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The Baby Book That Wasn't

Heather Nickerson, Artifcts
June 05, 2024

Most of us parents set out with the best intentions of creating a beautifully detailed, all-inclusive baby book. Whether it is our first or fifth child, chances are we all planned on doing it, “one day,” especially for those lucky first borns. 

In my case, I bought the book and the pens I wanted to use, and I even made a few half-hearted attempts at all the pre-baby details, first sonogram, baby shower, etc. I kept thinking, “I’ll have more time for this once baby arrives, and I can fill in all the details then,” as I was trying to manage a 50+ hour work week while pregnant.  

Funny thing is, baby arrived, and wow, I had NO time to myself let alone time to make that book. My pre-baby logic was seriously flawed. I found myself at home, sleep-deprived and catering to a non-verbal tyrant (thankfully she was so cute) and a rather needy golden retriever (thankfully he was cute, too). All while trying to figure out how to cook, clean, and keep things running smoothly with no extended family in sight to help.  

Yep, my notion of “I’ll get to it one day,” ended up being, “I still haven’t gotten around to it,” 13 years later. 

The Baby Book Industry 

Before I continue this story, I want to pause for a moment and share a few fun facts about the baby book industry. Yes, it is indeed an industry.

Amazon has over 4,000 entries for baby memory books. Their most popular edition sold over 7,000 copies last month alone.

What is more, entire companies—such as Chatbooks and Qeepsake—have been built based on our overwhelming desire as parents to document all those precious firsts coupled with our inability to complete those physical baby books.

I even discovered articles from the Church of Latter Day Saints proclaiming that baby books have stressed our parents for a century. As co-founders, we believe you! Although we all have the best intentions of documenting those milestones as our little ones grow, life happens. My co-founder Ellen opted to go the digital route from the very beginning and created a private blog for her daughter. She made it 5 years. I stuck with the physical baby book but didn’t get very far, as you can see from the photo below.   

 

Even with the best intentions, I never got around to that baby book. 

Alternatives to a Baby Book 

So, what’s a new parent to do?  

Following our favorite good, better, best approach, we’re offering these tips to help you document all things baby, child, and teen! 

    • Good: Snap a photo of the key moment or milestone. Send an email to yourself or your child (if you created an email account for your child) with a short sentence or two of why this photo, why this moment. It doesn’t have to be fancy. 
    • Better: Make a book! Yes, we just said that, but before you laugh at us, hang on a minute. Don’t try to make ‘THE’ book. Make ‘A’ book.  

It could be a traditional baby book, scrapbook, or any of the digital options readily available. Maybe it’s documenting a birthday, or a fun family vacation. It doesn’t matter what the theme or reason is but take those photos off your phone and put them somewhere, anywhere, that is easy to view and can tell a story. Don’t worry if it’s not an all-inclusive book from the first five years, it’s okay. Something is better than nothing. 

    • Best: We’re biased, but it should come as no surprise: Artifcts lets you create truly one-of-a-kind, interactive baby books. We're like your superpowered digital baby book app helping you day-to-day and years down the road. Artifcts offer a digital advantage with an analog touch. How?

Artifct those moments on the fly with our app and include the audio, video, photos, and details all in one safe, secure, and easily shareable space. Use custom tags to quickly search and sort your Artifcts by child, by year, etc. And the best part? If you still want that tangible book, that goes well beyond a collection of favorite photos, you can export your Artifcts to create a custom book with our partner Akin. Artifcts is a win-win approach to baby books for sure! 

Curious how my story ends? I am too!  

I still haven’t gotten around to creating that baby book, but I am now Artifcting my way through my daughter’s childhood, starting with her first sonogram, all the way up through learning how to ride a bike and now adventures of middle school.  

Being able to add audio and video makes the stories come to life, and my daughter, who is now a tech-savvy teen, loves searching through the Artifcts to re-live the firsts she does not remember. Searching is made even easier by the tags I use, such as #thatsmygirl. 

One of her favorites? An Artifct I appropriately titled, “That Time She Painted the Fence.” She laughs non-stop at the story, including the complacency of our golden retriever in the process.  

 

That time she painted the fence...

Although that Artifct is private, I’ll leave you with one of the photos from the Artifct. 

Remember, it’s never too late to remember for them and with them through Artifcts. You don’t have to take it from me. One of our Arti Community members reached out to us earlier this year to let us know that although her children are all grown and in their 30s and 40s, she’s finally getting around to that baby book, one Artifct at a time.  

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Looking to get a jumpstart on your baby book?

Our checklists can help!

Checklists for baby boos

© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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What's New at Artifcts
What's Your Garage's Personality Type?

We added the garage to our “Around the House, with Artifcts” series for 2025 based on the simple realization that maybe more than any other space in the home, the garage is a true multitasker. 

      • Garages protect your vehicles. Not only from hailstorms and theft, but from the toll that extreme temperatures take on the materials, too.  

      • Garages store tools of life. This might be lawnmowers and snowblowers. It might also be every hammer, nail, screw, cleaning chemical and paint, and garden tool you can imagine. 

      • Garages offer habit space. For some this is a petite to full-blown home gym, for others a woodworking area, welding corner, or at-home bike shop. 

      • Garages, oh so often, provide spillover storage. Just as new lanes on a highway nearly guarantee more cars will flow through than ever before, the more space you have, the more you fill it. Sometimes this even puts at risk family treasures and heirlooms for lack of anywhere 'else' to store them.

We’ve also enjoyed exploring how this multitasker of a space takes on the personality of its owners and requires creative and safety-minded solutions to keep them functioning in a way that supports us, not frustrates us. Read on -->

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Four Garage Personalities 

On full display in any garage is an owner’s priorities, habits, and hobbies, giving the space a personality of its own. We’ve discovered four garage personalities: 

      1. The Immaculate. It’s a well-designed, spotless dream. Painted drywall, epoxy or stained concrete floors. Pricey custom shelving. High-def televisions and supporting sound systems. Maybe even artwork and lighted signs. 
      2. The Classic. A garage that houses vehicles and has space for all the essential tools that make a home run. It’s not essential that it even have drywall. It certainly does not rely on custom cabinets when a few shelves or some freestanding cabinets will do the trick. 
      3. The Whozits and Whatzits. Often poorly organized and contained, storing everything from the tools you commonly associate with a garage to all the spillover content of a home. Examples we’ve seen include cooking gear and glassware that fail to fit inside kitchen cabinets, bins of seasonal clothing, and spare luggage. You just might still fit your car in here, but more likely not. 
      4. Converted. Literally or figuratively, you’ve sacrificed the garage for storage, a spare lounge space, or another function. Either way, no car takes refuge there at any time. 

We interviewed Scarlett who lives commuting-distance outside New York City, in a quiet, tree-filled neighborhood. Surely in this neck of the woods, there would be an abundance of home maintenance tools and equipment, such as snowblowers and lawn mowers, as well as toys, like sleds, required for this family of five. We wanted to know, “How do you make it all work in a single-car garage?” 

“Easy! Convert! Our garage is a tiny one car thing at the end of a 90 ft driveway. When we moved in, we quickly figured it would never make sense to park there, so we decommissioned it (shortened the driveway, made a cut out for our cars and extended the lawn), and the garage became storage from the get-go. The garage stored a hodgepodge of camping equipment, bikes, snowblower, sleds etc. Unfortunately, because of the state of the garage, you would not want to store anything you cared about in there. 

The garage was such a decrepit after thought in our lives, purely functional, that the town even planted trees in the park abutting our home to block it from view! Truly an embarrassment.”

Perhaps you can relate. Or perhaps you relate better to one of the other three garage personalities. In either case, read on for coverage of both garage dangers and pro tips for wrangling it into control to meet your needs.

Common Garage Dangers 

Before we go on with tips to help you declutter your garage if it’s not serving your needs, we want to highlight a few of the inherent risks that come with how we tend to use our garage spaces.  

Garages are highly problematic from both safety and preservation lenses. And if you are new to a geographic area and moving from one climate zone to another in particular, you may get caught off guard. 

Batteries. We beg you: only charge batteries when you are there to monitor for potential fires. Keep an extinguisher in the garage. Unplug the charger and disengage any battery from its device—e.g. leaf blower, lawn mower, power drill, etc.—when not in use. And be sure to test the fire alarm in the garage every season. 

Papers, plastics, and fabrics. Non-climate-controlled garages will take a heavy toll on fabrics, papers, and plastics. Such as? Such as the very carboard boxes you’re storing stuff in (bugs love cardboard, too), the plastics in your bike helmets, the glues in your wreaths and holiday ornaments, and delicate family heirlooms and documents.  

Chemicals. How temperature stable are those paints, solvents, insect sprays and more? How long can you store them in your garage and still safely use them? Keeping safety and effectiveness in mind, it may be time to dispose of some, just to be safe. A simple online search will yield recycling guidelines for everything you can imagine and locations or pick up options for disposal. (Psst… this applies to batteries and lightbulbs too!) 

Top Tips to Help You Declutter Your Garage 

That big garage door and attached driveway offer you a huge advantage in decluttering and organizing this particular space, and leads us to tip #1: 

Empty it. Moving everything out of the garage lets you start with a clean slate. It very likely also puts you on the clock since you won’t want to leave your things out overnight. Obviously, know the weather outlook first.  

Check expiration dates. Like spices in your kitchen, check the expiration dates on all chemicals, batteries, and even sports gear—like sports pads, helmets, and spare car seats—and set them aside to recycle, making a list of items you also need to replace. Use painters' tape to attach that list to a wall for all helpers to contribute to. 

Consider your lifestyle and stage. And be honest with yourself, not aspirational. If you have kids, and they have literally outgrown equipment or toys out there, great, set those aside. If you moved on from a hobby or sport or have single-use tools for that one time you dug a fence post, set all of that aside, too.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed or sad to see some things go? Artifcts is here to help. This is the perfect time to snap pics and record the memories of items that help tell your life’s stories. That's what tv host and decluttering expert Matt Paxton did with his son to make room for a home gym in the garage. Read the full story.

Focus first on frequently used items. Grab a pen and paper. You’re going to make a list that everyone in your home (and professionals, if you have hired them) can reference. Visually scan all the ‘stuff’ you store in your garage. What do you use on a daily and/or weekly basis? Keep the timeframe that narrow to now prioritize how those items are displayed, stored, and accessed. 

Great examples of likely high-use items include packing tape, scissors, and utility knife (all commonly used for opening the abundance of packages we receive these days) as well as reusable shopping bags that we hang when emptied and grab as we walk out the door. 

Another great example: bikes. It’s absolutely terrible advice to recommend installing overhead storage racks to hang bikes if you use them frequently, especially if the people using them won’t be able to easily or safely get them down. Instead, use bike hooks that let you fold the bikes flat against the wall for accessibility and a minimal footprint. 

Hanging bikes, flat against the garage wall

 
 
Bikes that hinge "closed" as they hang on the wall, like a book, are accessible and take up less space. Two cars can still fit inside this garage! Shown is the Velo Hinge Wall Mount by Feedback Sports.

Equally terrible advice: installing peg boards for every tool under the sun when you use four of them on a regular basis. That makes for not only a poor use of space for your regular needs but intense visual clutter, too, which may be hard on some members of your household depending on their organizing styles. If you're familiar with the four organizing styles created by Clutterbug, these peg boards are great for "bees" but painful for "crickets."

Consider “over and under” storage options. Maybe you’ll hang your ladder just feet off the ground, because that then opens up the ground space for storing a high use or maybe very heavy item you want within reach.

Perhaps you need certain other items within reach, but they take up a lot of space. Go vertical with the storage rather than consuming shelves and floor space. Stretch your imagination on how you store what you choose to keep. 

folded ladder hanging on a garage wall

 
 
Hanging this ladder with a simple hook means more storage space below it.

Clear is king. Remember our story about the deinfluencing trend from earlier this year and the man who went on a clear bin buying spree for his garage? He was able to smartly sort, contain, and keep accessible all the components and equipment he needed for his hobby and home life using clear bins and a few wire baskets. You may also want to add labels but be sure to choose labels that you can easily remove if you want to change out what you’re storing. 

Feeling inspired yet? Good luck, and happy Artifcting!

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Every Room Has a Story: Kitchen Edition

Reading time: 5 minutes 

Welcome to the fourth in our series of the stories of your living spaces: Your kitchen. Often the workhorse of our homes, the kitchen is also ground zero for family gatherings, traditions and oh-so-many memories and stories to go along with it all. Not to mention ALL that cabinet space, which too often ends up becoming the final resting place for long forgotten and seldom used gadgets, mugs, cookbooks, and more! 

What surprises are hidden behind your cabinet doors? What memories and stories are sitting untold? What ‘stuff’ is getting in your way of the job to be done: cooking! Let’s go! 

Catch up on past editions in the series: Living Room |  Kids’ Rooms Bathroom 

Cookbooks, Recipes & More 

Show me a kitchen without a cookbook and I’ll show you... a [insert company name] catalog. Yes, those designer kitchens in our favorite furniture store catalogs always LOOK nice, but our co-founder Heather is always left wondering, where are the cookbooks?  

Growing up, Heather’s mom was a fabulous cook. Heather still remembers sitting on the butcher block counters and doodling in the cookbooks as her mother baked. And we’re certain she’s not alone in her memories in the kitchen and those omnipresent cookbooks.  

Whether your cookbook collection is more accidental than intentional, one thing is for certain, kitchen cabinets and shelves are great for holding, hiding, and yes, collecting cookbooks! Your shelves are so accommodating that they do nothing to help you parse out the useful, the emotionally valuable, or the “it was a nice thought, but not happening” cookbooks.  

And let’s not forget about the recipes. Sometimes it’s not so much the cookbook as it is one of the recipes inside that triggers the memory.  

 
 
 
 
Heather found a handwritten recipe from her father in one of her mother’s cookbooks. Heather framed the recipe, and three moves later, it still sits prominently on her kitchen counter. CLICK THE IMAGE to view the Artifct.

Feeling inspired? Ready to thin that collection? As you do, Artifct favorites on the spot! Really want to wow your family? Include a short audio story of WHY you love that particular cookbook or recipe. Better yet, include a short video of you making the recipe or providing instruction on how-to make the recipe.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
One of our most-loved Artifcts involves a grandmother instructing her granddaughter on how to make the family’s secret biscuits. CLICK THE IMAGE to view the Artifct.

Gadgets Galore 

Ah yes, kitchen gadgets. As lovers of all things kitchen related, our co-founders Heather and Ellen get it. Who doesn’t want the latest and greatest sure-to-revolutionize-your-dinner-routine gadget? Thankfully for them, space is at a premium in both households, which means that function usually always wins out and helps to keep extra gadgets at bay.  

That said, we know this is not the norm. Our members have shared with us stories of all those gadgets sometimes inherited, sometimes accumulated. We’ve heard firsthand how New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier end up with juice machines, bread machines, blenders, and the like tucked away in the back of our cabinets, taunting us and our half-hearted attempts. 

 
 
 
When @Sue Artifcted her antique cheese grater, she even showed her daughter how to use it! 

But then there are the #battletested kitchen gadgets that have stood the test of time and are woven into the fabric of your family stories around the recipes and holidays they served.

 

 A rolling pin that's been passed down for generations! @Grandmom Artifcted it. CLICK THE IMAGE to view the Artifct. 

For all those kitchen gadgets, whether old or new, loved or maybe forgotten, it’s time we take a hard look at them, too. Do they still work? Will you still use them? Perfect! Keep! If the answer is ‘no’ to either of those questions, consider donating or recycling but not before you Artifct them. A few of these gadgets are even featured in our 108 Things to Declutter list, downloadable here.

Junk Drawers, Fridge Doors, and All Other Surfaces 

Hello elephant(s) in the room! We’re looking at you junk drawer, fridge door, and all other available surfaces where clutter in our kitchens tends to accumulate. 

Barbara Hemphill, of the Productive Environment Institute coined the phrase, “clutter is postponed decisions.” So true! And somehow our kitchens enable us to postpone those decisions even further.

Not today! Pick an area—your junk drawer, your fridge door, or flat surface—and take a hard look at what is there by spreading it out onto an open surface and then thoughtfully reviewing what belongs:

      • Seasonal items can easily be rotated out if you pause to take notice that they are still there, months later. We’re looking at you, hand towels!
      • Sentimental but unnecessary? Great, Artifct it and then recycle, rehome, or otherwise put it in its appropriate space.
      • Any lurking financial or business-related stuff, such as old receipts, invoices, and the like, could potentially be scanned and then shredded.
      • Got mementos overflowing, e.g., old matchbooks, magnets, ticket stubs, and other souvenirs? We bet there are some good stories behind those items to Artifct and share with family and friends. Maybe consider rehoming the actual item if it is no longer needed or used.

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© 2024 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Oldies-But-Goodies: Summer Reading List from the Artifcts Archives

If you're anything like us, you probably have your favorite newsletters piling up in your inboxes all week, all month, all quarter long. We know how great they are, loaded with useful information, new research, fun tips and more, but the days can be so full. And we want to devote our attention to them, so we save them and wait until we have more time. Is summer that time for you?

If ARTIcles by Artifcts is new to you or piling up from your busy days and months, we’ve compiled a few of our favorites from over the years into your next summer reading list, perfect for your next roadtrip, airplane ride, or other adventure over your summer holidays.

While creating this list made us a bit nostalgic, it also reminded us why we’re here – helping us all to transform our relationships to our ‘stuff’ and to each other, one memory, one story, one Artifct at a time. Enjoy!  

Artifcts Co-founder Heather Nickerson’s Summer Reading List 

USE ARTIFCTS TIMELINES TO ENRICH YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

Have you tried keeping track of your family history? Although I'm a 12th generation Nickerson, I am allergic to genealogy apps or any type of software that makes me feel like I’m embarking on a senior thesis project. Artifcts Timelines however are a (nice cool summer) breeze. Read now -->

A FAMILY HISTORY IN FIVE ARTIFCTS 

When push comes to shove, could you tell your life story in five Artifcts? Which Artifcts would you choose? I’m not sure I could, which is why I love this piece. Read now --> 

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH STUFF: THE SANDWICH GENERATION

These days I'm feeling more like a panini than a sandwich, trying to plan for yet another move with all our 'stuff' while working full time at Artifcts. This one speaks to all of us who are trying to juggle kids, parents, four-legged dependents, and our jobs, and not always in that order. Read now --> 

A VIRTUAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF KEEPING UP WITH ALL MY DIGITAL PHOTOS 

Guilty as charged. This will be mandatory reading for EVERY family member this summer as I refuse to pay for yet another upgrade to our Apple storage plan. Read now -->

15 DECLUTTERING TARGETS FOR ARTIFCTERS

It's actionable, and as my youngest used to say, “Chop, chop!” I think my father is secretly looking forward to a couple of extra helping hands this summer as we tackle the basement with this list in hand. Read now -->

Artifcts Co-founder Ellen Goodwin’s Summer Reading List 

SOUNDS OF SUMMER – VINYL EDITION 

Music is magical. We use it to teach. We use it to celebrate and recover. We even use it to reconnect with loved ones who have been robbed of so much by dementia, but the powerful memories of music bring them joy. What music would make your ‘best of’ cut? Read now -->

FROM RARE ART TO FAMILY HEIRLOOMS: TIPS FROM A MASTER AS YOU CONSIDER SELLING YOUR ‘STUFF’ 

Too often we are our own worst enemies, procrastinating, inflating expectations, and worse when it comes to downsizing and decluttering objects we own. We've taken to heart the perspective and truths that Antiques Roadshow host Lark Mason shared with us from his decades of experience working with families as they auctioned away pieces of their family history. Read now -->

FIVE LESSONS FROM ARTIFCTING WITH MY MOTHER (+ The Epilogue!) 

Artifcting is about connection, one on one, in groups, as communities. This story comes from the heart, offering guidelines to make the most of your time Artifcting with your loved ones. Read now --> 

PINT-SIZED PERSPECTIVE ON DECLUTTERING & MOVING 

It can be hard to be 5, 6, or 7, or any age under 18 really. So little control over nearly everything! This article is about bringing kids into the decluttering and downsizing game to give them back some control as you prepare to move. Don’t miss a more recent article on this theme from our friend Matt Paxton, too. Read now --> 

HOW TO TAKE PICTURES OF OBJECTS AT HOME 

The team at Artifcts wants to support you as much as possible, every step of the way. So when our members ask us for tips—like how to take nice pictures of ‘stuff’—we do everything we can to respond and help. Aesthetics matter! Details matter! If you want to level up from our at-home advice, we collected photo tips from a pro, too. Read now -->

We wish you all the best over these summer months. Happy reading, happy Artifcting!

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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