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Show Me the Favorite Moment in Your Home

June 29, 2022

From mementos to heirlooms, your home’s interior can be as colorful as you and your Artifcts. Some of us skew maximalist in nature, maybe because life is busy and we accumulate stuff, maybe because we’re our family keepers and don’t want to let go of it. Others of us tend toward minimalism, but maybe still rebuff the idea of a strict minimalist home lifestyle. Personally, I need to be surrounded by color, texture, and 3D ‘stuff’ that is meaningful to me. Don't tell me to digitize all of my stuff and be happy to let it go either. 

Now, don't get me wrong, like many, I dream of hiring an interior designer to simplify and beautify my space. I follow several on social media. But I’ve also always imagined a designer’s work to be incredibly challenging. Or is it only a client like me that's challenging? 

The last thing I want is a house full of thingamabobs from your local mega chain store, upscale design house, or otherwise. It feels impersonal, as though I’m living in a hotel - brilliant (maybe) but benign enough to please most. I want to be surrounded by family, friends, and memories, and that takes custom "Been there, done that," "She gave it to me when I was 10," "I got it when I traveled through Italy," stuff. The stuff of Artifcts. 

So, I met up recently with a couple interior architects and designers to ask, almost like therapy, “Am I difficult?” It turns out that, no, I’m not difficult or alone in this quest for meaningful stuff and life moments to surround me in my home.  

Allison Shields, Founder of AM Shields based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, shared with me how a home interior she designed recently moved her to reflect on how very different her personal design view sometimes is from her clients’ perspectives. And guess what? ‘Stuff’ was at the heart of it. 

"Everything I own has a specific story, a relationship to where it started. An object can throw me into a vortex of remembrance of that trip I went on. Even as a child, everything was curated and meaningful to our family. This client I had recently was the opposite. It was a shocking experience. They were not just minimalists. There wasn’t a book they’d read or photo of a family member incorporated into their new home. Nothing personal, and yet they loved the results.” 

 

Hallway with gallery of dozens of framed artwork on a deep red wall@AMSHIELDS "Hallway to Heaven" featuring her mother's art collection.

This type of depersonalized living is probably on the extreme end of home interior design. Maryana Grinshpun, the Founding Partner and Design Director at Mammoth Projects NYC, remarked that often people in NYC, no matter their wealth, do not have the luxury of stuff and clutter. There’s just no space! 

But even then, some piece or another will typically make an appearance in the design. “Clients usually will tell me even before I show up that they have something important, something that connects them with their story, that needs to be incorporated. For one client it’s grandma’s stool from the old country; for another, a surfboard. And why not? Telling stories through objects is compelling. And my job is to see the world through my client’s eyes, create that curated view, and build a design story around it.” 

Maryana and Allison agreed, too, that the greatest challenge as designer is that you start with a blank page each time. And the first line can be the hardest to put down. It starts to reveal the character of the people who live in a space and the space itself.  

Each Artifct can help define the first line in a more personal way than any Pinterest board you might pull together. As you look around at the moments that fill your space, we want to leave you with a few thoughtful tips and a few of our own personal Artifcted moments in our spaces to help inspire you: 

  • Here's a quick and easy fix: Try re-arranging. Space at a premium? No budget for a new look. Ask a friend or neighbor for ideas on how they would rearrange a key room in your home, like the living room. Then try each arrangment. You might be suprised how it breathes new life into your space. 
  • Sometimes it's not the space. It’s how you’re living in it. Don’t love living in your space anymore? Has stuff been relegated to the back of your closet or other storage space when it would bring you more happiness to be able to display and enjoy it? Might be time for a little help for a designer who can help you balance what comes out and make it pleasant and functional, too.
  • If you bring in a pro, try oversharing. You might have a lot of stuff, even too much stuff, but little or no inclination towards design. That’s okay. Be honest about your obstacles to date in designing your living space and bring the stuff into the discussion. Let the designer know, “This art is meaningful to us. Can you do something with it?” 
  • Objects can help with tight budgets. Few people have five and six figure budgets to commit to home interior design, so then what? Look again at what you already own and consider how your possessions can play into a new look and feel for your home. You might just realize you have this thing or a collection of those things that will help get the job done whether you're doing it on your own or bringing in professional reinforcements! 

   

Click any image for a peek into a "favorite moment" incorporated into one of our co-founder's homes.  

We’d love to be inspired by your Artifcted moments at home, too! Share with us on Instagram (@theartilife) or on Facebook (Artifcts). 

Happy Artifcting! 

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ABOUT THE FEATURED DESIGNERS

A.M. Shields. A design and interior architecture firm creating thoughtful, inspiring and unexpected spaces for commercial and residential clients. The A.M. Shields web site and portfolio are under their own redesign at amshields.com and am.shields.interiors (Instagram). Contact Allison at allison@amshields.com for a consult. 

Mammoth. A NYC-based design-build studio and one-stop shop for a seamless renovation, including interior design, construction, and furnishing. Check out Mammoth online at mammothnewyork.com or mammoth_projects (Instagram).

© 2022 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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An Easier and More Personal Approach to Family History

October is Family History Month. And that got us talking about the meaning and value of family history. Have you ever thought much about it? What is “family history” to you?  

If you Google “define family history,” virtual AI machines spin out a definition that is seconded, thirded (Is that a word? No, surely not.) and otherwise backed up by a plethora of sites all talking about family health and medical history. Nope, not what we’re talking about. 

Scroll a bit further and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon church, defines family history as, “Identifying and learning about your ancestors.” What a convenient definition: narrow and deeply supported by the astounding archival records of the church and its home-grown Family Search software. 

Definition of Family History

As much as we appreciate our Mormon friends, there's more to family history than our ancestors, which on its own is already overwhelming. Just thinking of all those ancestors and what to track down about each one, from where, and what to do with what we learn makes us sweat.  

But here’s what we so easily miss in that process – our families today, aka ancestors to future generations. And that is much simpler and an easier place to start for most of us.

Family History & You

We want to help you focus on your family history in a much more personal sense.  

Pause and think about your family. Who comes to mind? A spouse and children, furry or human? A larger blended family? Or perhaps you immediately wrap in your parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, too? No matter who you have in mind, now think about the history of that family unit.  

In practicing this approach, our co-founder Ellen came up with these pieces of history for her family: 

Traditional “Family History” Elements 

      • Lived in WI, NC, DC/VA/MD, and TX, with one daughter who is now more Texan than anything else. 
      • Lots of family travel, mostly road trips, with some far-flung adventures thrown in. 
      • Grounded daily life to work/school, sports, and neighbors. 
      • She and her spouse both worked for the US Federal government and spent the second half of their early careers working from home. 

A lot of what Ellen came up with is covered by public records—birth, death, and marriage certificates, along with newspapers and census and property records. Those are the very same records that genealogists would gather to learn about ancestors from 10s to 100s of years ago.  

Less Traditional, Maybe More Valuable Family History 

      • Own family language, including regular words that have strange meanings as well as words that are entirely made up. 
      • Message boards, whiteboards and letterboards alike that exhibit the personalities of her family as they fill them in. 
      • The recipes for shrimp de jonghe and coffee cake that were stars of every Christmas at home. 
      • The homemade cards Ellen makes for her husband for every Valentines Day, Birthday, and anniversary. 

A black letter board with white plastic letters

Blue colored word cloud with "Family Talk" label 

Sorry, most of these colorful family history Artifcts are private, but here are some pics to give you the ideas.

While traditional elements can tell you a lot and lead to a lot more questions, such as why all the moves, the less traditional family history gives you a feel for what the family dynamics and day-to-day life was really like. What makes the family tick, if you will. When it comes to family history, we care about both types of information and stories.

Family History: 4 Ways to Fill In and Protect Yours 

We challenge you this October to focus on your own family, however defined, and within a narrower scope of time – try just the last few years since COVID, for example. Less stress on the finding. More emphasis on the memories and the sharing. Pick even just one of the following to get yourself started.

Seminal moments.

CELEBRATE them, document them. How you do this is up to you. Conventional options are photo albums and scrapbooks. Grander options are a family reunion tied to an anniversary of some sort. For us, we’re of course more inclined to Artifct that, perhaps starting with Artifcting our Life Firsts checklist (download free here) and “best of” photos for favorites moments and memories, the details of which always fade too soon. 

Critical details.

We’re talking life, death and everything in between. To protect you and your family and all you have built together, take your first steps toward recording life data in a digital vault of your choice, like that offered by Trustworthy. Enter basics first: drivers licenses, passports, and car titles and/or loans. You’ll FEEL the progress. Let it motivate you to keep going: insurance policies, mortgages, 401ks, and more. 

Your photos.

No, photos are not all worth 1,000 words, but you’ll be devastated if they all disappear. We love the advice we’ve heard often from Cathi Nelson, CEO of The Photo Managers, to back them up to three separate locations, e.g., phone, flash drive, the cloud. You should do this often, and software like Mylio can help, but at the VERY least, back up all those pics this month.

Man running in urban setting while holding a leather weekender bag

 
 
CLICK THE IMAGE to read our story: “Emergency Go Bag: Don’t Forget the Memories” for more tips. 

Give a Story, Get a story. 

GIVE A STORY: YOURS! Skip the memoir for now. You’re getting overwhelmed even thinking about it. Write down one story of your own that you love to tell. Now share it with someone, in person and out loud, if possible. Storysharing is more powerful than storytelling because you engage the person in a way that is so much more memorable. Be sure to Artifct yourself telling it too. No one can do it justice the way you do, your voice, your words.

Definition of story sharing

GET A STORY: A FAMILY MEMBER'S. Maybe you remember hearing it once, and you have forgotten the details. Maybe you’ve never heard how grandma came to be a physicist and the projects she worked on. Ask. Record it. Artifct it. Share it. And get more tips from, “Storytellers: Beware!

Let This Be the Beginning! 

Whether you’re just getting started and want to go deeper or are already in the thick of family history and are looking for more ideas, even new fodder for family reunions and holidays, enjoy this shortlist of Arti Community favorites from ARTIcles by Artifcts: 

Happy Artifcting!

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© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Preserving and Sharing Your (Sports) Collection

Reading time: 4 minutes 

Do Fall weekends find you cheering on your home team? Whether it’s football, baseball, swimming, or soccer, chances are you’ll catch a game or two either in person or with the 21.4 million viewers who tune in to watch their favorite Sunday night matchups.  

Fall may also find you longing for adventure, whether it’s a short drive across town or across state lines or a flight across the country. It’s a great time to travel before the holiday rush, and an even better time to take in some of our country’s museum-worthy sports collections.  

To inspire your trips, we’ve compiled the list below highlighting some of the best sporting collections our country has to offer. And in case you find yourself staring at your own sports collection, and you're not sure how to keep track of and share it with others, we've prepared tips about how to Artifct those collections, even if they are not destined for a museum.  

Roadtrip Worthy Sporting Destinations

The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY is one of the most-visited sports museums in the US. The Museum boasts over 40,000 artifacts, including a baseball thrown by Cy Young in the first modern World Series.  

A close second is the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the key features of the Museum is a banked speedway modeled after Talladega Superspeedway, featuring 18 cars and a salute to 46 tracks!  

Want to view artifacts AND try your hand at your favorite sport? The International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum in Newport, RI is adjacent to 13 grass courts open for public play. When not serving up a winning shot, you can watch video highlights from some of the greatest matches in history and learn about Hall of Famers Billie Jean King and Pete Sampras.  

A short drive from Newport, RI will take you to Springfield, MA and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Hall proudly displays artifacts from when James Naismith introduced the sport to his YMCA class in 1891 (!) in addition to interactive exhibits, skills challenges and decades of basketball history.  

Building and Preserving Your Museum-Worthy Collection 

Aside from having amazing collections and rare artifacts, museums tell stories—the stories of their sport, their legends, and the fans that make it all worthwhile. We get a glimpse into the greats, an understanding of their firsts, and maybe even come away with a newfound appreciation for the past times we love.  

Museums preserve and safeguard artifacts for the next generation. But these artifacts, like the everyday objects we all collect and accumulate, cannot talk. There is no way to know by looking at an object that it was a game winning ball, or a record setting car. Absent the context, the details, and yes, even the story, legend, and lore, all artifacts are just that, artifacts, aka ‘stuff.’  

There is no way to know by looking at an object that it was a game winning ball, or a record setting car.

So how do you build, preserve, and share your collection so that, just like the museums, the story, history, and memories live on? Since we’re Artifcts, we’re a little biased, and our first response is going to be “Artifct that!” whatever ‘that’ may be. It takes time and effort to tell the story behind your collection (whether it be sports memorabilia or art!) and add in the details, the who, what, when, where, and why that will one day (if not today) matter. We made it easy and enjoyable.

We’ve compiled tips below to help you get started. (Go deeper with How to Artifct That Collection.)  

      • Start with the basic facts. What is it, and how did it come into your possession? Does the item have any financial value? If in doubt, request a free valuation from our partners at Heritage Auctions.
      • Next, get nostalgic. Think about your collection this way: If someone were to inherit your collection, are any pieces of particular value to you? Why? 
      • Include photos and videos to augment the description/story. Add audio recordings if you want your family to hear the story the way that you only you can tell it, complete with fun facts. 
      • Now try looking at your collection and natural groupings within it. For example, photos, trading cards, and gear may be three groupings. Start and complete Artifcting for one group before moving on to the next. 
      • Overwhelmed? Start by taking a video of your collection to ensure you have a record of it. You can then dedicate a certain amount of time per day, week, or month to capture details with individual Artifcts for each piece. 

No matter how big or small your collection is, no matter if it is sports ‘stuff,’ or other ‘stuff’ entirely, take a moment to capture at least one piece, one story, one memory. Your family (and maybe even one day a museum!) will thank you.

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© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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What to Do with All That Sports 'Stuff'

Reading time: 3 minutes 

Fall is nearing, and depending on where you live the air might already feel crisper, the leaves may be starting to change color, and pumpkin spice has undoubtedly infiltrated your daily routine. Fall also brings many back to school and back to sports, not to mention the the start of the NFL season and the MLB World Series.  

Our co-founder Heather’s youngest went back to school last week and in seven short days has started training with her cross-country team, preparing for the start of her Interscholastic Equestrian Association show jumping season, and tapering her long runs ahead of her first half-marathon. Heather’s first thoughts? Where is all that STUFF that goes with it going to go? 

You know what she’s dealing with, no doubt. Probably some ribbons and medals along with event t-shirts, pennants, school spirit wear, and more. The fall sports season kicks off the fall ‘stuff’ season, or at least it seems that way in our founders’ households. 

The fall sports season kicks off the fall ‘stuff’ season.

What to Do with All That Sport Stuff...

Sport ‘stuff’ falls into that tricky category of the ‘tough stuff’ in life. We probably all have it, and yet, what are we supposed to do with it? We save it for the memories, the stories, and the sentiments, but one day, hopefully many years from now, the next generation in our family is going to be staring at that sport stuff wondering, “What next?” Or, in some cases even, “What is this stuff?”  

 

We offer the tips below to help you come to grips with all that sports ‘stuff’ in a way that honors the history, stories, and memories, while also freeing up some much-needed space in your home.  

  • Overwhelmed with old sports equipment? Dedicate an hour a day sorting through what is what and determine what if anything is still usable and whether or not it will be used. Just because it is usable does not mean anyone will actually use it. Donate the usable equipment you no longer need and recycle the rest. Check with local schools and sports clubs. And always Artifct especially sentimental pieces (first cleats, winning baseball from the home opener, etc.) before donating them.  

Short checklist of sports items to preserve

 
 
CLICK THE IMAGE to download your copy of our Wild World of Sports checklist for help getting started. 
  • Buried in medals, ribbons, and medallions? Struggling to remember what they all were for? Take it box by box. Using our Artifcts app, photograph the most memorable or significant mementos and add the details—the who, what, when, where, and why—and share with family and friends. Enjoy reminiscing over those shared memories! 
  • Stressed by the tens of thousands of sports photos on your phone? You’re not alone! It’s easy to snap a photo of the winning goal, or a quick video of the game winning catch. But then life happens. We forget and those photos end up years back on our photo reels. Our tip? Dedicate 15 minutes every Sunday to going through those old sports photos and Artifct the ones that have a special story behind them, add video and audio too to make the photo come to life!  

You may also enjoy A Virtual Impossibility: Keeping Up with All of My Digital Photos -->  

 

A treasured family Artifct complete with video! Sorry, it's private. 

...And Is Any of It Valuable? 

 We’ve heard from our members over the years that sometimes they hold on to the sports ‘stuff’ in hopes of it being valuable one day. We read the headlines about record setting prices on the Babe Ruth "Called Shot” jersey to Muhammad Ali’s title winning belt and we think, “Mmm....maybe one day the [insert prized sports paraphernalia] will be worth that too.” 

Just look at what happened earlier this month when the LA Dodgers released a limited edition bobblehead of star player Shohei Ohtani and his dog Decoy. People were lined up for hours in hopes of scoring one of the bobbleheads, only to immediately turn around and sell them on Ebay. 

Screenshot of news headlines about Ohtani bobblehead sales

When in doubt, Artifct your sports ‘stuff’ and use our “What’s It Worth” feature. Our partners at Heritage Auctions will provide you with a free valuation (make sure you fill in all the details for accuracy!) to help you make an informed decision—keep or sell? And at what price?  

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© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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