Bertinelli says she and her brother forgot about some photos he had taken, including photos from when she and Eddie Van Halen first started their relationship

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Valerie Bertinelli is taking a walk down memory lane with her brother.

The star, 66, tells PEOPLE about the meaning behind her new series on her digital subscription platform Valerie’s Place — in “Undeveloped: Stories from the Vault,” Bertinelli and her brother David react to never-before-seen photos of her taken by David.

“These are throwback pictures that I’ve never posted because I’ve never seen them,” Bertinelli says of the segment.

“That’s part of the fun of it is the genuine reaction to seeing what he’s got as a surprise for me,” she says.

The star says the idea for the show, which premiered its first episode on Aug. 6, stemmed from her and her brother revisiting images he took over the years.

Bertinelli says David, who is an animal control officer in Michigan, “has always been an amazing photographer.”

“I totally forgot about all these amazing pictures he had taken when Ed [Eddie Van Halen, to whom Bertinelli was married from 1981 to 2007] and I had first gotten together,” she says. “[David] would come out on the road with me, and he forgot about a lot of them.”

She says her collaborators on Valerie’s Place, Visible Things, came up with the idea for the show as “they know how much I love my brothers, and I’m always trying to do things with my family.”

She says David was going through pictures when the company had the idea of showing them on Valerie’s Place.

“Everyone loves a throwback picture,” she says.

She adds, “It’s a lot of fun to go through. And it’s fun to talk about the stories and hear things from David’s angle and then hear my version.”

The middle child of five says she and her brother “had different upbringings but in the same house.”

“I think every child, you know, has a different experience with their parents depending on where they fall in line, depending on, you know, if there’s a middle child, the older child, the youngest child,” she says. “It’s really interesting conversation.”

She says David, “the ultimate middle child,” is shy, so “it’s nice to see him be proud of his work.”

“Everybody forgot about David, you know, we joke, but in a way it hurts my heart because he’s just such a special human being just on his own,” she says.

She says she admires how middle children have “grit” and “stay true to themselves,” even when they’re left out.

“He’s never been one to really make a big deal about himself,” she says. “And I just want to kind of highlight his talents.”

“I encourage people with siblings to start having conversations with your siblings and ask them what their childhood was like,” Bertinelli says. “You’ll talk about a certain period in your lives, and you’ll see it from different perspectives.”

Bertinelli recently asked her followers whether a set of never-before-seen racy photos she found in her house of her in lingerie from 1979 should be featured on the show.

Bertinelli launched Valerie’s Place on Feb. 25.

“Valerie’s Place is where I can share the things I love and also create brand-new content that feels honest, joyful, and truly mine,” the One Day at a Time star said in a statement shared with PEOPLE at the time.

The platform launched with four cooking shows like Reheated: Valerie’s Home Cooking, in which she revisits recipes and episodes from Valerie’s Home Cooking, plus shares behind-the-scenes stories.

The platform also now features Getting Naked: The Podcast, on which Bertinelli and guests have “candid conversations about life, growth, creativity, and showing up as your real self,” along with Val’s book club, which reads a new book every other month.

“I’ve learned that you don’t have to wait for someone else to hand you the opportunity, sometimes you need to create it for yourself,” Bertinelli added in her statement about the site. “This platform gives me the freedom to do that, and to bring my fans along with me in a way that feels real and personal.”

Now, Bertinelli says, “I didn’t realize I would be having this much fun building an entire community online.”

She jokes that luckily, her platform has no “bullies.”

“I don’t have to block anybody,” she says, adding that the members of the community are “of like minds.”

“We like to share what books we love. We like to share dating advice or, you know, empty nester advice,” she adds.

She says the book group talks not only about books but also about each other’s lives, which she is grateful for because it removes the “wall” between strangers.

“Of course, I love to still do my cooking,” she says. “It’s like all the stuff I kinda love to do except I’m building a community around it and I love the people that I’m getting to know.”