Photos, layouts, sketching and more!

Dad's
Tribute
Album

Here's probably what you're saying right now:

Well, I hope these tips for getting your photos and project organized will help you get organized so it doesn't seem so overwhelming!

To make it oh so easy, I've written up a tutorial for organizing your scrapbooking processing using sketches. Download and print out this article. I promise, it works!

Organizing your Photos with Sketches

Having trouble finding an easy way to scrap ANYWHERE, especially at crops, without taking everything you own? Check out this article, about how I organize my supplies in a new item called Scrappack:

Scrap Anywhere with Scrappack

If you just need help organizing your photos, here's the short and sweet version.

What you'll need:

Your boxes and boxes of photos
A pencil or pen (for making notes)
A photo labeling pencil (for writing on the back of the photos... please do NOT use pen)
Post-it notes
A photo holder (in a pinch, plain envelopes will work but not for long-term storage... try an expandable folder or cancelled check file--check your dollar store, or check at your local craft or scrapbook store for one made for photos if you're looking at long-term storage while you work on your album)

Here are the main steps:

Sort, by theme or chronology or both, into stacks.
Label by page layout, just a blurb on a post-it will do.
Put the post-it on the stack with a piece of the paper sticking up on top.
Store photos in order by layouts in a photo holder.
If you have more than one photo holder, label them so you know which comes next as you work.

Here's how I did it:

I had over 2 years of photos to organize when I started Brendan's album. I spent the better part of one day on a bed in a hotel room, away from Joe and Brendan, sorting photos. (The weekend at the hotel was an anniversary gift from my loving husband!)

While I know not everyone can just up and check into a hotel to sort photos, I do recommend a large space, a few uninterrupted hours, post-its and the idea of what you want to do in your album.

With Brendan's album, I knew I wanted to do his first year mostly chronologically with themed layouts interspersed then continuing through his life with whatever cool things he does. So I stacked up the photos chronologically, but I pulled out the cute face photos for a cute face layout, a number of him in his highchair for a "big chair" layout. Then once I've covered the entire first year, it's pretty open to whatever I want to do a layout for.

Once organized chronologically, I went through them and sorted them into activities, events, milestones, and eventually, piles containing photos I wanted to use in each layout. I realistically looked at these THOUSANDS of photos I had and determined if I couldn't use it in a layout, why keep it. And I threw them away.

NO, really, I THREW them away! Trust me, I kept way more than I'll probably use anyway, but a baby and toddler move too fast to get good shots most of the time, so why keep them all? If they'll just sit in a box in the closet, they will eventually deterioriate, along with the memories of why you even TOOK the photo, so I'm giving you permission to get rid of it.

Next, I purchased a Crop In Style 5x7 Photo Holder and put 5 layouts worth of photos in each pocket. Don't worry, this thing can hold up to 300 photos or 8 rolls of photos. I also put a post-it on the front of each pocket with the "names" of each layout in that pocket so I knew at a glance where I was while working.

I can personally vouch for fontgod.com! Turnaround is very fast, usually
3 days, customer service is the best I've had in years, and the font is perfect!
If you're a scrapbooker, there's no better way to journal than in your own
hand and now you can do it on the computer! See a sample of my font
on my TIPS page.

Please sign my "scrapbook" so I know you've been here to visit! Thanks!