*Free offer in this post

Most people have a few yearbooks tucked away either on a bookcase or in a box of memorabilia under their beds. Yearbooks feature old classmates, teachers of the past, and are essentially time capsules. How many of us have flipped through pages of our parent’s yearbooks and noticed the contrasts of what they looked like then versus now? Hairstyles, clothing, and even the pictures themselves evolve with the passing of time. But why do we only have yearbooks while in school?

I thought about this and the idea came to me one day to create a yearbook of my own, for life outside of school. My personal yearbook includes all of the biggest events of the year, stories from adventures, and photos of my loved ones.

By creating a bound book each year, I am able to hold all my favorite memories in one space. A lot of people don’t print pictures anymore let alone write dates and information on the back of them. That is where creating a yearbook comes in handy, you can write down all the details, and place dates in chronological order for generations ahead to see.

I use the website Shutterfly #NotAnAd to create our yearbooks. With Shutterfly you can either create your own layouts or use predesigned ones. The process of creating the yearbook is actually quite simple, it’s the recalling of facts and details though that can be tough. Throughout the year I try to work on my personal book right after major events that way I can write down specifics without having to think too far back. By doing this, the recall of a moment tends to be more precise and it leaves less work to do later.

I started making yearbooks when I started dating my now husband. The first one started out as a gift after we had dated for a year. We were living in Hawai’i and had done a lot of rad things in that first year and I wanted a way to showcase all of it. Now going on five years later, we have a total of four complete books.  These yearbooks show everything we have gone through from our first date till we got married and beyond that. The books are for myself and for my family, they record bits of history that we may not even think of as history at the moment. I hope they will become valuable to our family members and generations to come, to be able to have a personalized view of past times.

As a way to get you started I have provided a link below to a free 8x8 hardcover yearbook for you from Shutterfly! If you have any questions on how to redeem this offer or need help making your yearbook feel free to comment or email!