How to make a Memory Passport
An analog way to capture memories
I’m on a constant mission to find creative ways to use my phone less.
I have thousands of photos I’ve taken that I never look back on. I sometimes share them on social media or with friends, but usually they just sit in the cloud gathering virtual dust and storage space. So I started a memory passport as a physical alternative to this digital archive.
Instead of snapping a photo, I fill a sketchbook page with little vignettes of the place. I want to remember the feeling of the place rather than an exact image. And drawing is the perfect way to capture that.
I call it my memory passport. Part scrapbook, part sketchbook.
My 2025 memory passport was filled with stamps from Paris, North Carolina, Brooklyn, upstate NY, and Pennsylvania. My favorite part is to flip through these pages and remember my year through all the colors and drawings from these places.
Materials
I have 10 Caran d’ache Neocolor II aquarelle crayons, 7 Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, a uniball Vision Elite pen, 1 mechanical pencil, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener.
The sketchbook I use is a Stillman & Birn Zeta series notebook 5.5” x 3.5”. It’s 270 gsm, so it’s very thick and can hold watercolors and mixed media.
I keep it all in a small, zipped pouch so it’s easy to grab and go.
Draw your stamps
I like to use a consistent format for my pages. Inspired by comics, I create one large object to be the spotlight image per page and 2-3 smaller frames. For the large frame, I like to do a macro sketch of the space. For the smaller frames, I like to zoom in on an object I might not normally notice and draw it in detail. I often like abstract shapes or textures.
I love that it’s portable enough to draw even on an airplane tray table!
Capture memories in a new way
When I travel, I often feel pulled to capture as many photos as possible. Now I use my memory passport as my camera. There are details I observe and colors I see in new ways because I’m drawing them. I remember the temperature, the people I’m with, and the space so much more vividly than I ever did from just taking a photo.
This was from my trip to Paris with my mom. It will forever be my favorite spread because I remember drawing with her. We still laugh about when the woman who took our photo asked me to take a picture of her with my sketchbook as if she was drawing.
Go phone-free
These stamps were from a weekend retreat with Mari Andrew in North Carolina. I didn’t use my phone all weekend until I took this one photo at the very end of the final passport page. I remember when I saw that beautiful flower in the bottom right frame. I was walking to breakfast, and it still had dew on it.
I especially love being able to draw spaces that aren’t easily captured in photos. Like when the landscape is too beautiful, the lighting too perfect, or a memory too fleeting. It’s also handy in spaces that don’t allow photos or video, like a comedy venue.
Let your style evolve
The stamps below are from one of the very first days of my memory passport. I was getting comfortable sketching outside and figuring out how to juggle materials without pencils flying everywhere.
I found that carrying them in the tin was really helpful because I could split the halves of the tin into which colors I was using and not using. I like to use a limited color palette for each spread to make it feel cohesive.
Here are more spreads in order of creation. I love seeing how I started experimenting with colors, textures, and material layering as I got more comfortable with the concept and medium.
Tiny Stamps
Another option is to create little mini stamps. This is the start of a new page that I haven’t finished, but I love the idea of doing one tiny stamp per location too. I always recommend adding a date and location to the page.
This concept was inspired by my best friend Melina, who saw me sketching in this style at an event we were at together and said it looked like a memory passport. I loved it so much and ran with it!
If you end up making your own, I’d love to see your stamps. Bon voyage!