organizing family photos

photo album update after a very hot weekend

July 25, 2010 By Kelly

it has been a very quiet….VERY hot weekend here in virgina. we’ve hit record highs in the low 100s. i’m looking forward to the cold front of 90 degrees that is coming our way tonight (and i’m really disturbed that we’re referring to 90 degrees as a cold front). it has been the perfect weekend to keep at it with my photo organizing goals.

an update for all of you:

i created a template for a photo card that you insert into your photo album with your photos on which you can record any important information. you can download it if you wish at the end of this blog post.
i reorganized (and cleared out a lot of clutter) on our living room shelves. still working on this, but i’m making this my “photo” storage central headquarters. see the diagram below. eventually i’ll have a TON of albums on the shelves.
i’m attempting to create my first photo book. i designed a template for all the finding the joy students as a way to house all of the photos we captured this summer. i’m going to finish mine up this week. i’ll be sure to post photos of the finished product when i get it back from the lab.

this is a photo of the photo info cards i designed along with the photo writing instrument i picked up at target this weekend. it is a Zig memory system permanent photo pen. i LOVE it. it was in our target’s little scrapbooking aisle. and it writes beautifully on the template i had printed. i just ordered the photo “info” template/card at my photo lab (printed on 4×6 matte paper). it cost me 13cents per card. not sure if it would be cheaper to print at home, but i just wanted to give them a try, so i ordered them with my latest batch of photos.

a shot of how i am using these “photo info” cards. i inserted it into the album with a series of photos. and you can see that i printed the photos on matte surface paper with a white border (showing a detail of that for you, hilary!).

once again…i have resigned myself to the fact that i will not be scrapbooking (i cannot seem to commit to the actual act, though i wish i could). this is my solution. i print the photos, insert them in chronological order, label them on the back with a photo safe pen, then write a little bit on the card i designed.

here is the card for you to download. enter your email and the jpg file will be emailed to you. please download the file immediately upon receipt (as the file expires shortly after it is emailed).

[wp_eStore_free_download:product_id:22:end]

will you join me?

July 13, 2010 By Kelly

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i’m guessing that if you’re here on my blog, you value photography and photos. Lord knows that i do. i treasure my family photos more than anything material. they represent my family’s roots. for me, there is NOTHING like looking through all our old family photos.

so i have a little confession to make….i have not printed a single photo since my son’s third birthday party….over four years ago. is this the worst, or what? i have gotten so comfortable just looking at my family albums on my computer and on my facebook account. to me, this is unacceptable. especially since i have ALBUMS of photos of my son (my first born) and not one of my daughter (who just turned seven months). once again, this is unacceptable.

i don't know how many thousand photos we have stored on our third floor...waiting to be organized (this does NOT include all the thousdands on computer harddrives that have never been printed).

i’m making an effort to fix this. will you join me? will you join me as i commit to print all my family photos and get them organized?

i would LOVE to be a scrapbooker….i’d love to scrapbook all of these photos, but the reality of me following through on this is pretty slim at this point, so i have to just accept that i will not be scrapbooking these. i just need to label these and slip them into albums and call it good.

i just placed an order for over 900 prints (this is just for 2010)….i’m going now to pick them up.

i also have ordered albums from exposures in hopes to not only put them in albums, but put them in albums and organize them in a way that best suits our family. i wanted to have nice looking albums that i could display in our living room (the albums i currently have from when my son was a baby are all covered in wild patterned covers and are stored on our nasty third floor).

so, here i go. i have ordered a few albums and page inserts to get me started, and i’m starting on getting current on my family photos.

here is my plan of attack:

find albums that suit my personal needs: three ring binders that i can easily move pages around and can easily store different sized photos in.
print all my family photos!
starting with this year’s photos (2010)
then working backwards until i’m all caught up on the printing (i have four years to print)
replace all our old, dated looking albums with my new, classic style albums
as i’m printing the photos, i’m having the printing lab make an archival disk of the images. this way, i’m able to store the DVD of the images with the albums/prints.
placing all my old family photos that are currently sitting in boxes in the new, pretty albums as well.

yes, this is a HUGE project. but, i’m in search of a new hobby other than holding a baby, feeding her, and changing diapers and doing laundry all day, so i welcome this project.

will you join me? will you commit to printing and organzing your photos with me?

so, my question for all of you awesome readers is…..how do YOU organize your albums? do you do albums for each individual child or do you just do family albums with all the children’s photos in one album? what is best way to organize family photos? please comment below…i welcome any and ALL suggestions. i think this is my biggest hurdle.

this certainly is a large time (and financial) commitment, but one that my family is worth. what happens to all of these photos if i suddenly pass away? would they ever get printed? would my children know how old they were or where they were when the photo was captured?

join me! share your tips and thoughts below!

i’m off to pick up my 900 photos…YIKES!