When you’re younger, everything is new and every “first” gets written down or saved. But as we get older, our lives are filled with memories that shape who we are—memories that mean even more than our first haircut or first bike. Yet we do less and less documenting. Why not collect our adult milestones in a beautiful memory book? Go beyond the simple family album or vacation photo book. It might be the most memorable gift you ever make, whether it’s for yourself or someone else.

Unique memory books 

Important people

A meaningful memory book tells the story of you and the people that matter most to you. Start by making a list of loved ones to include and gather up the memories that capture your unique bond. You can divide your book into sections dedicated to each friend or family member, group your photos by season or special event, or treat each page as a collage of moments. Don’t forget to add fun quotes and captions.

Happiness book

Seeing things you love and your favorite things to do is an instant mood boost. Whenever you’re feeling lonely, discouraged, or uninspired, you can leaf through for a fresh place to start. This one doesn’t even have to be your own photography.  It can be quotes, cutouts from magazines, images you find on Unsplash—anything that makes you happy to see it. Simply creating is a happy activity, let alone when it lives in your line of sight.

Childhood toys

This is a great baby book idea. As children outgrow toys, stuffed animals, even well-loved costumes, shoes, and capes, take a photo of them. It may not be practical to keep each object forever, but you can keep all the memories between the covers of a memory book.

Favorite songs and albums

This kind of memory book works for any age. Create an autobiography out of songs and albums. Find the cover art, maybe even photograph your physical copies of CDs and vinyl.  Write a brief note about the memories connected to that song or album, or how it shaped you. Author Nick Hornby did this brilliantly with his book, Songbook, but you don’t have to be a bestselling author to organize your record collection in the pages of a book.

Quotes and inspiration

We get inspiration for how to live from so many places. Whether it’s family wisdom passed down, favorite authors, or Instagram reposts, creating your own memory book means you can collect it all into one volume to revisit for reminders. Pair quotes with photos of the family member that made them famous, or with photos and illustrations that also inspire you. It’s like making a mix-tape of all the wisdom you carry around. The best part about making it yourself is that it’s yours! Your collection will be as unique as you are, and that’s the beauty of it!

Doodles and drawings

Digitize those sketches and get them into something more permanent. This also makes a great gift for the artist or doodler in your life. Photograph the best pages in sketchbooks, notebooks, and journals and create a personal body of work in one, professionally printed volume. This safeguards your ideas, inspirations, and practice sketches from getting lost or scattered.

Commonplace memory book

This is one for readers. One way to remember what you read is to write excerpts in notebooks for future use. It’s a practice that dates back to the 18th century. but many people now keep notes of what they read without even knowing about the tradition. Your memory book doesn’t have to be visual. It can be a gathering of your reading notes into a single volume. As you compile them, you can sort them into different categories—love, success, faith, money, and lay out your book according to those sections. You’ll create a volume that’ll be an heirloom for years to come.

Pet album

It’s becoming more and more common to see Instagram accounts solely dedicated to pets. There’s something special about our furry friends who bring so much joy and love to our lives. Our pets are family members! Why relegate those photos to a phone? Put them in pages so your pets can live on with the rest of the family and take their place in the collection of family albums.

Year-in-review

Speaking of getting your photos off your phone, why not make an annual photo book? Put those special moments in print so they aren’t forever buried in a feed. You can auto-flow your photos right from your phone and Facebook account, and within minutes, you have a print version of your year. Don’t leave your memories to constantly-changing technology. You took those photos for a special reason, put them in a memory book so they’ll stand the test of time.

Annual events

It’s easy to overlook these because they happen every year. But making a memory book about an annual event is easy because the theme is already there! Gather all the pumpkin patch photos, or shots from the annual sisters’ road trip, or from holidays over the years. Maybe you always attend opening day for baseball. Having the photos in a book means you can revisit those annual events throughout the year.

The whole journey

Is there something you’ve done that took you months or years to accomplish? A goal you finally reached? A project that finally reached completion? Maybe you reached your weightlifting objective, and you have your gym selfies to show your progress. Maybe you finished a mural. Have you been fundraising for an important cause?

Put together the memories of how you got there because sometimes it’s as much about what it took to get somewhere as actually making it. If you haven’t started your journey yet, bearing in mind the possibility of making a memory book will encourage you to document along the way!

Where I’m from

This can be an important gift to yourself as a tool of self-discovery, but it can also be a comforting gift for someone who’s about to set sail for somewhere new. Gather photos that represent family heritage, pictures, and artifacts from a hometown or neighborhood, histories of local landmarks, family traditions, etc. Taking a good look at your roots, and holding them in your hand in the form of a memory book, can give you wings to reach the next place on your life journey.

Weekend getaways

Just because it isn’t a big vacation doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of print. Bachelorette weekends, family visits, local adventures, brief visits—they make great little volumes of memories. Plan a little in advance, and you’ll be able to collect everyone else’s photos from the trip and have plenty of material to create a travel photo book.

Custom ABC memory book

You may not be a world-class illustrator, but you can make a special children’s book for the little ones in your life. Gather photos for each letter of the alphabet that are personal and meaningful. It’s a fun creative challenge for you that has a built-in structure and theme, and it’s fun learning for your little one as you pore over it for years to come.

Letters of note

It’s rare to exchange written letters anymore, but we have a flurry of emails. Some of our most poignant cultural memories come from the letters of writers and artists that were originally “off the record”. What written treasures do you have stashed in a folder in your inbox? Take out those early-days romantic emails, those stories from studying abroad, or the day-to-day catch-ups between friends. Clear away the clutter and arrange the collection as a conversation. Years from now, you’ll be so glad you don’t have to track down a way to read them.

See how Kathleen Monahan turned her father’s handwritten letters into a wonderful family memento: Dear Mom Love Johnny.

Vision memory book

What about the memories you still want to make? You’ve heard of vision boards—where you keep visual reminders of goals, hopes, and dreams. What about a vision book? Put those plans and future reflections in writing on real pages. Where do you want to be in five or 10 years? What do you want your life to look like? What’s your plan for getting there? Gather pictures, quotes, detailed descriptions, and reflections for your vision book. Make it beautiful. Keep it laying around. When you hold one of these in your hands, you can meditate on creating a life that inspires the most important audience—yourself!

We already have a library of memories in our heads. They flood back in an instant, triggered by a certain scent, song, or time of year. Maybe there are a few we don’t want to see again, but others, when they are brought back to mind, meaning we get to experience that love and joy all over again. Rather than wait for the weather or a particular combination of smells, put the best ones in pages so you can take them off the shelf whenever you’d like. Make that inner library a real one you can have and hold with personal memory books.