111: Vanessa Quigley with Mom and Memory-making Hacks

In the 1980s and 90s, my mom was a master scrapbooker, and that’s just what moms did to preserve family memories. But times have changed and thanks to Vanessa Quigley, the creator of Chatbooks, there’s hope for moms who are not scrapbookers, like me!  Today, Vanessa shares why she got into this business of memory-keeping and how she became an accidental entrepreneur as the co-founder of Chatbooks, a hassle-free photobook system. Vanessa breaks down some of her best tips for making photo book memory-keeping simple and doable. She also shares some of her best mom-hacks as a mother of 7 on a mission to strengthen families. It’s our job as parents to become our children’s chief storytellers. As parents, we need to be documenting, cleaning out our photos, and backing them up – all the things that can really feel overwhelming. Vanessa realized she needed to build something that will help families hold on to their family memories and figure out how to do that in the easiest way. There's no such thing as a perfect mother. But you are the perfect parent for your children. And so, we all just have to start somewhere. In this episode, you will hear: What lit the fire for Vanessa to start the Chatbooks business Top tips for memory-keeping: It starts with figuring out your “why” Don’t get overwhelmed by all the family history your parents and grandparents had – your family is making your history now! Applying the concept of less is more The outcomes of looking at printed family photos together: more self-esteem, less anxiety How to set up your backup storage for your photos Research shows that having photos in your home – whether on your wall, in frames on the desk, or in books on the coffee table – helps kids feel a stronger sense of self. Why it’s more than just the photos, but the beautiful conversations that come out of it As parents, we have a job to shape that narrative. Each kid has their own narrative as well as our family as a whole.  We can help our kids to talk about their highs and lows, the roses in their thorns, and help them see how they can shape that story into a hero's journey. The importance of creating your family traditions and taking photographs of them   Supporting Resources: Chatbooks website https://chatbooks.com/  Vanessa’s Instagram @vanessaquigley https://www.instagram.com/vanessaquigley/?hl=en Chatbooks Instagram @chatbooks https://www.instagram.com/chatbooks/?hl=en Facebook group “The Mom Force” https://www.facebook.com/groups/momforcebychatbooks/ “The Mom Force” podcast https://chatbooks.com/podcast   Subscribe and Review Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.   Episode Credits Produced by Emerald City Productions