How I Organize My Photos

We all have our way of doing things. I thought I would share mine in hopes that it may help someone. I added a short version of my process at the end of the blog for those that don’t want the detail. I also have updated this since the first time it was posted to tweak the photo printing section since I have changed that process a little over the last month.

I have spent over 20 years scrapbooking. I feel like I have tried a LOT of different ways and strategies for organizing my photos. I used to sort them by day. Yes, by day and then scrap by day. I was, lets just say, a bit overkill. I didn’t let anything go out of order and it made for some awkward pages trying to get things to fit nicely. Now days, I have relaxed a bit. I scrapbook by month. I still do things in order. I can't handle not scrapbooking chronologically, however at least I now I have a bit of leeway with my month to get things to fit nicely. I try to order photos at the beginning of the month for the previous months’ worth of photos. All my pictures would arrive and I would label them and there was no question which month they were. Key word here is ‘try’. I was able to do it for about 6 months and fell off the wagon with a bang. I ended up printing July through December 2020 all at once. Yeah, talk about a load of pics to go through, 2465 to be exact (I printed every one because it was too time consuming to do it on the computer). If you are like me you take a lot of photos with your cell phone. It is so darn convenient and lets face it sometimes in odd lighting it gets a better pic then our fancy cameras (at least for me since I don’t really know what I am doing). I also don’t always like to lug my fancy camera around. When I print my photos, they come back in two sizes. 4x5.25 for the cell phone pics and 4x6 for the fancy camera pics. They are generally in order by date according to size but not always and then you have to figure out where those random 4x6 pictures fit in along with the ones your husband took. Can you imagine the stress caused when trying to scrap by day. Yeah, so over that. So, now it is by month.

I am updating this part.... I no longer print every photo. I look at them on the computer before I print and decide what photos I LOVE. I no longer print every single one of the campfire or the same path on the hike over and over. I look and find the best one. It does take some time. In the end I am finding it easier to scrap and get rid of things that don't fit on the page less stressful when there is less to choose from. So, though I still do what I described below, I tend to have much less to toss. I might print 2 of the campfire and only have one to toss because the other one was nicer rather than having 8 to choose from and get rid of. If I ever get way behind again I may go to my old way of printing them all. 2465 photos is a lot to pick through on a computer but much faster when they are in my hands.

When I am keeping up with printing per month this first part is SO easy! I sort them by event within the month. While I do this, I am looking at the photos and throwing out any that are blurry. As I create my piles any random pics are put into a pile. These are things like one or two random pictures you took of various things. Next, I create a pile for our pets (without people), photos of our pets (with people next to it so I can combine them if I want), outings, events, extras to not use (people in the pic), trash (those 8 pictures of the campfire you don’t need), etc. Once I have them all sorted by various groups, I put them back in their packages and I label them with the Month and Year and throw out the trash ones. I also add 1 of however many pages so I know how many packages I should have when I sit down to do the next part. I am going to be getting the Creative Memories Photo Boxes this year as a Birthday gift to myself, but until then I keep them in their little folders and put them in a clear container so I can see the month and year I wrote down. When I am not on top of things and end up printing 2465 photos… it can take a bit longer. I get out my computer and pull up SnapFish (what I use to print my photos) and thankfully I load every photo by month, labeled by month, so I can at least see all the photos that should be grouped together for each month. Once I run through this tedious task I start sorting by groups and then I label and put away ready for the next sort. Again, I throw out any that are blurry or I know with one look I don’t want to keep. I no longer keep extras of people. If they have someone in them that I can give it to, then I put it aside for when I will see them. If my daughter wants it that is fine too. Otherwise it gets tossed out. If I ever need it again I can print another one. No reason to take up limited space at home with boxes of photos I will likely never look at again.

Now I am ready to prep! This is the fun part. I pull out the one month I am working with. I start with my title page for the month. I use the Close To My Heart Yearly Calander Kit for my title pages. This year it was called Moments Like These. If I don’t have one I would create one from scratch. I stamp the Month name on white cardstock and loosely add it where I think it may look nice. I then lay out my photos for the month and look for the number I need to add to the title page. I look for pictures that have the whole family, or something that I feel represents that month well. Once I have that done I slide the page into a page protector with the stamped month and photos. That page is ready to put together. I am a HUGE fan of not wasting the back sides of paper, so if I can I will use the back side as my base for the next set of pictures. I will look at my pile and generally I will scrap events and outings first. This way if I end up with too many pages I can skip some of the pictures of the pets or random extras that don’t really need to be in an album. As I start the first event to scrap (since the first page was just a title page) I am looking at the photos more in depth. I lay out the pictures on my 12x12 mat and see how many I want to add, crop, etc. I loosely lay them out and pick a background page that goes well if I am not using the back side of the previous page. Once I pick a background I pick the mat paper. If there are any stickers I want to use I will use an exacto knife and cut those out and add to the pile of things going on the page. I make sure to do any Cricut images or titles at this time also. I don’t like taking it with me if I am scrapping away from home. After I have everything I need I add it to the page protector. I put the background page in first with the background for the layout facing the outside so I can see it and everything goes in in front of it. If I am using a flip flap I put it inside too. I also add a note card with quick notes to help me remember what I was doing for that page if I think I may forget. Sometimes I will crop a few photos, sometimes I don’t. It just depends on how I feel. I continue doing this for the whole month. If I had say 200 pictures of a camping trip, I would likely cut it down to about 2-4 page protectors worth. I normally put anywhere from 3-6 pictures on a page, so this means I am culling out extras left and right. If we took a walk to the beach… I leave out any pictures that are duplicates of the similar shot and keep the best one. If I can't see my kids’ faces due to shadows, etc I will weed out the good ones and let go of the rest. With our campfire I pick the best one and don’t use every single campfire shot. If a photo isn’t scrap worthy, but has a person I know in it, I set it aside as an extra and will keep it till I see that person. Or I give it to my daughter to scrapbook. Multiple shots of the beach with no one in them get tossed away. The best of the best are in the scrapbook so it doesn’t matter if I let it go. Once the events are finished I usually leave pets and random for last. I don’t always scrap these. I take a lot of random photos that aren’t scrap worthy (it doesn’t help tell the story of the month, it was really random and not the greatest pic, etc) but I may do one page with as many random ones as possible along with the pets and write a little blurb about each pic next to it. If the pets have enough pictures where none of the shots is a similar one I might scrap that on one page by itself. If not they get added to the random pics and I would make a choice at that time what to do.

As I fill the page protectors I add them to IRIS 12x12 Scrapbook Totes. Once the tote is filled, I flip them so the first one is on top instead of the bottom and get a new empty tote out to keep going.

By only going through two sorts with my pictures I am saving valuable time. I used to sort when they came in and then sort by possible layout putting them back in the packages, etc but I ended up touching them too many times and changing my mind all the time. I also had to take ALL my paper whenever I went anywhere. If you have ever done this you know how heavy paper is. Now, with the way I prep pages, when I want to scrapbook away from home all I HAVE to take is adhesive, journal pens, shimmer brushes, scissors and my paper trimmer. It is AWESOME! When I attend a crop I still take my XXL Crop n Style bag with tools and extras. Some pages need a title done out of some of my cutting tools and if I wanted eyelets, brads, etc they would be in my bag. I also have my Xyron sticker maker (great for those Cricut titles) along with ruler, mat, washi tape, etc. I love that instead of feeling like I am taking my whole scrap room with me all I need is in my bag and Iris totes with my prepped layouts. It takes a ton of stress and pain off scrapbooking away from home!

For the short version:

1. First Sort. Get all photos in order by date. I keep it simple and stay in order of month/year. So, for each year separate photos by month. Weed out blurry ones, doubles, etc at the same time. Sort by event during the month. Make sure all pics of that camping trip or that concert are all grouped together. Again, tossing ones that are blurry or you don't like them at all. If it has a person you know in the photo and it isn’t blurry, but you know you won’t scrap it because their eyes are shut or whatever then put it aside at the end of the month with a note before that pile that they are to be extras and not used.

2. Now to prep. Sit down with the first month for whatever year you are working on and design out your pages. See what photos work best with the layout, add papers, embellishments, stamped images, cricut cut outs, etc to the page protector with the photos and continue this until they are all prepped. Again, purging any pics that don’t make the cut and putting those aside to give to kids, parents, etc and tossing the extra scenery pics. You want the best of the best photos in your albums. If you take thousands of pics like I do then there is a lot of tossing.

No matter how you decide to do it, have fun and enjoy the process. It takes time. But if you find yourself getting bored, or tired, just stop and put it away till next time.

As a note. You could do the first sort before even loading your pictures to print. You would use your computer and only load pictures you likely want to scrap to be printed… I used to find it way too time consuming and I didn’t care if I was throwing away 0.09 cents or less per print when I didn’t use it. I have altered my process to do this. I still load every photo to be saved, but I only pick the best ones to print. Ones I love.

Happy Crafting!