Insider’s Look at What It Means to Clean Out an Estate

For parts of the United States, sweater weather is officially here, and with it comes an increasingly frenetic pace of to-do's as we approach the holiday season. Old St. Nick is not the only one making a list and checking it twice—our co-founder Heather has already started a list of recipes (and ingredients!) needed to pull off a family Thanksgiving feast, and we know she is not alone.  

Here at Artifcts, we want to help you reclaim the joy (and meaning!) that goes along with the holidays all season long. Our starting point? Our kitchens, and more specifically with our cookbooks and recipes, because chances are the recipes that we make and love are not solely about the ingredients, but about the memories, traditions, and family stories that make the holidays so special.  

Why it matters: cookbooks, recipes, and memories 

It might surprise you that in researching this story we discovered that the average American family owns at least 15 cookbooks, and that three in ten women have a cookbook collection, according to Morris Cookbooks, the largest cookbook publisher in the US. Informal online discussions meanwhile suggest many households own dozens—or even hundreds—of cookbooks, far surpassing the “average.”  

Why does that matter now, especially as we head into the holiday season? Because recipes aren’t just instructions. Researcher Eleonora Sava highlights this point in her 2021 article titled, Family Cookbooks—Objects of Family Memories. Sava describes recipes and cookbooks as objects of memory as they record more than ingredients and steps. According to Sava, cookbooks capture handwriting and family tastes, and link generations through the act of cooking.  

And as the holidays approach—when families gather, when traditional dishes make their annual appearance, when memories of past celebrations resurface—the meaning of a recipe goes far beyond the kitchen. A dish becomes a link to a grandparent, a holiday table, a childhood kitchen smell, or a moment of togetherness.  

So how can you best preserve those family traditions in an organized, shareable way—especially heading into the holidays? Hello Artifcts! 

Artifcts allows you to capture not only the recipe itself, but its origin, stories about the person who made it, the holiday or event it was tied to, notes (handwritten or digital), and even things like family anecdotes, ingredient variations, or why it matters to you. With Artifcts, a recipe becomes far more than a page in a cookbook—it becomes a shareable, searchable, multimedia keepsake. 

Click the image to view Matt Paxton's family cookbook that he Artifcted. 

How to Artifct your recipes to preserve traditions, stories, and memories 

Intrigued? Want to give it a try? We’ve compiled the below step-by-step guide to help you begin Artifcting your family recipes and preserving your culinary heritage ahead of the holidays: 

1. Gather your recipes and the accompanying keepsakes 

• Pull together all the physical and digital items. 
• Don’t forget handwritten index cards, printed family cookbooks, scraps of parchment with notes, old magazine cut-outs, even photos of the dish or the family moment. 

2. Photograph the key items you want to include in the Artifct 

• Don’t worry, you can always go back and edit it if you forget something! 

3. Add the story behind each recipe 

• Who cooked it originally?  
• When/where was it typically served? (Holiday dinner each December, Sunday brunch, etc.)
• What makes it special? The ingredient twist? The aroma? The family joke tied to it?
• Write (or record video or audio) short anecdotes: “I remember the year the turkey caught fire and we still served this cranberry relish…”
• Photograph: The dish itself, the handwritten card, the cook in action, the table-setting from past years. 

4. Organize, organize, organize 

• Use Categories (Home → Recipes and Occasions → Holidays)
• Create custom tags to easily sort and search, e.g., #MomsRecipes, #FamilyFavorite, #Handwritten, #Thanksgiving2026, etc. 

5. Share and invite contributions 

• Privately share recipes with relatives (near or far) via link or invite.  
• Give loved ones “Editor” access so they can collaborate and even add variations or their own memories, if you want them to. 

You might discover after Artifcting your family recipes you may be willing (or able) to downsize and declutter your cookbook collection. Consider retaining the cookbooks you actively use, the sentimental ones, and let others go (donate, recycle, give away) knowing your family’s tradition lives on in your Artifcts collection. This is especially helpful ahead of holidays, when you may want to free up space, reduce clutter, simplify your kitchen area and keep the heart of your culinary heritage intact.

Why Artifcting wins vs. pure cookbooks 

• Shareability: Traditional cookbooks are fine for the in-house chef, but sharing them across generations, branches of the family, or geographically separated relatives is harder. With Artifcts, you can privately share with cousins, grandchildren, or nieces and nephews, invite contributions, and access from anywhere. 

• Context & story: A cookbook often gives you a title, ingredients, steps—but rarely the story: “why Grandma always added nutmeg,” or “how this dish saved the day when the oven broke on Christmas Eve.” Artifcts preserve the memory, not just the mechanics. 

• Searchable & customizable: You can tag by holiday, ingredient, dietary restriction, chef-in-the-family, etc. Over time you build an archive that you can browse by event or person—far more flexible than a static bookshelf. 

• Space & organization: If your cookbook collection is growing unwieldy (shelves overflowing, dusting stress), Artifcting gives you a chance to digitize key recipes + stories, reduce physical clutter, and still keep the heritage alive. It’s a win-win: fewer books, more meaning. 

• Legacy and future-proofing: Physical cookbooks may fade and get lost; handwritten cards may deteriorate. A thoughtfully maintained digital archive ensures these traditions aren’t lost, even if a physical book is damaged or thrown out. This matters especially for holiday-linked dishes that may only appear once a year. 

A very memorable Artifct, complete with an instructional video from Grandma herself!

Final thoughts 

Family recipes are more than just good food. They are the threads that weave together generations, holidays, kitchens, stories, aromas, and memories. As Sava noted in her article on family cookbooks: “The family cookbook becomes an album of memories… the handwriting may summon the image of the person who wrote that recipe.”  

By taking the time now—before the holiday rush—to Artifct your cherished recipes, you’ll be gifting your family a legacy of meaning as well as a well-curated digital archive rich with stories, photos, and flavors. It’s he kind of heirloom that can travel across generations far easier than a shelf-full of cookbooks. 

So, pull out your recipe box, gather those favorite dishes, invite your family to tell you the “why” behind them—and get started preserving your traditions, one recipe at a time. 

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Looking for more tips on HOW to Artifct your recipes? Check out our guide, How to Artifct Recipes to help you get started. 

© 2026 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It was a dark and stormy night…The guests set out for a rooftop party under the cloud-covered sky. The year? Somewhere in the 1960s. The costumes? Delightfully questionable and all homemade. The photos? Priceless. 

Cue the spooky music.  

There were disguises, perhaps a little mischief, and the kind of party stories that get better with every retelling. But decades later, one very important detail could have been lost to the mists of time: Who were those people in the pictures? 

Thankfully, one of our Artifcts members had the foresight to Artifct the memory of that costume party. She captured the story behind the photo, preserving the details her family might otherwise never have known. Now, her sons can look at the picture and pick out their parents among the costumed revelers. 

Without that story? Well, it might as well have been a gathering of ghosts. And THAT, my friends, is the truly spooky part. 

The Haunted House of Unidentified Photos, Heirlooms, and More 

Picture this: Years from now, your family gathers to sort through the boxes of belongings you've left behind. Someone opens a dusty carton labeled Photos — Miscellaneous. 

Inside are faded snapshots, mysterious trinkets, holiday decorations, and a recipe card stained with something that might be pumpkin puree. (Or is it ectoplasm? Hard to say.) 

Someone holds up a photograph. “Who are these people?” Silence. 

“Is that Grandma?” 

“Maybe? I think this was a Halloween party?” 

“Which Halloween party?” 

And just like that, a precious piece of family history becomes an unsolved mystery. No amount of detective work, séance scheduling, or frantic group-texting can guarantee the answers will ever be found. 

Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic. But isn't that what makes Halloween the perfect time to talk about preserving family memories? 

The scariest thing isn't a ghost in the attic or a skeleton in the closet. (Well, maybe that depends on your closet!) It's the possibility that the stories behind the things we treasure will disappear right along with the people who remember them. 

Don't Let Your Family Memories Disappear into Thin Air 

Halloween is full of traditions worth remembering. And we're not just talking about the year your neighbor's inflatable skeleton took flight during a windstorm. Think about the things your family does year after year: 

The pumpkin chronicles. Who insists on carving the most elaborate jack-o'-lantern? Who creates a masterpiece, only to have it collapse before trick-or-treaters arrive? And who saves every last pumpkin seed for roasting with just the right amount of salt? 

The costume hall of fame. From homemade superhero capes to questionable wigs and elaborate family group costumes, those pictures deserve more than a date scribbled on the back. Who made the costumes? What inspired them? And which one took home the neighborhood's unofficial prize for best disguise? 

The recipes that haunt your kitchen—in a good way. Mom's pumpkin spice coffee cake. Dad's famous chili before trick-or-treating. The caramel apples everyone pretends aren't sticky enough to require a full cleanup crew. Write down the recipe, sure, but don't forget the story. Who first made it? What makes it special? Who always asks for seconds? 

These aren't just seasonal activities. They're the moments that become family lore—the stories your children will someday tell their children, if only they know where those stories began. 

Artifct the Memories Before They Become Mysteries 

Here's the good news, you don't need a crystal ball, a detective's notebook, or an encyclopedic memory to preserve your family's history. You just need to Artifct it. 

With Artifcts, you can capture a photo, record the story behind it, and preserve the details that give an object or memory meaning. That way, the next generation doesn't have to guess who was hiding beneath the witch's hat or why Dad's 1970s vampire costume involved so much questionable fake blood, i.e. ketchup. 

Start with one Halloween memory. Upload that old costume-party photo. Add the names, the year, the location, and the story everyone still laughs about. Include the funny details, the family legends, and even the parts you're not entirely sure about. 

Then keep going. 

Artifct the costumes you've saved in the attic. The pumpkin-carving photos. The handwritten recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds. The decorations that come out of storage every October, along with the memories that come rushing back. 

And if you have a box of old photographs waiting to be identified? Consider this your friendly, slightly spooky nudge to get started. The goal isn't simply to preserve stuff; it's to preserve the why behind it—the people, the traditions, the laughter, and the stories that make ordinary things extraordinary. 

This Halloween, Give Your Family a Treat That Lasts 

Long after the candy wrappers have vanished, the pumpkins have rotted, and the costumes have been packed away, your family memories can live on. 

So go ahead. Dust off those old photos. Rescue that recipe card. Tell the story behind the costume that made everyone laugh. And please, for the sake of future generations, identify the people in the pictures! 

After all, the only thing scarier than a haunted house is inheriting a box of family treasures and having absolutely no idea what you're looking at. This Halloween, don't leave your family's stories to the ghosts of memories past. Artifct today, remember always.

Happy Artifcting, and Happy Halloween! 

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© 2026 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When we think about estate planning, we tend to focus on the big things: the house, retirement accounts, investments, and life insurance. We make plans for our financial assets, update our beneficiaries, and decide who will handle the important details when we're gone. 

But what about everything else? 

The jewelry tucked away in a drawer. The artwork hanging on the walls. The family china, the vintage record collection, the tools in the garage, and the box of photographs in the attic. What about the things that might not be worth much financially but mean the world to us—or to someone we love? 

With Boomers set to pass down more than $3 trillion in tangible goods, aka “stuff,” to Gen X over the next decade, the question isn't whether our belongings will need attention. It's whether we're going to make that process easier for the people we leave behind. 

Because here's the thing: your family shouldn't have to guess what you wanted to happen to the things you leave behind. 

At Artifcts, we believe estate planning should go beyond financial assets. It should include the objects that tell our stories, the memories attached to them, and the wishes we have for their future. And with National Estate Planning Awareness Week as our reminder to get organized (it's this week!), there's no better time to start. 

Give Your Family a Roadmap with “In the Future” 

Imagine your family sorting through your home after you're gone. They find a beautiful necklace, but no one knows whether it was promised to a daughter, granddaughter, or a niece. They discover a collection you spent decades building, but have no idea whether you wanted it sold, donated, or kept together. They come across a box of treasured keepsakes and wonder which ones mattered most to you. 

These aren't just logistical questions. They're emotional ones, too. 

Without guidance, even well-intentioned families can find themselves navigating difficult decisions during an already painful time. They may disagree about what to keep, worry about making the wrong choice, or unknowingly part with something another family member would have treasured. Our co-founder Heather experienced all three scenarios when going through her mother's estate. Spoiler alert, it was not fun. 

That's why we created Artifcts' “In the Future” feature. When you create an Artifct you can also document what you'd like to happen to that item down the road. 

Want your granddaughter to inherit your favorite necklace? Record it. Hope your beloved book collection stays together? Say so. Prefer that a piece of furniture be donated to someone who needs it? Make that clear. Already parted with an item? Update its record so no one goes on a scavenger hunt looking for something you no longer own. 

The choice is yours. The important part is making your wishes known. And because your wishes deserve a place in your broader estate plan, your Artifcts can be easily exported and shared with your estate planning attorney or advisor, or incorporated into the documentation that supports your will. No more scattered notes, mysterious lists, or guesswork about who gets what. 

Instead, you can provide a practical roadmap for your family, with the added benefit of capturing the why behind each decision. 

After all, knowing that a watch belonged to your grandfather is one thing. Knowing he wore it every day of his life, that it traveled with him across the ocean, and that he hoped it would one day belong to you? That's something else entirely. 

Your Artifcts Deserve to Live On: Meet Legacy Contacts 

There's another important piece of estate planning that can easily be overlooked: your digital legacy. 

Think about the time you've invested in creating your Artifcts. You've photographed meaningful objects, recorded family stories, uploaded documents, and preserved memories that might otherwise have been lost. You've created something valuable—not just for yourself, but for the people who come after you. 

What happens to all that work when you're no longer here? 

At Artifcts, we believe your Artifcts are no different from the tangible assets you'll leave behind. You've put time, thought, and care into documenting your life's stories. Your heirs should have the opportunity to receive and enjoy that legacy, too. That's where our Legacy Contacts feature comes in. 

Unlike platforms that may offer only one designated legacy contact, Artifcts encourages you to name both a primary and a secondary Legacy Contact. Why? Because life is unpredictable. The person you initially choose may move, become unavailable, or pass away before you do. Having a backup helps ensure that the stories and memories you've worked so hard to preserve have a better chance of reaching the people you love. 

Your primary and secondary Legacy Contacts are the trusted people you designate to help carry your Artifcts forward. They might be family members, close friends, or another trusted individual who understands the importance of preserving your stories. 

By setting up your Legacy Contacts, you're taking a simple but meaningful step toward ensuring your Artifcts don't disappear when you do. 

And there's a distinction we think matters: your Artifcts remain your stories, told in your voice. Your Legacy Contacts help preserve and pass them along, so the memories you've chosen to document can continue to inform, connect, and inspire future generations. 

Setting Up Your Legacy Contacts Is Easy 

Ready to put your plan in place? 

Sign in to your Artifcts account. Navigate to Account Settings → Security & Longevity → Preserve My Artifcts. Add the email addresses for your primary and secondary Legacy Contacts. Review the available account longevity options and confirm your preferences. 

You can update your contacts as life changes. It's a small task that can make a big difference in the future. 

Estate Planning Is About More Than What You Own. It's About What You Leave Behind. 

We know that thinking about our own mortality isn't exactly how most of us want to spend an afternoon, but estate planning doesn't have to be an exercise in worrying about what might happen. It can be an act of care for the people who matter most. 

It's an opportunity to spare your family unnecessary stress. To help prevent misunderstandings. To make sure treasured possessions find the right homes. And to preserve the stories, traditions, and memories that might otherwise disappear along with the objects themselves. 

You don't have to document everything in one sitting, either. Start with three things that matter to you. Take a photo. Tell the story. Add the important details. Then use “In the Future” to record your wishes for each item. Once you've started building your collection, make sure you've designated your primary and secondary Legacy Contacts. 

As you go, consider sharing your Artifcts with your estate planning attorney or advisor so your wishes for tangible belongings can be reflected in the appropriate estate planning documents. And remember, the most meaningful things you leave behind aren't always the most expensive. Sometimes they're the handwritten recipe card, the well-worn baseball glove, the necklace passed between generations, or the ordinary-looking object that carries an extraordinary story. 

This National Estate Planning Week, Give Your Family the Gift of Clarity 

The great stuff transfer is already on the horizon. The question is whether we'll leave our families with a lifetime of possessions to sort through—or a thoughtful roadmap that helps them understand what matters, what comes next, and why. 

At Artifcts, we're here to help you do just that. Document the things you love. Preserve the stories behind them. Record your wishes for their future. And designate the people who can help carry your digital legacy forward. 

Your stuff has a story. Your stories deserve to live on. And your family deserves to know what you wanted them to do next. This National Estate Planning Week, don't leave your family guessing. Leave them a plan, a story, and a legacy worth sharing. 

Ready to get started? Visit Artifcts.com to begin documenting your keepsakes, exploring the “In the Future” feature, and designating your Legacy Contacts. 

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Looking for additional resources to help you jump start the conversation? We highly recommend AfterLight Founder, and co-founder of PALS Rachel Donnelly's book, Late to Your Own Funeral: How to Leave A Legacy And Not A Logjam. 

We also sat down with Rachel last year for an in-depth conversation about preparing with the end in mind. You can read more about our conersation here.

© 2026 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.