Make a Memory Book Together: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Memory Book and Custom Photo Book
Learn how to create a custom memory book with someone you love. From gathering photos to holding a beautifully printed book, discover collaborative storytelling that brings families closer.
Robert Wolski
Co-Founder
Creating a memory book with someone you love is more than organising photos into albums. It's about turning snapshots, stories, and small mementos into something you can both treasure. Whether you're documenting a life story, celebrating milestones, or creating a custom photo book for a special event, the goal is simple: tell a story you both care about, in a format that's easy to enjoy together.
For families supporting someone with dementia, memory books serve an even deeper purpose. Organisations like Alzheimer's WA encourage "life story books" as a way to connect with and support people living with dementia. Their downloadable AWA Life Story Template provides a structured starting point with prompts and sections you can adapt to your needs.
But you don't need a specific reason to start. Any moment worth remembering is worth keeping.
Below, we'll walk through how to make a memory book step by step, from gathering your first photo to holding a beautifully printed book in your hands. We'll also show you how platforms like Keepsake make collaborative storytelling easier than traditional scrapbooking or solo photo album projects.
Decide what kind of memory book you're making
Before you dive into creating your memory book, take a moment to think about what story you want to tell. Are you capturing a specific event like a wedding or graduation? Documenting someone's entire life story? Creating a baby book to track every precious milestone?
Understanding your project's purpose helps guide everything else - from which photos to include to how you'll structure your chapters.
Types of memory books and photo books
Life Story Biographies
Document someone's journey from childhood to present day. These work beautifully as collaborative projects where family members contribute memories from different perspectives.
Baby Books
Capture those fleeting first years - first smiles, first steps, all those special moments new parents desperately want to remember but rarely have time to scrapbook.
Wedding Photo Books
Preserve not just the ceremony, but the lead-up, the small details, and the stories behind the day.
Anniversary Books
Celebrate relationships through collected memories, love notes, and photos spanning years or decades.
Memorial Tributes
Honour someone's life story, gathering cherished memories from friends and family into one keepsake.
Travel Photo Albums
Turn vacation photos and ticket stubs into narratives about the places you've explored together.
Digital memory book platforms like Keepsake offer templates for each project type, with prompts and layouts tailored to the story you're telling. This beats starting from scratch or trying to adapt a generic photo album to fit your purpose.
Choosing between digital and physical formats
You don't have to choose one or the other. The best approach? Start digital, end physical.
Creating your memory book digitally means you can:
- Collaborate with family members in real time, no matter where they live
- Rearrange layouts without wrestling with glue and scissors
- Store everything safely in the cloud
- Make unlimited changes before committing to print
When you're ready, transform that digital memory book into hardcover books everyone can hold. Keepsake handles the transition seamlessly - your online project becomes a professionally printed book with premium paper, layflat binding, and your choice of matte finish or high-quality glossy pages.
Gather photos, mementos, and stories
The heart of any good photo book is the collection of photos and memories you bring together. Don't wait until everything's perfectly organised. Start where you are.
Dig through your existing photo album collections
Those old physical albums gathering dust? They're treasure troves. Take photos of the photos if needed - better to capture them digitally now than lose them later.
Search your phone and computer
You've probably got hundreds of digital photos scattered across devices. Look for the ones that make you smile or remind you of a story worth sharing.
Ask family members to contribute
Your siblings, parents, cousins - they all have different snapshots of the same moments. What you barely remember, they might recall vividly.
Don't forget the small stuff
Birthday cards, ticket stubs, pressed flowers, handwritten recipes, even old receipts from memorable outings - these mementos add texture to your story. Photograph or scan them to include alongside your pictures.
Record the stories behind the photos
A photo of Nan's kitchen isn't just a photo when you add the caption explaining that's where she taught you to make lamingtons while telling stories about growing up during the war.
The goal isn't perfection. It's preservation. One story, one photo, one memory at a time.
Use research-backed prompts to spark deeper stories
Here's where many photo book projects fall flat: they end up being just pictures with dates. Beautiful, sure, but missing the why and how and "remember when?"
The real magic happens when you pair images with stories. And the easiest way to get those stories? Ask better questions.
Let thoughtful prompts guide your storytelling
Generic questions like "Tell me about your childhood" often lead to generic answers. But specific, sensory questions? They unlock vivid memories.
Instead of "Where did you grow up?" try these sensory questions:
- "What could you smell when you walked through the front door after school?"
- "What did your street sound like on a Saturday morning?"
- "Who was the neighbour everyone talked about, and why?"
These specific prompts spark richer, more detailed memories.
Keepsake's question library is built on this principle. Every prompt is designed by researchers to spark deeper recall. And if the main question feels too broad, sub-prompts guide you further:
Main prompt: "Tell me about your first job." Sub-prompts: "How did you get there each day? Who did you work with? What's something that went hilariously wrong?"
Use templates and AI assistance when you're stuck
Starting with a blank page is intimidating. That's why design templates and writing assistance matter.
Keepsake's Ghostwriter feature acts like a gentle writing coach. Type a few sentences about a memory, and it helps you elaborate - not by writing for you, but by asking questions and suggesting ways to expand your thoughts. It's like having someone across the table saying, "Tell me more about that."
Many themes and ready-made templates give you a starting structure, so you're not building your book from scratch. Choose a layout that matches your story's mood, then customise from there.
Choose your format, materials, and book cover design
Now comes the fun part: deciding how your memory book will look and feel.
Hardcover vs softcover photo books
Hardcover books feel substantial and archival. They're the format to choose when you want this keepsake to last decades. The book cover protects pages, and spine options include layflat binding so the book lies completely flat when opened - perfect when you have a lot of pictures spanning two pages.
Softcover photo books work well for lighter projects - maybe a vacation photo collection or a smaller memory album you want to share with multiple family members without the cost of printing many books.
Page layouts and paper quality
The layout of each page affects how your story flows. Some layouts showcase one large image with space for extensive text. Others create collages that fit many themes or moments on a single spread.
Consider:
- How many pictures do you want per page?
- How much text accompanies each image?
- What mood are you creating? Formal and chronological, or playful and scattered?
Paper quality matters more than you'd think. Premium paper with a matte finish reduces glare and gives a sophisticated, gallery-like feel. High-quality glossy finishes make colours pop - ideal for vibrant wedding photos or first memory books full of bright, joyful moments.
Customising your book cover
Your book cover is the first thing people see. Make it count.
Keepsake lets you customise covers with photos, titles, and design elements that reflect the story inside. A baby book might feature that perfect sleeping newborn shot. A biography might use a meaningful photo from someone's youth alongside their name and years.
You can keep it minimal and elegant, or add embellishments that hint at what's inside. The choice is yours - and you can preview everything before committing to print.
Create and collaborate in Keepsake's easy-to-use editor
Unlike traditional scrapbooking where you work alone with scissors and glue, or services that email weekly prompts for someone to answer in isolation, Keepsake is built for real-time collaboration. This is where storytelling becomes a shared experience.
How Keepsake's drag-and-drop editor works
The interface feels intuitive - more like arranging photos on a table than wrestling with design software.
Upload and place images
Upload and place images exactly where you want them. Crop photos to focus on what matters.
Add text boxes for stories and captions
Share the context behind each photo. What was happening? Who was there? What made this moment special?
Rearrange layouts by dragging elements
Drag elements around until the page design feels right. No complicated tools. No learning curve.
Just you and your collaborators, together, building something worth keeping.
Collaborate with family in real time
Here's what makes Keepsake different: everyone works on the same project simultaneously.
While you're adding photos from your childhood, your brother might be writing the story about the time you both "borrowed" Dad's car. Your mum jumps in with her perspective. Someone adds captions. Someone else finds an old photo you'd forgotten about.
This isn't possible with physical photo albums or generic books online. The collaborative approach turns creating your memory book into an experience that brings families closer - you're not just documenting memories, you're making new ones as you work together.
Keepsake's dual account structure means one subscription gives two people full access to create their own projects. Plus, you can invite unlimited family members as free collaborators. Not everyone needs a paid account to contribute - they just need to be invited to your project.
From digital drafts to printed books
As you work, your digital memory book lives online where your family can access it anytime. Make as many changes as you want. Test different layouts. Reorganise chapters. Add more photos as you find them.
When you're ready, Keepsake transforms your digital project into a physical keepsake:
Choose your book format
Select hardcover with layflat binding or softcover, depending on your needs and budget.
Select premium paper
Choose between matte finish for a sophisticated look or glossy for vibrant colours.
Preview the entire book
Review every page before ordering to ensure everything looks exactly as you want.
Print professionally
Your book is printed through Keepsake's Australian printing partners using professional-grade equipment.
Receive your finished book
Enjoy free Australian shipping. Your beautifully bound book arrives ready to gift or display.
No printer required. No laminating. No trips to a print shop. Books online become books in hand - professionally bound, beautifully presented, ready to gift or display.
Print, gift, and relive those moments together
The moment you hold your finished memory book - that's when the project becomes real.
Order your printed book when your project feels complete. With Keepsake, every subscription includes one print credit annually, so there's no surprise cost when you're ready to order. Need multiple copies to share with family? Order additional books at member pricing.
Make it a gift for the person whose story you've told. Imagine presenting Mum with a beautifully bound hardcover book documenting her life, filled with photos she hasn't seen in decades and stories from family members she didn't know they remembered. That's what this book allows.
Relive those moments together. The best part isn't just having the book - it's opening it with the people you love. Flipping through pages, reading stories aloud, laughing at old photos, and adding even more context as new memories surface.
The book tells one story, but the experience of creating it together tells another. Both are worth keeping.
Why creating memory hardcover books together makes you closer
There's something about collaborative storytelling that changes relationships. It's not just nostalgia - it's connection.
The psychology of shared reminiscence
When you share stories with someone you love, you're doing more than exchanging information. You're:
- Validating each other's experiences ("Yes, I remember that too!")
- Filling in gaps in each other's perspectives
- Building shared meaning around events you both lived through
- Creating new memories during the process itself
Research on intergenerational storytelling shows that the act of recording memories together strengthens family bonds more than receiving someone's written stories second-hand. It's the conversation that matters, not just the documentation.
Why Keepsake's collaborative approach works
Traditional memory book services email weekly prompts for someone to answer alone. They fill out the form. Eventually, you receive their completed book. The end.
Keepsake flips this model. Instead of sending someone away to write, you're invited into the process:
- Phone Nan to ask about a prompt you've been curious about
- Sit with Dad and see where the sub-prompts take your conversation
- Laugh together over weird family traditions nobody else would understand
- Contribute your perspective on shared events
The memory book becomes a by-product of quality time spent together, that's the perfect gift. And that shared experience? That's the real keepsake.
Start creating your memory book today & start capturing those special moments
You don't need everything figured out to begin. You don't need a fancy printer or scrapbooking skills. You just need a first memory, a first photo, and the willingness to start.
Keepsake makes the rest simple:
- Research-backed prompts when you need inspiration
- Ghostwriter assistance when you're stuck
- Real-time collaboration with family
- Professional printing when you're ready
- Templates for biographies, memorials, weddings, and more
The story you're avoiding because it feels overwhelming? Start with one question. One photo. One memory. That's enough for today.
Because the best stories are the ones you tell together - and the memories you make while creating your memory book will become part of the story too.