Comments on: Organizing Photos: Presentation is Only the Icing

By: Sally J.

Sally J. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:44:13 +0000

I just have to say that these are the BEST EVER comments on my blog.

To all of you who are tackling photos right now, listen up:

You can do this. I promise.

Slip-in albums are a great way to get photos out of a box and into your life. You can sit down with another person and page through lots of photos and nobody has to put on cotton gloves. Yay!

Be choosy about which photos you put into albums. Just the best ones or the ones you are most excited to share (often the same).

More important than the frills, in my opinion, is writing down the stories behind them. Why is this your favorite photo? How does it make you feel to look at it now? What would you tell the person in the photo if you could?

The rest of your photos can sit comfortably in boxes, or be distributed to family and friends. Heck, you can even toss them — but please not the ancestor photos!

By: Liz Haigney Lynch

Liz Haigney Lynch — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:55:32 +0000

Thank you!! I love the color and verve and design savvy of scrapbooking, but it takes me more time than I care to give. When it comes down to it, I’m better off just getting things organized safely. A friend of mine once told me about helping an older relative who was downsizing into a smaller home, and asking her why she was trashing a box of old photos. The response: “I have no idea who is in them, and if I don’t know, nobody knows!” Better that my photos are in a safe album and marked, and if I have time later, I’ll try to do some prettier books of vacations, etc.

By: Katrina

Katrina — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:03:35 +0000

“Perfection Is the Enemy of the Good”.

This is so true. I am a perfectionist and find it hard to “create” anything because it will inevitably fail to live up to my expectations. It is a long journey to learn patience and compassion for oneself!

I just have to remember that it’s better to get 80% (or even 20%) of the way there than to get 0% of the way there because I wouldn’t accept anything less than 100%!

By: M. Diane Rogers

M. Diane Rogers — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:43:04 +0000

I’m with you! Some will have noticed I didn’t include scrapbooking among my ‘other’ hobbies for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. Still someday the family will have a few scrapbooks showing things that mean something to me… I hope!

By: Melissa Mannon

Melissa Mannon — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:00:47 +0000

well said!

By: Karen Rhodes

Karen Rhodes — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:31:49 +0000

I enjoy scrapbooking, though I have all the artistic talent of a 10-penny nail. I don’t care. My scrapbook pages are MINE, they contain my stories and my family’s stories. If someone is going to judge my scrapbooks solely on artistic merit, they aren’t looking at them. I use them to tell stories, and that’s the primary reason for their existence.

I stick to the simple. I don’t try to get all artsy-craftsy. That’s probably the best that those of us who aren’t artsy-craftsy can do! But no one should let herself (or himself) be intimidated by the over-the-top perfectionism touted in the magazines.

As we used to say in the 60s: Do your own thing.

By: Gini Webb

Gini Webb — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:11:46 +0000

All of my photos have been sitting in a box because I have been waiting to “get” creative and scrapbook them. I love to make my own cards but scrapbooking has always been a challenge for me so I have done “nothing” with my photos because I thought they had to be scrapbooked and scrapbooked perfectly. I wish they could be but if I wait for that to happen, my photos will continue to sit in the box! Thank you so much, now I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I truly love your series on organizing photos, your help and inspiration is exactly what I needed to get started. I look forward to the next post in the series.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:55:00 +0000

Thank you, thank you! Because of this article, I’ve given myself permission to forgo the gluing, stamping, journaling, embellishing, matting of every photo I have! Seriously, the thought of all of those unfinished projects was like a cloud hanging over me! Now I’ll only scrap the really stunning moments as you suggested.