Wednesday, September 24, 2003
10 Steps to Get Your Photos Organized
1. Go through house and find all of the photos in your house, boxes, tins, bags, undeveloped rolls, etc…
2. Do one roll or envelope at a time
3. Do a survey of your house to see if you have any organizing tools you were unaware of, for example, labels, archival photo albums, or blank sketch books that could be used for scrap booking, you need to determine what you want to do with your photos first to begin your project.
You have to think of organizational projects like you think of cooking. You need to plan everything out, from the ingredients to the materials to make it, like a bundt cake pan you need to make your recipe.
• For a photo album project, first organize your photos by date, they usually have them on the back of the photos OR by event, birthdays, dinner parties, etc… there are so many ways to organize them you can really have your pick
• If you don’t find all of the photos at first and are worried about order you can buy photo albums or scrap books that have add on pages you can insert later
• Figure out approximately how many photo albums or scrap books you need, (I have a great referral for scrap books, which I will provide at the end of this article.)
• Purchase the articles you need for the photos project, labels, books, pens, etc…
• Start placing the photos in albums, with a glass of something that soothes you, for me it would be a diet coke, for you perhaps a glass of wine.
• Have fun! Think of how nice it will be to go over old photos, know where they are, and not have to worry about them getting moldy, faded, or worse, lost.
• Here are some good websites that tell you more about preserving your photos…
http://www.maine.com/photos/tip.htm
http://www.uni.edu/petersog/icpctip5.html
http://www.photographymuseum.com/archival.html
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/membersGallery/archiving/caringForAlbums.shtml
4. Go shopping and look around for all of the organizing products there are out there
• this is the fun part, you get to look all over to find what photo holder suits your needs better. You could either by archival photo boxes, scrap books, or simple photo album
• be sure not to buy photo albums with magnetic pages, these can ruin photos, it not only fades the photo after time, but if you ever want to scan a photo later, it might not come free, it has happened to me!
5. determine which one suits your needs better
• be sure you get what will fit your personality, for example, if you are the type that will sit and stare at the photos all day and never get around to putting them away, (I am talking about the people who go to clean their rooms and find an old paper or book and end up spending the day reading that rather than getting the job done, it happens to the best of us!) if you do this, photo boxes with labels might be better for you.
6. Price shop – target, and Fred Meyer always have sales, you can also go on line to professional organizers websites who offer products and see what their prices are, sometimes after shipping and handling the items cost about as much as you would pay at a store, so be careful, especially if you are on a budget.
Here are a couple of web sites…
http://www.creativememories.com/home.asp
http://www.albumsource.com
http://www.dbphotoalbums.com/
http://www.pioneerphotoalbums.com/
• You could also go digital and scan all of your old photos onto a computer, if you are less a hands on person, and more of a computer person. Here are some great web sites on just that:
http://photos.yahoo.com/
http://www.picturetrail.com/
• There are cheaper ways to go about putting your photos onto a computer database or a disk
• Microsoft has a great program, called my pictures
• If you are going to scan, I suggest you purchase a scanner to save money, it gets expensive to do this service done at a photo store, even Walgreen’s adds up fast!
7. After purchasing the items required for the photos, set everything up on a card table
• Do not to use your kitchen table or dining room table, it tends to stay like this for months to be sure you have everything you need to get started, (remember the cooking analogy).
8. If you don’t finish it all in one day, clean up the clutter you have made you can even store it in a closet just put it away, otherwise it will add to your disorganization creating more stress, which makes you feel overwhelmed and then you are back to square one.
9. Some people need to take baby steps; this is ok, especially with a smaller sized project, such as photo albums, (in other words in takes up less space).
• This is supposed to be fun, if it helps do it in front of the TV with your favorite movie on, or play a soothing c.d.
10. If it doesn’t go smoothly, don’t despair! You can always call me for a free hour consultation over the phone.
Discuss
1. Go through house and find all of the photos in your house, boxes, tins, bags, undeveloped rolls, etc…
2. Do one roll or envelope at a time
3. Do a survey of your house to see if you have any organizing tools you were unaware of, for example, labels, archival photo albums, or blank sketch books that could be used for scrap booking, you need to determine what you want to do with your photos first to begin your project.
You have to think of organizational projects like you think of cooking. You need to plan everything out, from the ingredients to the materials to make it, like a bundt cake pan you need to make your recipe.
• For a photo album project, first organize your photos by date, they usually have them on the back of the photos OR by event, birthdays, dinner parties, etc… there are so many ways to organize them you can really have your pick
• If you don’t find all of the photos at first and are worried about order you can buy photo albums or scrap books that have add on pages you can insert later
• Figure out approximately how many photo albums or scrap books you need, (I have a great referral for scrap books, which I will provide at the end of this article.)
• Purchase the articles you need for the photos project, labels, books, pens, etc…
• Start placing the photos in albums, with a glass of something that soothes you, for me it would be a diet coke, for you perhaps a glass of wine.
• Have fun! Think of how nice it will be to go over old photos, know where they are, and not have to worry about them getting moldy, faded, or worse, lost.
• Here are some good websites that tell you more about preserving your photos…
http://www.maine.com/photos/tip.htm
http://www.uni.edu/petersog/icpctip5.html
http://www.photographymuseum.com/archival.html
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/membersGallery/archiving/caringForAlbums.shtml
4. Go shopping and look around for all of the organizing products there are out there
• this is the fun part, you get to look all over to find what photo holder suits your needs better. You could either by archival photo boxes, scrap books, or simple photo album
• be sure not to buy photo albums with magnetic pages, these can ruin photos, it not only fades the photo after time, but if you ever want to scan a photo later, it might not come free, it has happened to me!
5. determine which one suits your needs better
• be sure you get what will fit your personality, for example, if you are the type that will sit and stare at the photos all day and never get around to putting them away, (I am talking about the people who go to clean their rooms and find an old paper or book and end up spending the day reading that rather than getting the job done, it happens to the best of us!) if you do this, photo boxes with labels might be better for you.
6. Price shop – target, and Fred Meyer always have sales, you can also go on line to professional organizers websites who offer products and see what their prices are, sometimes after shipping and handling the items cost about as much as you would pay at a store, so be careful, especially if you are on a budget.
Here are a couple of web sites…
http://www.creativememories.com/home.asp
http://www.albumsource.com
http://www.dbphotoalbums.com/
http://www.pioneerphotoalbums.com/
• You could also go digital and scan all of your old photos onto a computer, if you are less a hands on person, and more of a computer person. Here are some great web sites on just that:
http://photos.yahoo.com/
http://www.picturetrail.com/
• There are cheaper ways to go about putting your photos onto a computer database or a disk
• Microsoft has a great program, called my pictures
• If you are going to scan, I suggest you purchase a scanner to save money, it gets expensive to do this service done at a photo store, even Walgreen’s adds up fast!
7. After purchasing the items required for the photos, set everything up on a card table
• Do not to use your kitchen table or dining room table, it tends to stay like this for months to be sure you have everything you need to get started, (remember the cooking analogy).
8. If you don’t finish it all in one day, clean up the clutter you have made you can even store it in a closet just put it away, otherwise it will add to your disorganization creating more stress, which makes you feel overwhelmed and then you are back to square one.
9. Some people need to take baby steps; this is ok, especially with a smaller sized project, such as photo albums, (in other words in takes up less space).
• This is supposed to be fun, if it helps do it in front of the TV with your favorite movie on, or play a soothing c.d.
10. If it doesn’t go smoothly, don’t despair! You can always call me for a free hour consultation over the phone.
Discuss
