Digital Scrapbook Week – Day 1 Organizing Photos

Okay, it’s back and it’s going to be better than ever!!  Maybe not really, but it will be good!!!  I LOVE to scrapbook!  I started scrapbooking when I was in high school and have scrapbooked ever since.  I have made scrapbooks for high school, my husbands mission,  and all the way up to 10+ years of marriage.  I have always scrapbooked the original way with paper and scissors, and glue, but 3 years I got WAY behind and decided to look into digital scrapbooking.  I basically taught myself with a few tutorials.  I am really excited to share what I have learned with you.  My pages aren’t amazing, but they work, and I don’t have to make a mess.  {Although there are some days that I do miss the hands on stuff, with paper and scissors and cutting}  but I would never go back.  I have no mess and I feel totally organized, and it is SO much faster, and cheaper! {I will get to that later on in the week} 

Today I will share with you a few great tips about organizing photos. 

• Organize your digital photos into monthly folders.  If you haven’t been doing that, do it now.  It might take a while, but take the time now before you start scrapbooking to make sure they are organized by month.  It will be so much easier when you start to go a month at a time!!
•  Go though your photos and delete the ones you have duplicates of.  Also delete the ones you don’t think you will scrapbook.  Out of sight out of mind…..Right?
• SAVE, SAVE, SAVE ALL OF YOUR PICTURES ONTO A CD AND A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE.   {Yes I am saying this very boldly, because last year my computer crashed after scrapbooking a TON of pages and thankfully we were able to get most of my pictures and scrapbook pages back, but others I know who’s computers have crashed haven’t been that lucky}
• Lots of people I know make different books for each child.  For me I am only making family books.  If my kids want their own copy when they get older they can either just get a book like mine or go though the digital scrapbook pages and I will make a book with the pages of mostly them, but I am not making a photo book for each kid, at least not right now 🙂

Even if you aren’t going to scrapbook the pictures at least have them organized for your children’s sake.  My mom has boxes and boxes of photos and she is now starting to organize them and also paying someone to scan them and make them digital which will be very nice!

Post for this week will include….
Tuesday – How I got started,  Where I found paper and embellishments, most of them FREE {I like free}
Wednesday- I will show you a few sites that have premade layouts for free or almost free
Thursday – A little about Photoshop and other suggestions. 
Friday – I will share with you where I print my books and show you how much you can save by going digital.
Saturday – We will finish off the week with a giveaway!! 
Here is a sampling of a couple of my pages…