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If you are like me, you have tons and tons of photos that are not only not in albums but not even sorted. I came across this great explanation of where to start. I found it very useful. I hope you do too.
Step 1:
- Gather your photos—Find all of the photos that are throughout your house. Bring them to an area of your house where you can sort them out. You may need a large space such as a desk, or kitchen table for this task. If you have photos in an old photo album, that is not archival safe, you may want to remove the photos. The faster you get the photographs out of these albums, the better it is for the photos. But if you choose to leave them in the albums, you can just label the entire album (when you get to that step of the organization process). If you have photos on your hard drive, or on-line, now is the time to take some notes about these photos. Take notes on which years they are from and what events they cover. Bring these notes back to your workspace, where you have the rest of your photos.
Step 2:
- Sort your photos—There are different ways to sort your photos. You may want to choose what type of albums you will want to create and how you will organize your albums before you begin to organize your photos. But, if you do not really know what photographs you have, it may be helpful to sort your photos BEFORE you decide which type of albums you want to create. Two different types of album organization are chronological and event based. For example, if you know the dates (or can figure out the general dates) of your photos, you may want to put them into chronological order. Thus, your albums can be in chronological order as well. But, if you have no idea when, or what year, the photos are from you may want to sort them by event (Christmas, Vacations, School, Baby Pictures). Thus, you will want to create a vacation album, a holiday album, and possibly an album for each of your children. These albums can include vacations or holidays, or children’s photos that have been taken over many years. Once you see which direction you are headed in (chronological or event based), continue sorting, until all of your photos are organized.
Chronological Organization Tip:
If you have MANY photos, you may want to begin sorting by decade (early 80’s, mid 80’s, late 80’s). Once you have them in a “rough” chronological order, you can begin to narrow them down. You can sort them into specific years, then by events. Holidays are helpful in trying to put photos in chronological order, because they always occur at the same time of year, thus giving you a rough date for the photos.
Event Based Organization Topics:
Wedding, Sports, Heritage, Military, Halloween, Christmas, Chanukah, Birthdays, Children’s development, School Years, Vacations, Family/General, Romance, Reunions, Religious Events, Work, Friends, Outings (zoo, park, etc.) --these are just a few different album topics.
Step 3:
- Label your photos—After you have finished sorting your photos, it’s a good idea to label some of them, so you will not have to re-sort them in the future. You should label photos using a photo safe pen. A regular pen or pencil will eventually damage the photo. (I also like to use Post-It notes, but I do not believe they are photo safe.) You do not need to write on the back of EVERY photo. For example if you find a group of birthday photos, you can write whose birthday it was, how old they were, the year, and location of the photos. You only need to note this on the back of one of the photos and you can refer to that photo for the info when you go to scrapbook it. The point of this is to make a few notes so that it is easy to remember what and when the photos are about.
Step 4:
- Store your photos—After you have sorted and labeled all of your photos, you need to store them in a safe place. In order to do this you must protect them from heat, humidity, and light. These three elements destroy photos over time. Therefore, you should not store them in attics, garages, or unfinished basements. You will also want to keep them in containers that are acid-free and lignin-free. Papers, envelopes, and file folders contain acid and/or lignin unless it specifically states “acid and lignin free” on the label. A great way to store photos is in a photo case, specifically designed for long term photo storage.
Step 5:
- Begin your scrapbooks!!!—Now you are ready to begin creating beautiful scrapbooks. You may want to begin with your most recent photos, while they are still fresh in your mind. Then you will work backward until you finish an entire album. If you are making Event Based albums, you may want to work on multiple albums at once
