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!