Today Amy Scott, founder of Treasured, tells us what inspired her to create this special app which allows you to catch, collect and cherish your memories.
I don’t live near my family, I moved to London when I was 24 and my parents live on the south coast of England. My sister lives near my parents, and my brother lives in America with his family and my husband’s family are all in the North-East of England.
When I was pregnant we moved to our current home, only 8 miles away from our old house, but as most of our old friends had already had children and were past the “baby stage” I set out to make some new, local friends. We met three lovely couples on our NCT ante-natal course and started a tentative friendship with them before having our little bundle of joy! Once our beautiful baby girl was born, I decided to try some of the local baby groups, and I quickly filled my week with “meets”, whether it be a baby group in a local church hall, an NCT coffee morning at a local coffee shop or an organised walk around a nearby park with the buggies!
Some of the ladies and children I met at these groups are still our friends today, five years later, and I don’t know what I would have done without them! We’ve supported each other through all those little “is this normal?”/”should I panic?” moments, and now we’re going through the “I can’t believe my baby is at big school” panics!
Being a mum with family and friends dotted around the country got me thinking…I wanted to be able to share all my memories and photos just with those people who were a part of my daughter’s and our life. I didn’t want all and sundry seeing every picture I took, but equally I wanted to be able to share moments of my daughter growing up but safely and privately. That was when I came up with the idea for Treasured and it was quickly obvious that the ability to share my daughter’s memory box with our family was one of the best parts of the service, from the doting grandparents to my brother overseas. What makes it even better is that I can allow (if I choose) those lovely friends of mine to put their memories and photos of her into her Treasured memory box, to keep forever.
These days, everyone takes photos on their phones, so we all take pictures that our friends might like a copy of. Treasured makes it so easy to share those pictures in a way which means that you have ownership of the full size photo as soon as your friend has shared it with you. From her first trip to the swings to a day at the splash park, or our group trip to Legoland, our daughter’s childhood is recorded in a safe and private place for her to enjoy when she’s older (and add to if she wishes!).
Treasured isn’t just about photos, it’s also a place to record all those funny little things she has said as she has got older – like the memorable day at a local county fair when she saw some more mature ladies dancing: “Oh my gosh, I never knew that Grannies could dance!” to her first joke “Where do frogs keep their money? IN A RIVER BANK!” We can record them all for us to enjoy, along with the dates and places where everything happened.
My parents love to show their friends the latest pictures of their beautiful grandchildren, and with Treasured the best & latest ones are always there ready to be displayed on their iPhone app or through their computer on the website.
As we have started to use Treasured in our everyday lives, it has become apparent to us that it is also useful for other events, such as weddings or special family occasions, where lots of people are taking photos, to collect all of those memories and messages into a central place and our next step will be enable Treasured users to create photobooks from their Treasured memory boxes.
Treasured has enriched our lives, and I hope you feel that it will be a useful addition to your life too. Find Treasured on Twitter and Facebook and visit their website here.