Scrapbooking question---what do I do with ALL of these pictures????

[JessetheCowgirl]

I am trying to get baby books done for my 3 kids. (oldest is 6---youngest is 1). I have CM books that were given to me and thought this would be pretty easy to do. I don't have the pics in albums, just in boxes (EEEK!!!)

Anyway, I started sorting into each child's first year, but I am getting stuck! My plan was for all of the rest of the pics to go in family books chronologically (so I am scrapping for ONE album instead of keeping up with one for EACH child).

My questions:

1. Most of these pics (predigital) are the ONLY copy. Should I really be cropping them if there is no duplicate?

2. Sorting----I get stuck trying to decide where to put photos. Example: baby #2's first Christmas sitting in Santa's lap. If I put it in #2's baby album, then in our family album there is only a pic of older brother #1 with Santa. So it looks like baby #2 wasn't even there???

3. What do you do with all of the leftover pics? Put in albums? Photo boxes?

4. Any tips to encourage me to throw out pics that I really don't need? Example: blurry baby pics; Christmas card pics from hundreds of friends/relatives/coworkers; pics of family members that aren't really close to us, etc.



I know I am overanalyzing, but I am also overwhelmed by these MOUNTAINS of pics to sort, scrap, put away.

HELP!!!!!

 

[Momeska]

My questions:

1. Most of these pics (predigital) are the ONLY copy. Should I really be cropping them if there is no duplicate?

2. Sorting----I get stuck trying to decide where to put photos. Example: baby #2's first Christmas sitting in Santa's lap. If I put it in #2's baby album, then in our family album there is only a pic of older brother #1 with Santa. So it looks like baby #2 wasn't even there???

3. What do you do with all of the leftover pics? Put in albums? Photo boxes?

4. Any tips to encourage me to throw out pics that I really don't need? Example: blurry baby pics; Christmas card pics from hundreds of friends/relatives/coworkers; pics of family members that aren't really close to us, etc.

First off...just take a deep breath and relax...ok, now then
1. If you have a scanner, make another copy if you're worried about only having one, or if you have the negatives, again make another copy. But really, if the pictures are just in a box, wouldn't you rather they be in a scrapbook where they are looked at, even if they are the only copy? Just be careful cropping. Don't crop anything that would date the photo i.e. car, house, etc.
2. I've made scrapbooks for both my sons and run into the dilemma of whose album to put pages I scrap when they both are in them. Solution...color photocopy. When you're looking through the scrapbook, you can't tell. Just don't put ALL the scrapped ones in one child's album and ALL the photocopies in the other's. They keep track!
3. Don't have an answer for that one, I'm afraid. I've got boxes of duplicates.
4. Toss 'em! It's very therapeutic! We scrappers are such savers that once in awhile, it's good to just purge some stuff.
Hope this helps...enjoy!
Linda

 

[cobbler]

Yep she gave you the best advice. My plan of attack really is to do each childs album then go through and see what copies I need to make for the family album. That is my plan of attack anyway.

And I too through out pictures that aren't necessary. Its really good to throw out un-necessary pics or blury ones and such.

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

That is the way to go. One thing I do as I scrap is this.

I pull all my photos that are related to whatever I'm working on from their 4 x 6 sleeve albums. Then I sort them by whatever categorization makes sense. For instance, right now I'm working on DD's "regular" book. So I pulled everything from the start of her freshman year (last fall) to the present and sorted it by event - ie: first day of school, homecoming week, Christmas vacation trip, etc. Those chunks of photos and whatever memorabilia I have to go with them are placed in separate slots of an accordian sorter. As I start each portion then - for instance the Christmas vacation trip I would pull that chunk o stuff out of the accordian sorter and sort down into subsets - ie: decorating the tree at my brother's house in California, Christmas Eve, and so forth. This approach keeps me from getting overwhelmed on sorting in the beginning but also allows me to move along pretty rapidly when I'm working.

As I start to decide what I want to use I toss the ones I am not using into a basket I keep on a surface next to my scrapping table. On occasion I go back because I need another pic to fill in a space or something. But not often. Periodically (as the mood strikes) I take that basket out of the workroom to the kitchen and sort the "leftovers" for folks I think might get a grin out of them - even older ones. I mail those off with a quick note. Anything left at that point gets pitched.

Along the way stuff that is really bad - too blurry to use, etc. gets pitched straight into the trash. With one exception...I sometimes will cut titles out of the blurry photos. I did this with a layout of a choir concert from Christmas and it is really cool (IMHO) you can tell there are faces, and choir uniforms but the blurry factor essentiallly disappears because of the new shape.

Good luck!
Deb