] Jennifer Wilson: Fantastic. We will link those up in the show notes so that folks can connect with you. And of course they can find you on Monday mornings, hanging out with us at Quiet Coworking if they're interested in, in being a part of that experience as well.

[00:59:19] Natalie Strand: Yeah, I highly recommend it. It's a good, it's a good group of people and it's a great way to get stuff

[00:59:24] Jennifer Wilson: Thank you for spending time with me and thanks for sharing all this. I am super inspired to maybe take a next small step on my videos.

[00:59:33] Natalie Strand: That's awesome. Thank you so, so much for having me. I'm so honored.

[00:59:37] Jennifer Wilson: And to all of our listeners, please remember that you have permission to scrapbook your way.

[00:59:41]