A Memory Jar for those Special Moments

 

 

 

I saw these for the first time at New Year, when people were posting them on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet and thought it was a lovely idea, if a little cheesy. But sometimes cheesy is good!

 

It's a jar full of memories - you write notes on scraps of paper, such as funny things that happened, nice surprises, memorable moments - and then at the end of the year open them all and remind yourself of what happened over the past year.

 

You can style it as family memories, or things you did as a couple, or solo achievements - and I think that as well as opening it at the end of the year, you could dip into the jar whenever you need a little lift.

 

I'd been meaning to do one at the start of the year but hadn't gotten around to it so thought it would make a nice Valentine's gift for my boyfriend (which I gave to him early because we are going away this weekend and there was no point taking it with me).



 

 

You can make and decorate this however you like but I wanted to use a pretty glass jar - like an old fashioned sweet jar. This was half price (£4.25) in the House of Fraser sale. I bought the 'memories' Jolee sticker (for card making or scrapbooking) from Ebay; it was bigger than I expected as I had been planning to make a tag with the word on, but instead I stuck the letters around the jar, which looked really good.

 



If you have children you can get them to help decorate this, or you can do whatever you like with ribbons, labels, tags, stickers etc- personalise it to your family.

I made a tag with the 'instructions' for the jar which I typed on the computer in a pretty font. You can also use whatever wording you like. I wrote:
Memorable moments
Good things that happen
Laugh-out-loud funny
Secret smiles
Daily blessings
Happy surprises
The things that keep you sane when the going gets tough
Write them on pieces of paper
Pop them into this jar and open
At the end of the year -
Or whenever you need a smile

I've seen some on the internet with different wording, and some which list 'surprise presents' as the first thing but to me this isn't about celebrating material goods, in fact quite the opposite. You could also write things like 'children's achievements' or 'family milestones' if you have a baby who is learning to walk and talk for instance.

To finish it off I threaded the tag onto a piece of ribbon which I tied into a bow around the top.

I've already started filling my jar with scraps of paper and think it will be really nice to look back o everything at the end of the year. I'm not sure where this idea originated - obviously a lot of people did this at the start of 2014 as they were opening them at the end of last year - so this is my take on it.