I have this thing where I cannot bring myself to put film photos in the trash. A couple years ago I culled my collection of printed photos, as so many treasured memories had gotten bogged down in photos of forgotten museums and duplicate landscapes. Still, the photos that didn’t make the cut weren’t relegated to the trash—only moved from photo boxes to my craft closet. After all, film photos are a bit of a rare commodity these days. And it took some time, but I finally found a project that I felt did them justice.

I sliced the photos into strips, letting the scissor cuts be uneven. You could certainly measure and cut the slices with a paper cutter, but I really liked the look of more organic lines. Then I just arranged and adhered them on pages of my art journal.

I loved how the first page turned out, and I had some scraps leftover, so I made another page. This time, I cut the pieces even smaller to make lots of tiny squares.

I love that this is a collage of my past—lots of little moments, most of which I can barely recall. But in that way, I think these collages are a representation of the small scraps of these old memories that I hold inside me. They’re pinhole glimpses into a time long past.