Category Archives: Ideas & Inspiration

The Many Mediums of a Story Project

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DOABLE Sidebar DLet’s say that you’ve narrowed down your story project and have a good idea of what you want to do and why you want to do this story project, the next big question is what medium to do want to use to tell this story?

I’ll use my great-great-grandmother, Mary Taylor again as an example. I knew I wanted to do a story project about her and I had decided that I wanted to focus on her journey from England to Utah with the Martin Handcart company. I also knew that I wanted to do something that would be appealing to kids. I figured that if it was approachable for kids, adults would take time to learn about Mary Taylor too.

So looking at the 100 story projects post, and narrow it down. My first run through I deleted things that weren’t about her journey. That got me down to about 40 Then I deleted those that would not be very appealing to children. That took off about 20 more. Next I looked again at which ones would really tell the story of her journey and not just aspects of her experience and would appeal to kids ages 5 to 10. That got me down to the following list:

  1. make a story book with illustration of Mary’s childhood and journey to Zion (did that – it is so close to being ready to publish)
  2. make that story book into an ebook
  3. make that story book into an enhanced ebook with sound etc.
  4. make that story book into a video with narration and background music
  5. make a coloring book about Mary’s life (I could probably adapt the illustrations from “My Grandma Mary” for this)
  6. design surprise balls that tell a story about Mary Taylor
  7. make puppets to act out stories from Mary Taylor’s life
  8. make a video of the puppet show
  9. put together a story box about Mary Taylor

Looking at this more focused short list you could do some more brainstorming and ask yourself are there some different media that I could use to expand this list. Here are some extra ideas that come to mind:

  • make an animated video using claymation or other media
  • make paper dolls for the characters in Mary’s story
  • instead of having an adult illustrate the book have a child or children draw the images after learning about Mary’s story

The first five could be grouped together, because in completing the first one (make a story book), much of the work is already done for the next three. It is sharing it and enhancing it in different ways. Using different media. In some ways the story box could be the final end of several story projects about Mary Taylor all with the goal in mind of creating a story box about her life and/or her journey to Utah in 1856. The box could contain the story book and/or ebook, video etc, a coloring book, puppets and a script or scripts to perform or a video, and a surprise ball as a kind of summary of Mary’s story and trinkets to remind the kids what they learned about their ancestor. That would be really cool.

I didn’t make this list when I started the story book about Mary’s journey, but if I had I would then need to choose which story project to do first. The story box would be out because it is more appropriate as a long-term goal. Someone with more experience with puppets and script writing might pick that as a first project. But since my experience is mainly with books I would probably still pick that as my first project. Even the color book idea is a natural extension of the story book. If I was more comfortable with video that could be the starter project and then the book would be taken from still of the video. There are lots of options and mediums. Which one or ones you choose depends on you, your talents, your interests and your resources. The story book project turned out to be perfect for me because my niece was on board to illustrate it.

Does this example help you to see how to take a long list that you have brainstormed and narrow it down. There is not one right answer for a story project. Follow your intuition and move forward. This can be a fun process so let it inspire you. Then keep that vision alive as you take the many steps to complete your story project.

I’ve been inspired by this brainstorming exercise, I hope you have too. Now it is time for you to do something similar for your next story project!

 

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100 Story Project Ideas

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DOABLE Sidebar DThere are so many types of story projects. Let’s use one of my projects as an example. Many months ago I decided I wanted to learn more about my great-great-grandmother, Mary Taylor and share some of that with my family. This has lead to several story projects about her that I’ve already done and many more that I would like to do. I’m sure there are even more that I haven’t even thought of yet. Let’s see how many different story projects I can come up with about Mary Taylor:

  1. go to Martin’s Cove for a hands on experience (did that)
  2. make a video from our experience in Martin’s Cove
  3. make a simple book to share with family about her life and her journey with the Martin handcart company (did that)
  4. build a handcart replica
  5. live for one day or even one meal on the rations that the Martin Handcart company had
  6. reenact the journey of the Martin Handcart company from its start in Liverpool England to its arrival in the Salt Lake Valley
  7. build a diorama of Coton-on-the-Elms
  8. build a model of the ship Horizon
  9. follow the journey of the Martin Handcart company day by day in 1856 (did that)
  10. make a serial graphic novel based on the experiences of the hardcart pioneers
  11. share it to coincide with Mary’s journey to Zion
  12. travel to England the area that Mary grew up
  13. write about my experiences and share it with my family
  14. use google earth to take a virtual journey to Mary’s birthplace
  15. use google earth to follow Mary’s journey with the Martin Handcart company
  16. make it into a video to share with others
  17. using google earth create a virtual scavenger hunt about Mary’s life and the places she has been
  18. make a story book with illustration of Mary’s childhood and journey to Zion (did that – it is so close to being ready to publish)
  19. make that story book into an ebook
  20. make that story book into an enhanced ebook with sound etc.
  21. make that story book into a video with narration and background music
  22. using family members make a video about Mary Taylor
  23. make a music video with Mary favorite song “The Handcart Song”
  24. learn the Mary’s childhood song “In the Merry Green Fields of Oland” similar to “Old McDonald“
  25. make an illustrated video of “In the Merry Green Fields of Oland”
  26. make an illustrated children’s book inspired by “In the Merry Green Fields of Oland”
  27. create a board game inspired by the handcart pioneers
  28. learn and then teach how to play the game “Going to Zion”
  29. learn to make simple toys from Mary’s time and share them with my family
  30. make a video game inspired by the experiences of the handcart pioneers
  31. Gather photos of all the known possessions of Mary Taylor and put them into a book form to share with family, including stories about each item
  32. also share that book as an ebook
  33. learn about cooking in the late 19th century in England and Utah
  34. make how to videos to share what I learn
  35. make a cookbook with recipes that Mary probably cooked
  36. learn homemaking skills for the late 19th century
  37. learn about dressmaking in the 1850s
  38. learn about the French surge dress we have that Mary made
  39. create a modern-day pattern for her dress
  40. create craft and/or home decor ideas using Mary’s dress making skills
  41. make a quilt about Mary’s Life
  42. make a quilt about the Martin Handcart Company
  43. make patterns for those quilts to share with others including the stories behind the blocks chosen
  44. learn about the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when that Mary joined the church in England
  45. watch “Seventeen Miracles” and/or other pioneer movies as a family
  46. organize a Mary Taylor descendants reunion
  47. compile all the descendants of Mary Taylor into a book
  48. make a Facebook page for the descendants of Mary Taylor
  49. design a charm necklace/key chain in honor of Mary Taylor
  50. visit Mary’s grave site
  51. visit all know locations that she lived
  52. do a “decades” book about Mary’s life
  53. do something everyday for one year to honor Mary
  54. compile those experiences into a book
  55. compile those experiences into a video
  56. write a book about what Mary has taught me
  57. design surprise balls that tell a story about Mary Taylor
  58. create a memory jar in honor of Mary and/or my experiences learning about her
  59. put together a story box about Mary Taylor
  60. make a music cd inspire by Mary Taylor including “The Handcart Song”, “In the Merry Green Fields of Oland” and other songs from the late 19th century
  61. make a shadow box about Mary Taylor (I’ve sort of done this with a tea-cup that was hers but there is much more that I could do)
  62. make a coloring book about Mary’s life (I could probably adapt the illustration from “My Grandma Mary” for this)
  63. give a gift basket inspired by Mary Taylor – include other story project like “My Grandma Mary” in the basket
  64. make a memory wreath about Mary Taylor
  65. make an old-fashioned Christmas wreath inspired by Mary Taylor with decoration from the late 19th century
  66. make a doll house inspired by one of Mary Taylor’s homes
  67. research the history of each of Mary’s last names: Taylor, Upton, Simmons and Robinson
  68. put together a book about Mary’s names
  69. find any coat of arms from Mary’s history or design a coat of arms inspired by her life
  70. make t-shirts inspired by Mary Taylor
  71. find and/or create maps about Mary Taylor’s life
  72. make a calendar for the coming year with all the important dates in Mary Taylor’s life
  73. celebrate Mary Taylor’s birthday
  74. make a trivia game with facts about Mary Taylor and life in the late 19th century
  75. make an audio record of stories about Mary Taylor – recruit family members to help with this project
  76. make puppets to act out stories from Mary Taylor’s life
  77. make a video of the puppet show
  78. pick one of Mary’s home and research the history of that spot
  79. make duplicates of the photo we have of Mary Taylor and make sure everyone in the family has a copy
  80. create a collage about Mary Taylor
  81. make a Christmas ornament with Mary Taylor’s photo
  82. make or find Christmas ornaments like those common in Mary’s Life time
  83. plan a Christmas meal similar to what Mary Taylor would have enjoyed
  84. decorate your house and/or Christmas tree in the way in would have been done in the late 19th century
  85. make flash cards about Mary Taylor’s life
  86. make flash cards about the Willie and Martin Handcart companies
  87. make a memory game inspired by Mary Taylor
  88. gather family traditions from the late 19th century and choose a few to make a part of your traditions in honor of Mary Taylor
  89. keep a record of your new family traditions so that future generations will know where they came from
  90. set up a photo shoot inspired by the late 19th century and invite family members to get their photos taken
  91. compile these photos into a book to share with everyone
  92. make an advent calendar inspired by Mary Taylor and/or the late 19th century
  93. make a puzzle with Mary Taylor’s picture or a collage or a set of puzzles from the illustrations in “My Grandma Mary” book
  94. make a family tree that shows the connection between Mary Taylor and each family member
  95. make a Christmas card inspire by Mary Taylor (did that)
  96. make a time capsule with all the things we all the Mary Taylor story projects
  97. write a song about Mary Taylor and what she means to me
  98. make a family planner with facts about Mary Taylor and important dates in her life
  99. make an infographic about Mary Taylor
  100. have “Mary Taylor” come for dinner

Most of these idea could be applied to your ancestor and there are many more story project ideas that you could come up with. There is no shortage of ideas. The challenge is to choose one and make it happen. Remember to start with smaller simpler projects.

Did my list inspire you? If you don’t already have a story project you are working on, I challenge you to decide on one today.

Shadow from A to Z

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http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/872278/f2c1f2aa8ed1373b16ef4eac2835e781?ce=blurb_ew&utm_source=widget

The sixth anniversary of our pet dog, Shadow’s, passing was just a few days ago so I thought this would be a good time to share this project. I put this book together a couple of years after Shadow died. It was my way of writing his life history but not in a chronological way. I used the letter so f the alphabet and chose words that described Shadow as the structure for telling stories about his life with us. This book was therapeutic for me and in many ways is a legacy for all the puppies we are now raising for Guide Dogs for the Blind. It is the precursor for all the puppyhood books I am doing for them. I used digital scrapbooking papers and elements on the pages.

Do you have a story project that would lend itself to the alphabet approach instead of the more traditional chronological approach?

Book of the Week – visions of key west

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With my dad’s history and Key West on my mind, I went looking for this weeks book and I found “visions of key west – the folk art of ronny bailey” by Ronny and Stephanie Bailey. Here is what he said about his book:

This book presents a unique style of Folk Art. Ronny recycles salvaged wood and tin from century old Key West houses into miniature replicas of these same old houses. These 3-d houses fool the eye. Thru Ronny’s use of the original patina on his salvaged materials and great detail it is hard to tell what is a real house and what is his miniature reproduction.

I love his work. It is a wonderful way to keep the history of Key West and the lifestyle of the past. His sculptures are amazing. For more on Ronny Bailey click on the links below.

http://artid.com/members/rbailey

http://keywestproperties.blogspot.com/2011/01/ronny-bailey-key-west-artist.html

Do you or your family have folk art like Ronny’s that reflects the history and stories of your family? My grandma learned to paint in her later years. She mostly did landscapes and still lifes. Not sure if that qualifies but it shows me that I have creativity in my roots.

 

Birthday Traditions

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lighting mom's 90th birthday cake

Iris’s 90th Birthday Party video

With my mind being on birthdays recently I started thinking about birthday traditions. A Google search brings up lots of hits on traditions for kids but not so many for grown-ups. As I think back in my life and can see how easy it is to let birthdays slip by without doing much to really celebrate the day. Some people are great at making sure they have fun celebrations in their life. Some families have well-developed birthday traditions. My family isn’t one of them. So this is an area I could use some work on. Maybe it comes from my family culture. My mom is very practical and recently my dad said that he didn’t know how to celebrate. It seems to me that birthday traditions don’t necessarily need to be fancy or expensive but it takes planning and effort to make sure they become traditions. I also think that sometimes birthday traditions need to evolve to meet the families changing needs.

Last year I had lots of fun celebrating by birthday 50 times during the year. I want to do more in the coming years to develop some good adult birthday traditions. With my birthday coming up in May it is time to start thinking about some new traditions. Do you have any suggestions? What birthday traditions do you have or wish to start with your family?

 

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Book of the Week – Birthday Boy

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Since birthdays have been on my mind, I decided to look for a book this week about birthdays. When I found “Birthday Boy” by Tom and Marianne O’Connell, I couldn’t resist choosing it. Here is what the authors have to say about their book:

Marianne and Tom love celebrating all holidays and Skippy’s birthdays were always the best! Skippy partied at home in Sausalito, the “fake” house next door, at his beach house in Pajaro Dunes and Las Vegas.

Skippy biggest birthday was his 10th and he enjoyed it with 35 of his canine pals and their families. Marianne and Tom rented the Marin Humane Society dog park and Skippy worked the crowd like the champ he knew he was. The park’s life size bronze statue of Skippy only added to the festivities.

Tom and Marianne hoped and dreamed Skippy would live to be 17 but sadly that didn’t happen. But for every dog they say there is an angel and you can be sure Skippy and his angel will paint the town every October 21st for all the years to come.

Even if you aren’t into dogs this book has some great ideas that can be applies to other projects. I really like how each year lists some important events in the world and in Skippy’s life. It is amazing how a few photos and two short paragraphs for each year can tell so much about what is important. Even applied to a life history this approach would make a very doable history project.

Take a few moments and ask yourself if you have a project that this format would work well for. I bet most of us do. I’ve just thought of one. I want to put together a book for the dogs that we’ve raised when they retire. This would be a good way to do that. I know, another dog project, maybe that isn’t such a great example but I do think it would work well. Hopefully it will be many more years before any of our pups retire. But I could start each of their books now and add to them each year on either their birthdays or the anniversary of their graduation. Then they would be ready when retirement comes around.

Have you thought of a project? I’d love to hear about your ideas. Maybe your ideas will inspire someone else too.

Book of the Week – face Book

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I love the simple concept and layout of this book, described on the title page as “a week in the life of a branch library,” by photographer Keith Pattison. I wonder if this same idea could work well for a family reunion or another type of family gathering. Which makes me think, could I do something like this for my mom’s 90th birthday? I love the continuity that the gray backdrop and square cropping for all the photos. I also like how there are three basic page layouts; full bleed, white border and white border with four photos. This gives the book some variety but keeps the focus on the wide variety of people who come to the library in any week.

I also really like the idea of using a simple note-book for writing a message. This would also work for my mom’s 90th birthday. I could let each person write a short note to my mom. The book would then be like a birthday card. I hope I can figure out how to pull this project off.

Do you have a project that would work well with this type of layout?

Last day of RootsTech

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Wow! What a conference. This morning’s keynote speaker was David Pogue. He was awesome. They don’t have the videos up yet for today but I’m sure they will be up soon. He was great! My classes today were:

  • Creative and Fun Ways to Cherish Your Family History
  • 365 Days of Story Prompts
  • Beyond Home Movies: YouTube Genealogy
  • Digital Storytelling: More Than Bullet Points Lab

I think my favorite class today was the one YouTube. But all of them had some great information. Digital Storytelling was my least favorite. It was about using Power Point to make a video and I learned some stuff because I’ve never used Power Point. Overall I liked my three hands on classes the least. I think because everyone moves at such a different pace on the computers and so the class has to move at the pace of the slowest person. It felt like I was exposed to the least amount of info in my hands on classes.

Overall it was a great conference and I’m looking forward attending RootsTech next year, on February 6 through the 8th. I can’t wait to start digesting this stuff and applying the things I learned.

 

RootsTech Day Two

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Lots more great stuff at RootsTech today. You can catch the presentations on the main stage at RootsTech.org. I must make time to at least see the beginning of the keynote speakers this morning. We got there late and missed the first part. The classes I took today were:

  • Social Media Part 1
  • Social Media Part 2
  • Digital Photo and Document Organization: Understanding Metadata Lab
  • Do Your eBook right: Self Publishing Secrets for the Family Historian

I learned good stuff from all of them but I think my favorites today were the social media classes. I’ve not joined any of the social media things yet but I can’t put it off too much longer and I learned more about Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+ today which well help me make more informed decisions about where to put my energy when I’m ready to make the plunge. It is tough to choose classes. There are so many great options. Just one more day of RootsTech.