Taking photos and then doing nothing with them actually disconnects us from the memories that we wanted to preserve when we took the photos!! If organizing your photos is overwhelming, let me help! Getting a handle on them is the first step to doing something with them. Learn from my 3-part series, "Photo Organization and Preservation" and then tell me in the comments one or two things that were the most eye-opening.
Part 1: Organizing and Decluttering, and their Surprising Benefits
Part 2: Solutions for Storing and Preserving your Photos (and why they're not the same thing!)
Part 3: Strategies for Consistency
Once they're organized, they're ready to slide into beautiful templates (or create your own design!!) where you can also tell the stories that belong to your photos.
This is the INTERACTION with photos that we need!
I love the easy photo organization options from Forever. Here's a quick overview--you'll see why I love it:
You can't choose anything better to do with your time (or money) than preserving your own memories, the traditions of your family, and your heritage! And it actually has a lot of personal benefits, too, so it's truly self-care!
Here are two quick ideas for you to stop just amassing photos and start making something meaningful from them.
#1 Pick a memory-keeping solution you will love and do. These three are fantastic options because they're all heirloom-quality products from a company with a photo privacy promise, so you can just pick the option you like best without worrying about quality or privacy.
#2 Work with a friend! I host online events all the time to help people set aside time on their calendars to make sure their good intentions become reality! You're welcome to join any of my events--most of them all free and all of them are fabulous. Click here to see what events I have coming up.
Or, if you prefer to put together your own group (whether in-person or online), you can always take advantage of Referral Rewards to get everyone started!
So there's really no time like the present. We all need what photos and memories can do for us. It starts with organization. The videos and resources I've shared here can help. Just remember that it ends with this:
and most likely something like this
and definitely this
Once your photos are organized, they're ready to preserve, and you can get started right here.
You might think you're too busy or too overwhelmed to organize your photos, but figuring it out matters. It matters to your heart and soul.
Who DOESN'T need photo organization tips? Pin this image to Pinterest to save and share!
You know keeping them on your SD card or computer isn't the way to enjoy them because you never look at them there, and your children never look at them there, and you know that all it takes is one computer crash or one newfangled technological advancement to make your digital files harder to access. (Hi. Remember floppy drives? Or are you too young?!)
You know it's wise to have your photos in two digital places as back-up and (and at least) one printed place. (That link has the best digital photo storage around!)
Just knowing this much is a step in the right direction! But now you need a direction. And you don't have all the time in the world. Come on.
What you need to know is how to scrapbook faster.
All righty, then! Let's do this. Let's get a handle on the photos, let's get them published, and let's not spend an arm and a leg, shall we? So, where do we start? Here are 3 keys to scrapbooking faster.
TIME
Like most things, you don't usually "find time" to sort photos or scrapbook--you MAKE TIME. (That link has some helpful suggestions from experts on how to do that.)
I suggest calendaring it! Set aside 15 minutes every day or a couple of hours once a week. Put it on your calendar and keep that appointment with yourself like you would keep a dentist appointment or a piano lesson. Even small spurts of time contribute to the big end goal.
PRO TIP: Team Up! Work with a parent, child, or sibling. Or find a friend in the same "I've got lots of photos and I need to do something with them" predicament and work together! It makes it more fun, and it helps you keep your appointments. The second part of the Two Final Tips below can really help!
I know time can be hard to come by sometimes, but I love this wisdom I received from a client a few years ago. She told me she was going to prioritize her photos and make time for preserving them, "because it's important for me to do the things only I can do."
And, yes, I do hire out to help now and again, but they're still YOUR memories so I can't ever do it on my own! :)
PHOTO ORGANIZATION
The best way to start is to organize. Know what you're dealing with. I have an excellent 3-part series on Photo Organization and Preservation that you can take a lot of tips from--just click that link to watch the series. Part 2 is the main organization one, but parts 1 and 3 really round out the series.
I personally suggest organizing chronologically (as shown in the video above).
It makes it easy to know what to do with a photo. I personally have photo files on my computer by year and month. So I have a folder called 2012, then inside that folder I have folders called "January 2012," "February 2012," and so on. Then when you come across photos from Halloween 2012, you know right where they go. More importantly, you'll be able to find them faster when you're putting them in your scrapbook later.
Even if you are working with older photos that need to be scanned, chronological organization is still good way to organize them. You'll need to go through the additional step of scanning first, of course, (unless you click that link to find a white-glove scanning service) but once they're scanned, organize them this way and they will be much easier to find and publish.
If you have a preferred way of organization that works for you, do that. Doing what comes naturally to you will help you be more successful.
(photo credit: www.tjinternational.ltd.uk)
It's also very important to not feel like you have to use every photo you take. Digital is great because we can take lots of photos, but it can make scrapbooking feel very daunting because we end up with So. Many. Photos. Choose your favorites. Narrow down. Don't feel bad about not using every photo. There's no rule that says that just because you took it you have to save it or print it!
PRO TIP: Don't get overwhelmed. Just do one thing at a time and focus on that one thing while you're doing it. Enjoy yourself. Don't worry about what else you still have to do. What they say about eating an elephant is true: one bite at a time! Here are some additional tips to help with Photo Overwhelm.
(the best part!) THREE IDEAS FOR DIGITALLY PUBLISHING YOUR PHOTOS
Once your photos are all organized, you are ready to publish them so they can be enjoyed! Digital scrapbooking removes the steps of printing the photos, buying paper, buying adhesive, buying stickers, buying pens, buying binders & sheet protectors, etc. Digital scrapbooking is hand-in-glove with digital photos.
Over the years, I've discovered that the most important thing in preserving photos and memories in pages where they can live and be shared is to find something that fits your preferences and needs.
If you want to just get photos and memories in pages quickly, you might not want something with a million creative possibilities and options.
If you love creative time and full flexibility in your pages with digital scrapbooking software, you might not want to be limited to pre-designed templates, beautiful as they are.
That's why I love these three options. Have a look and see which one is the best fit for you (or maybe you'll like more than one)!
You can't lose with any of these options because they are all printed on heirloom-quality products (pages and bindings), not the bargain bin options so common these days.
My recommendation for how to scrapbook the fastest is the Yearbook with Design & Print (now called Create & Print):
PRO TIP: Focus on the photo and the memory associated with it. Papers, backgrounds, and embellishments can be fun and pretty, but they are always secondary to photos and their stories. If you enjoy creating, go for it. But if you don't, stick with simplicity. "Done" is better than perfect because in reality, done IS perfect!
A good scrapbook is valuable to you and your family not because it's full of cute, but because it's full of YOUR photos and memories.
TWO FINAL (awesome!) HELPS
#1
So this is all well and good, but we weren't going to spend an arm and a leg, right? Is there a way to get top-quality memory books without spending an arm and a leg?
Well, yes. There are two. One is to take advantage of Deals (sales), and the other is the (free) Club program. (There's actually a great third way listed at that Club link.)
#2
Many people find that working with others has great benefits. We have fun and get things done! Hold a Memory-Keeping Girls' Night or a similar activity--just bring your laptops or tablets and snag some wifi. I can even help you get your own group together with this free service.
If you've got photo problems, I promise you that it's way past time to solve them. So let's just do it! You're just about to feel SO much better!
The biggest photo problems I hear people talk about are organization (including knowing where photos even are) and knowing what to do with them (store them digitally? preserve them in print?)
Today I'm going to teach you how to solve your photo problems once and for all in three do-able steps.
And, as a bonus, if you prefer, you can skip steps 1 and 2 and do everything at the same time in step 3--I'll help!
Step 1: Learn a Little About Photo Organization
With so many digital photos floating around these days, it can be easy to be overwhelmed, but it can also be easy to not even know where all your photos even are. You may have some on your phone, some older ones on a flash drive, and maybe some even print photos in boxes or old photo albums.
So, in order to solve your photo problems once and for all, learn a little about photo organization. Don't DO anything yet, just learn. Choose one of these videos to watch (or you're welcome to watch both).
This is part of the photo organization & preservation class I taught a couple of years ago. The main meat of the video is a little less than 30 minutes, but there's some additional Q&A recorded at the end as well which you can choose to skip or watch.
NOTE: I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
Step 2: Learn About Preserving Photos
Again, we're just learning here. We'll start doing in the next step.
The first thing to know here is that there's a difference between storing and preserving photos.
I think about it this way:
During the summer, you might store winter clothes somewhere that's out of the way so that you can have access to them when you want them.
To preserve something like a cell phone, you might put it in a protective case, keep it away from water, etc., so that it will last as long as possible while you're using it every day.
When you're talking about photos, you really want to do both. I think sometimes people assume that storing photos away somewhere in the cloud or on an external hard drive is preserving them. Not necessarily.
If they're shoved away in either a physical or a digital "box," they may be put away, but they're not kept alive.
Keep this in mind as you learn this advice from photo experts:
This advice is basically about not having all your proverbial eggs in one basket.
Experts recommend storing photos 2 ways digitally (one onsite [at home] and one offsite [in the cloud]). That way, if there's an emergency of any kind, from a fire to a simple water leak onto something electronic, you've got a backup.
Experts also say we should store our photos in print. I assume this is because technology changes, you don't have to have electricity or a full battery in order to look at your photos in a book, etc. But I believe that a book is the best way to preserve the memories behind the photo. Without the details of the photo, its value dramatically reduced!
Those photos, for example, mean nothing to you. They carry a lot of meaning to me and my family.
If you just have photos without details, your loved ones will look at your photos the same way you're looking at mine because they won't have any meaning behind them.
Step 3: Get a Tribe at a Forever Gathering and Do What You've Learned with Your New Photo Circle
Now that you've learned about the two biggest photo problems out there, take what you've learned in steps 1 and 2 and identify your biggest memory-keeping problem. What do you need to tackle first? What is the biggest thing in your way?
And if "not knowing where to start" is your biggest problem, that's OK, too!
Grab a scrap of paper right now and write down your biggest problem. We're going to start there as we help you move to the doing part of solving your photo problems once and for all.
Anything that seems like a big task is made easier with a friend. Going on a daily walk or painting a room feels more do-able when you've got someone there doing it with you.
In almost 20 years now of coaching people on photo preservation and memory-keeping, I have learned that if you could do it on your own, you probably would have already done it. There is a lot of power in both getting some help and getting a tribe.
Here are 2 different options for you to consider here in this last step where you'll do what you've learned. #1 is geared toward just getting help and #2 more toward getting a tribe. Click each one for more information:
Get a personalized help with your biggest memory-keeping problem, and create a group you can work with moving forward at the same time. Email me your biggest memory-keeping problem, the one you wrote down on the paper, at photoandstorytreasures@gmail.com and think about people you know who have photo problems, too. Who do you know who would love getting some photo solutions, too? We'll meet at a Forever Gathering to learn tools, tips, and strategies, and then you'll have a Photo Circle you can meet with regularly on your own so you can keep doing what you've learned!
We'll pick a date 4-6 weeks out that will give me some time to create a class personalized to your needs. I teach these at no cost when at least 4 attendees are present (including you, the host). I'll provide you with invitations to send to friends and family--and remember, since it's online, you can invite your old college roommate who lives on the other side of the country, too!
And as you may have noticed in the image above, inviting other people who begin using Forever as their memory-keeping tool (as I will introduce in the class) will give you a $20 coupon (for each person!). The key is for me to provide each of your guests with your referral link, then once they make a purchase of any amount, you'll receive your coupon, which is good for 60 days.
By the way, sometimes when I talk to people about "hosting" something, they start thinking about "parties" and "sales pitches." My Forever Gatherings are sales-pitch-free. Because: ew. (That's just not me.)
In addition to all those coupons, you even get a thank-you gift for hosting a Forever Gathering!
Choose the mug or the planner, and I'll mail them to you if you're not local to me!
Remember, hosting a Forever Gathering gives you and your friends personalized information and help to solve your photo problems once and for all. Your friends become your Photo Circle. You can get together regularly and work with friends to accomplish your goals and stay caught up!
Here's some additional information:
Once you've started your memory-keeping journey with friends, it's very easy to get together in-person or online for a monthly Girls Night or a weekly Lunch & Photos time. This is your tribe. You're all working and enjoying your photos, getting your photo problems solved once and for all!
Feeling like there's got to be a better solution for photos than keeping them by the hundreds on your phone?
You're right. There is.
Digital scrapbooking is my favorite way to preserve photos and memories because it's fast, convenient, and cost-effective. I recommend it to everyone I know (and everyone I don't), so if your photos need a home where they can be loved, you're in the right place.
Did you know that scrapbooks
are older than photography itself? Families often kept scraps and mementos in
books for safekeeping, and the first “scrapbooks” were often the family
Bible. As early as the mid-1400s, people
recorded births and deaths in the front covers of their Bibles, and according
to “The Fascinating History of
Scrapbooking,”
publishers in the 1800s started including extra pages in the fronts of Bibles
for this very purpose. This made family
Bibles into heirlooms because they preserved and housed the history of a
family.
If
you’re old enough that the term “scrapbooking” seems like a burdensome,
time-consuming chore, I have some great news.
If
you’re young enough that “scrapbooking” is old-fashioned and outdated, I have
some great news.
The Great News
Whether
you’re a former scrapbooker or a never-scrapbooker, this is the great news for
you:
Digital scrapbooking is
easier, more efficient, and often less expensive than traditional scrapbooking. And it’s 1,000 times more meaningful than
keeping your photos on your phone or computer.
If
you’ve never done any sort of scrapbooking before (maybe you’re a young-un who
lives in a digital world and doesn’t see a need), keep in mind the heirloom
qualities of the first “scrapbooks,” where families would keep their own
history, in essence, and pass it down to a new generation to help them know who
they are and where they come from.
Preserving pictures in hand-held pages today serves exactly the same
purpose. As you know, phones aren’t
exactly heirlooms. (Check out these five reasons your photos don’t belong on your phone!)
If
you are a traditional scrapbooker looking to make the switch, I highly
recommend the article I wrote based on a class I taught on this subject, “How
to Transition from Paper to Digital Scrapbooking.” I answer 5 common questions
about switching to digital, including what digital offers that paper doesn’t
and what to do if you already have scrapbooking supplies you don’t want to
waste. And then, of course, I show
examples of digital scrapbooking right in front of your eyes via video. Those who attended live LOVED it!
NOTE: I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find several affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
STEP 1: Choose from Digital Scrapbooking Options
In
over 15 years as a digital scrapbooker, I have become acquainted with several digital photobook and digital scrapbooking options. There are a lot of variables in publishing companies. The two big things to look for are quality and longevity. Your pages have to be top-quality, otherwise all the work (and money) you're putting into them will have to be done all over again in 10 or 20 years (sometimes less). You also want digital backups of your books or pages to be around for a while. Some companies are fine deleting your projects and your photos after a while (Walmart and Shutterfly, to name two).
Here’s my choice for the best digital scrapbooking available. There are actually three options here, so there's something for everyone.
After quality and longevity, I think the best digital scrapbooking advice I can give is to choose something you will love. If you love doing it, you're much more likely to do it.
So if Design & Print's software and free, easy templates look like your style, DO THAT.
If you like the creativity and flexibility of pages in Artisan look amazing, DO THAT.
Here's a little more about Artisan if that looks like your digital scrapbooking preference. It's definitely mine!
There is so much that you can do with Artisan software that I have created two additional resources to help!
Artisan Cheat Sheet - I put this together when I first started using Artisan to help me remember how to do something I just learned. I update it periodically, so I suggest you bookmark it!
Artisan Quick Tips with Jennifer - This is basically the video version of the Artisan Cheat Sheet, which is nice, I think so you can see how
There's also an online digital scrapbooking group for Artisan users! They have TONS of videos and fun resources (including blueprints, which are like templates) for free, too. It's called Pixels2Pages and has a monthly or yearly membership fee. The ladies who run it are called Pixies, which is kind of adorable, and you can learn more about the Pixels2Pages online scrapbooking group here.
Note: Artisan runs on a PC, but MAC users can use it with a partitioning program.
a screenshot of me creating my digital scrapbook using Artisan
Please also consider photo privacy when choosing a digital scrapbooking option. The company you use should notreserve rights to our photos to sell your data or photos. I didn't think that was a thing until I did a little research and wrote this article which will most likely blow your mind: What You’re Really Signing Up For with Digital Photo Storage. So, please: know what you’re signing up for when you choose a publishing (or photo storage) company!
All the options you see recommended here at Photo and Story Treasures will always meet the highest quality, longevity, and privacy standards! It matters.
STEP 2: Get Ready – Photo Organization
Most
people I know stop right here. The idea
of photo organization is so overwhelming (and understandably so) that the idea
of leaving your pictures to die on your phone sounds preferable to creating a
family heirloom book with photo and story treasures inside.
But
you’re better than that! You can do
this!
I first recommend that you
choose your topic. Do you want to make a photo-storybook about
your summer adventures, baby’s first year, the Hawaii trip, or a family yearbook of 2017 or 2020 photos? Just focus on one thing, not all the pictures
you own. Some people like to start with
the most recent (pictures from this summer), but some people like to start at
the beginning (the wedding, baby’s first year, or wherever you left off). Go with what sounds easiest and most doable to
you.
Next, organize and choose
photos from just that topic. You
may have a lot more photos than that.
That’s ok. They’ll wait. Do one thing first, start to finish, and
the momentum will propel you forward.
(Because it’s fun, super exciting, and so rewarding.)
Just like going to
the grocery store or the dentist or the gym, nothing happens without making
time for it. So make a digital
scrapbooking appointment with yourself and then be a friend (to yourself) and
keep it.
Alternatively,
you may want to recruit a friend you can work with. All you need for digital scrapbooking is a
laptop, so getting together is pretty easy.
I used to do this all the time—we’d take turns at each other’s houses
and our kids would play together. Or you can always do Girls Night at any local
restaurant or shop with good wifi. Or
you can even get together with friends long-distance thanks to Zoom and such.
I
have one last idea for you to help you make sure your good intentions get done. Have you ever thought about working with
your kids/grandkids to put together your photo and story treasures? Based on some experiences I’ve heard from
people who do it, I wrote Preserving Your Pictures as a
Family Tradition. If you like the idea, read
that article and see what suggestions are helpful.
STEP 4: Just Do It ~ Enjoy!
Now’s
the fun part. Just do it. Take
those precious photos and preserve them as family heirlooms that tell your
story. It will mean the world to
your family, plus it’s so good for your heart and
soul!
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