College Memories Tree — Savannah by Season

I had such a great time in college at The University of North Texas. I met my husband, I met my lifelong friends and I have some of the BEST memories (like the giant Victory Hall snowman of 2010). While I try to keep the Mean Green sprit alive with our annual UNT Christmas tree, I realized that the tree was still missing something: photos!

This whole idea stemmed from one of my favorite printing companies, Persnickety Prints. They shared a blog post encouraging a memory tree, where families can use small polaroid-inspired prints as "ornaments" with photo memories from the past 365 days. While I'd love to make that a tradition with my kiddos someday, for now, I wanted to extend the idea to my college tree. I can't wait to look through those fun photos each and every time it's the holiday season.

Using my Google Photos account, where I store all my pictures, I typed in the word "green" and found tons of images from the college days. Did you know you can type in a color in your Google Photos search bar and it'll give you all images in that hue? It's super helpful for so many projects!

While every single image I chose brings some joy to my heart, my absolute favorite is the picture I took of my sweet friend Jared smiling as he walked across the graduation stage just about a month before he passed away. I think of him often, but never enough. I guess that's the real reason for this memory tree: keeping all those beautiful memories with college friends fresh in my mind, so I can hold onto them forever.

Through Persnickety Prints, I purchased the 3x3 "instagram" press prints. They have a sleek white border surrounding each square photo and that's where I placed a hole punch for the ornament hooks. It's a super simple way to bring some beautiful, but even more meaningful Christmas spirit into your home.