Activity Boards Use Illustrations. Ours Use Your Family.

Search for a magnetic dementia activity board and you'll find dozens: baking scenes to arrange, garden scenes to sort, tidy illustrated pieces that snap onto a metal surface. Families buy them and many of them genuinely help.

We want to say that clearly before we say anything else, because this isn't a takedown. Activity boards work for real reasons. But there's a gap in the middle of the category, and once you see it you can't unsee it: every piece on the board is a stranger.

The magnetic format works — researchers and caregivers agree

The format has genuine strengths. Magnets are self-directed, which means there is no wrong answer and no failure state. They involve the hands, which keeps attention longer than looking alone. They're quiet, low-tech, and require no charging, no login, and no help from staff.

That's why occupational therapists and memory-care activity directors keep them on the cart. If your loved one enjoys arranging an illustrated scene, that is not a lesser activity. It's a good one.

What's on the market: illustrated tools, baking scenes, generic pieces

The typical set is a printed steel board plus twenty or thirty illustrated magnets — a mixing bowl, a rolling pin, a bird, a watering can. They're well-made and cheerful, and they're designed to be universal, which is exactly the trade-off. Universal means nobody's in particular.

What's missing: the faces she's trying to hold onto

Reminiscence work is strongest when the material is personal. A stock illustration of a kitchen can prompt a general memory of cooking. A photograph of her kitchen, in her house, with her daughter at the counter, prompts a specific one — and specific memories are the ones that pull a person forward into conversation.

The other thing illustrations can't do is orient. When she looks up and wonders who the woman visiting her is, a watering can doesn't help. A labeled photo magnet of that exact woman does.

Real photos, real names: how Dementia Connections works

You send us the photographs — phone photos, scanned prints, whatever you have. We help you choose crops that put one clear face in the frame, and we print the first name (and the relationship, if you want it) in large, readable type.

Each piece is a pressed 3.5-inch magnet built for handling. Put them on the refrigerator, on a small magnetic board by her chair, or on a metal board in a memory-care room where staff and visitors will see the same names she does.

Choosing between an activity board and a connection set (or using both)

Honest guidance, because both belong in different parts of the day:

• Choose an activity board when the goal is calm, self-directed occupation — something to do with the hands during a restless afternoon.
• Choose a personalized connection set when the goal is orientation, recognition, and conversation with the people who visit.
• Use both when you can. Many families keep an activity board on the table and a labeled family set on the fridge or bedside board.
• Start small either way. Three to five faces beats a crowded board every time.

What it costs you to try

One photo. Send it, tell us the name you want printed, and we'll show you a proof before anything is produced. We respond within 3 business days, and production runs 7-10 business days after approval.

Your Photos. Your Moments. Your Story. We press them so they stick around.

How a 3.5-inch photo magnet becomes part of the story

Our custom photo magnets are professionally produced as 3.5-inch round keepsakes. They are big enough to actually see the faces in the picture, but small enough to belong on the refrigerator, the filing cabinet at work, or the side of a metal lamp in grandma's bedroom.

You provide the photograph. We help you make sure the resolution, the crop, and the framing honor the moment. Most people send us a phone photo or a scan of an older print, and we walk them through the rest. The keepsake itself does the work after that — quietly, every day, for years.

Across the Yakima Valley

Families across the Yakima Valley have a way of holding tight to the photographs that matter. We hear it from grandparents in Terrace Heights, from young couples in Wapato, and from churches and ministries gathering in Sunnyside. Wherever you live in the valley — from the orchard roads of Tieton to the riverfront in Prosser — a keepsake photo magnet can quietly carry your story from one chapter to the next.

How to start

Email tsocustomkeepsakes@gmail.com with a short note about the photograph you want to preserve and the moment behind it. We'll respond with simple next steps — how to send the image, a brief design questionnaire, and information about custom order options.

There is no shopping cart and no checkout. Every keepsake we make begins with a conversation, because every keepsake we make is built around a story.