Busy!

Well, i have been very busy this week. i've got most of my stuff moved that i will have upstairs in my new space.  I still have lots to go thru and purge out!  Just busy with things going on with the kids. Trying to do too much i think.  I'm totally exhausted today and my arm is killing me.  Once, i am settled in and take a day or so to rest and recoup i'll be back at getting my photos organized, and getting more projects to work on and post some inspiration!

my new scrap space

so, i havent moved everything. some stuff will still stay in my scra garage. the stuff i need to be close will all be moved.  i have lots to go thru! boy did i find some surprises and forgot about some stuff that i had!!

this is what it looked like this morning.

this is what it looked like earlier this evening

and these are my partially done wall decorations!  they are cut from vinyl! just love how they look!

Moving my scrap space

This weekend will be moving my scrapspace from my garage to my other unused half of my bedroom.  Its just too chilly for my arm to be out in the garage scrappin. I will be going thru all my stuff and listing a bunch on my etsy for some great deals.  This weekend is free shipping!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheScrapoholic

365 day 9

So i am making my way thru my pictures. I have one box done and along ways to go.
Here is my bucket full of what i believe to be all my printed pictures.

Here is one of my CTMH acrylix Organizers full of the  620 Pictures I have organized and labeled!

365 days 6 - 8

Just been doing more organizing. Still finding photos stashed here and there. But i am getting alot done! i feel much better to that i know at least where most of my printed pictures are. I'm hoping for some specials to get those digital photos printed too!  Oh i did find a few rolls of film that i need to get developed! Hope you are all getting your photos organized too!

Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts
DCWV papers. Lil silver heart brads. Silk flowers. Lots of inking. The heart borders, crown and title cut with "Make the Cut" software and cut with the cricut.

 

close up of left page

 

close up of right page

365 Day 5

Once you have all your photos in piles, just put them in the boxes with the appropriate divider card, label, envelope or whichever you had decided upon. All your photos are together, neatly filed in acid-free boxes labeled in their "categories".

Organized Photos helps organize your story which helps organize your albums!

Start "visualizing" a plan then start by prioritizing your scrapbooking.

Now, you’ve got your plan; decide which album you want to make first. Take the entire section of those photos from the box. Lets say your are doing a Vacation album. You take ALL the vacation photos out of the box.


Start the same steps with your vacation photos as you did above. Take an index card and put the name of each trip on a separate card: Washington DC, Disneyland, etc.Again, "deal" with just these photos and put into the appropriate piles.Put the photos back in the boxes with the new index cards-chronologically.WooHOo! The first set is the beginning of your vacation album! That's all there is to it!


Now, start getting moments, events, everyday, holidays, family, yourself, and your world all Scrapbooked! One photo at a time, one step at a time and one day at a time.

The next days coming will all be inspiration to help get those pictures scrapbooked!
 

More of 365

So today you should have organized more of your photos, hopefully. If you were into football like me, you didn't get much done.  Its okay!

Tommorrow is another day. As long as you met your goal of "x" amount of time per day on organizing!

Captain Hook

Heres another Disney Layout from this past year. I love how these ones turned out!

 

close up of left side

close up of right side 

365 Day 3

Organizing ALL those Digital Photos

I know, your thinking…”But WAIT, I’m not done with my printed photos yet”!  Its okay, I’m not either! But there maybe those that are,(I know, I'm jealous too) or those that want to work on both at the same time. You can come back and read when your ready! But we need to set a goal for “x” amount of time a day to set aside for just organizing our photos.  Even if its just 5 min a day, in a week you’ll have a bunch organized, lil things add up to BIG things! Remember you set achievable goals for “you”.  This is just a guideline to help!

First thing first, extremely Important! If you haven’t already done so, BACK UP ALL THOSE DIGITAL PHOTOS!  Whether, it be on CDs, flash sticks, eternal hard drives, etc.  I am speaking from experience. I lost many due to a computer hardware malfunction. It still makes me cringe and cry. And, I still forget to back up photos every now and then.

So for, Digital photos, which are a lil more complex. Because we don’t have to worry about printing the pictures to see if we got a good shot, I don’t know about you but I probably take 5 shots for every picture.  Again, set achievable goals, baby steps.  Usually when you transfer your pictures from your camera to the computer, the cameras software automatically labels your folders.  Now, depending on your software depends on labels/file names you get. A system that works for you needs to be set up so that all of file folders lets you easily identify the group of photos, browse and find photos.

I have several cameras over the past few years, so I have several different file names. However, I’ve always changed them to the year, month, day.  It helps me identify easily. most inside the file under each picture, has a file name too, usually in a sequential numbered order. Now, I haven’t done this with all my photos but with some I have changed the file name to a short description. For example:  2005-04-28   Chelsea10 bday;    Gift from Aunt…,

You could also do it this way; that start with a folder for each year. Within each year folder, create 12 month folders (one for each month). Within the month folders, are subject folders (birthdays, holidays, even just dates).

Its finding what works for “YOU”! AND REMEMBER TO KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Once, you have all these organized in whichever “system” works for you, now the real work begins!  Remember when we “purged” out those nasty, dark, blurry, what the heck is that a picture of, those really bad self portraits (unless you really want to scrap them?) photos. We need to do this again. 

Now, if you’re like me, you’ll have a ton of duplicates!  We need to “purge” those now.  What I recommend is viewing them full screen and looking at the duplicates, look for closed eyes, not the expression you want, lighting, blurriness, etc. Pick your favorite(s); saving no more than 3 of the same. But you need to keep in mind “how” am I going to scrapbook these? You may only need 1 photo.

If you don’t want to permanently delete these photos, I understand, its hard at first. What I do is I have a folder labeled “To save or Not”. I move my photos in there and view them a day or so later, sometimes I view them a couple times.  Once, I know “okay, I don’t need these”, I delete them.  On an occasion, I do move 1 or 2 back to the original file, but very rarely.

365 Day 2

Yes I know, I know, you read yesterdays post and I mentioned the nasty eight letter word but it’s an important one! It needs to be done, its that nasty thing I keep putting off for another day. Well, Today has come and I’m going to “Just Do IT”! Will you join me?

By organizing the unorganized photos, we will be cutting out a lot of time that gets wasted looking for “those” photos that we want to scrap. For some time I considered myself organized, then I got injured and life got hard and it was an excuse to be lazy about it. Now, I am Total Complete Unorganized Wreck! I spend more time looking for things, or end up cleaning and organizing rather than working on what I wanted to work on. How much do I actually get done? Not as much as I could. How much time do you “waste” looking for those photos?

Since the reason I scrapbook is to remember and share photos in a creative way to tell a story, and it really needs to be easier to do. There is a plan and a way to go about it; I will need to make it in lil achievable goals, one at a time and one day at a time. I may not get every single photo organized and labeled, but I’ll get most. I am looking at organizing literally thousands of photos. Many that are not even printed! I think it’s best to approach this challenge without the anxiety by setting simple little achievable goals.

So yesterday, we should have found most of our printed photos and at least gathered them into one place? I think I have accomplished that.

Today, we are going to “Purge” those photos and organize them to some degree. The organization is going to take more than a day especially depending on how many photos you have! Today, we are going to focus on one pile or clump of photos.

“Purge” is to go thru as we organize and throw away those nasty, dark, blurry, what the heck is that a picture of, those really bad self portraits (unless you really want to scrap them?) photos.

Be sure to store your photos in acid-free photo boxes (it's not necessary to have a box for each album), use tabbed index cards or the envelope they come in, or a large binder clip w/a small note paper to identify groupings. a great product is the CTMH Acrylix Organizer (product # Z1038) you can order from my website.

Deciding upon a system for organizing your photos. So many different ways to organize, but again, no stressing, no worries, we can change our minds later, its ok. If you currently have a way that you use to organize, think about whether it works for you. If it does: wonderful! If it doesn’t work, think about why it isn’t working for you and how that can be better.

A decision, must be made. Take a deep breath, relax, and Decide! Remember, its not something that is etched in stone. Decide on which way: chronologically, one book for each child, Holidays, sports, travel, etc. Which ever way you decide, they do need to be done chronologically and then by occasion/subject. Using a tabbed index card or the envelope they come in, or a large binder clip w/a small note paper on each pile identify: year, month, and occasion/subject.

By simply looking at the photos you have and you can figure out just what and how you want to scrapbook them, which will decide how you want to organize them. I like to take my photos by “Occasions.” By “Occassions,” I mean a holidays, birthdays, gathering, school years, etc. For those everyday, no specific “occasion” I will look at “individuals” and get those organized by date. If its “everyday” with multiple “individuals” I look to see if it’s a certain day we had a BBQ or it was SuperBowl Sunday or something. I will try to get those together and make notes that it was this day and we just did this.

Storing your photos in a chronological order will help you know what you have and find the photos you want when you want them.

example:

March 1992 Chelsie’s 2nd B-day

2004 July Move to California

Each month, include an “Birthday” or “Everyday” or “Gathering” , you get the point? Have a “misc” category to for those few photos that don’t really have a subject and organize those by date.

Are you ready? Because its time to sort. First, pop in your favorite movie (if you have lil ones put their favorite in so they will be entertained while you get some work done and able to watch with them).

If you have those magnetic albums with photos in them, these MUST be done FIRST!! These photos are being ruined in those albums! Take those pictures OUT of all magnetic albums but keep those photos together since they have already been organized sort of.

Get down on the floor or grab a couple tv trays, whatever way you will be most comfortable and productive. Make those cards for the boxes, and put names of all the scrapbooks you want to make on each card. If you aren't sure, use a pencil for now, and just put the years. Grab any pile or stack or box of photos

Organize those cards, labels, tabs whichever you decided upon in, chronological order. Grab a pile, stack, box, etc of pictures and "deal" only with those. As you go thru “purge” those photos that won’t ever be scrapped. If you don’t want to throw them away, label them “unscrapable” The photos you will be scrapbooking put those into the suitable pile as chosen by tabbed index cards or the envelope they come in, or a large binder clip w/a small note paper. This process can go quickly, however that means NO reminiscing on every photos! Let me REPEAT that: NO reminiscing on every photos!

Good Luck!

My Project 365

Its 365 project with a twist. I don’t know about you, but I have a lifetimes worth of pictures to catch up on (many still need printing),  and taking another 365 on top of the other hundreds I’ll take this year seems like more work? Maybe its just me? Why i love the "idea" of 365! So, i was thinking instead of taking a photo a day and journaling.  How about getting an old photo into a scrap page a day. Getting caught up?

My first steps, is organizing my photos. Which may take a few weeks?  Gathering them all into one place. Then sorting them into proper scrapbooks. Then making notes for them.  

So, if you want to follow along with me, i'm going to post a tip or challenge a day.

Today, go around and gather ALL your "UNSCRAPBOOKED/LOOSE" photos Go around the house,  get every box, bag, envelope, loose photos, photos in frames no longer hanging up,in old albums, pictures that you may have in your wallet or on the refrigerator  and get them into ONE PLACE.  

Digital photos – know where they are on your computer, know where your back-up copies are. Make sure the file names are easily identifiable.  (If you don’t have back-ups, please make them first. I am speaking from experience. I lost many due to a computer hardware malfunction.)

Monochromatic Cards

Brown

 

Blue

 

Red

 

Yellow

 

Green

 

Purple

 

Pink

A New Challenge for the day

Today's Challenge is to make a A monochromatic color scheme Card. Any theme you like! Pick a color and use various darker shades, grayer tones, and paler tints of the main color may be included in the palette. you can pair with white or another neutral. Ready...Set...Go