Organizing your Photos

There are only a few simple steps to get your photographs organized and ready to scrap. Once you have your photographs organized, scrapbooking those photographs is quick and easy. So, let’s get started.

First, gather all your photograph into one place. The living room floor or dining room table is a good place to start organizing. You will need a large space, some place to spread out with all those photographs.

Second, start sorting your photos. How ever your sort them is entirely up to you. Sort by date, event, person, holiday or vacation.

Third, now that you have your photographs grouped you need to sub-group them. So, if you have your photos sorted by year, now you can sub-group by event. (ie: Group 2006, sub-group - Easter, vacations, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, at the beach, snow much fun, etc.)

Fourth, add some tidbit journaling to your photos. As you are sorting these photos, little things come to mind, write them down. My suggestion is to put those tidbits on a sticky note and put it on the back of the photo. Never write on the back of a photo with a ball point pen. It will break the emulsion plus you will see what you wrote on the front. If you write on the back of the photograph, only use a photo safe marker, such as the Zig Photo Signature Pen. My suggestion though is to utilize the sticky notes for your tidbits because as you are working on your layout and adhere your photo to its mat and build your page if you have your tidbits of journaling on the back of your photo it’s gone. If you use the sticky notes, you can pull them off as you build your page and set them to the side to do your journaling with after your page is built and ready for journaling.

The final step is to store your photographs. How you store them is important. You want to store them as you have organized them. The envelopes that the developer put them in is a good choice. Other good options include photo boxes and photo organizers by Cropper Hopper and other manufacturers; just keep in mind that whatever you use it should be archival, PVC-free, acid free, lignin free and photo safe.

Now, get those photos organized!