Monday Made: Journal jars

You'd probably have seen this idea before: Recycling glass containers as journal jars, which are used to house little strips of paper that contain topics to journal about, or perhaps little memories described in just one sentence.  Having seen this version over at MADE, I took the idea and adapted it for keeping track of Junior J's first words.  I mean, toddlers learn words at a rate of a few a day, and we were trying to remember all the words that he's been picking up, but realized that our aging memories can't seem to keep up!  Scrapbooking that learning journey seemed rather challenging, and I didn't have the time to make a mini album.  So I thought the easiest would be to just decorate a glass milk bottle that we had (we had tonnes of these to store milk).

I wrapped up the cap using wrapping paper and topped it off with one of those yummy embellies from our shop... (To wrap the cover, refer to this tutorial over at Design*Sponge.)

The I decorated the bottle using wrapping paper, and pasted some lettering on it... :)

Now we regularly write down those words that the boy has been learning, along with the date, on strips of cardstock...

I inked the sides of the strips using green ink, just for fun!

And stuff them into the bottle once we are done...

I used double-sided wrapping paper from Paperchase.
I liked how you can see the patterns on the reverse side when you peek into the bottle! :)

And voila!  Our easy-peasy way of recording those first words!

Aside from using this to keep track of those first words, you can adapt the same idea to record:

1. Milestones that your child reaches (you can use different coloured cardstock for different children, just in case they get mixed up by the kids next time!)

2. Things you are happy about/your blessings.

3. Little things that make you laugh.

I think there are lots of possibilities for this... any other ideas?  Please share!  :)