Scrapping photos...

[Kimberly27]

How often do you delete/skip photos and just not scrap them? I am so behind...like photos as far back as 2005!! I am trying to decide what pictures to keep and what pictures to just skip so I can one day catch up. At the rate I am going I will never catch up...LOL

 

[LeeAndra]

Even though I enjoy scrapping moments vs. events, events are what most non-scrappers remember so if I were trying to scrap several years of photos, I would focus on those things: birthdays, graduations/awards, sports seasons, Halloween, Christmas, if someone in the family reached some milestone or achievement. If you really want to be fast, do it pocket-style. You could also do a (or a couple of) 2 page pocket-style spread(s) for every month of a year and then fill in later with non-pocket pages if you really wanted to. Is it important to you that they get done or that they get done-ish/worked on? I'd make my decisions depending on which of those was most important to me.

I would suggest that while you're deciding what to scrap, you write down notes whenever you remember anything about the photos you're looking at whether you're going to scrap them now or not. Although your (digital) photos won't fade no matter how long it takes you to scrap them, your memories will.

 

[nesser1981]

How often do you delete/skip photos and just not scrap them? I am so behind...like photos as far back as 2005!! I am trying to decide what pictures to keep and what pictures to just skip so I can one day catch up. At the rate I am going I will never catch up...LOL

I never delete photos, unless they're just not good.

But something I'm currently working on for each of my kids is a Pocket Style Album, with one layout per month of my favorite photos of them. I'm doing them in 10 year increments. So in theory I'll have 2 volumes is my plan. First 10 years and then probably just through high school for volume 2. Aside from our family scrapbooks.

So maybe to get started, something like that just yearly scrapbooks of some of your most favorite photos, just pick a number maybe a two page spread a month if you have a ton of photos and say max 15 photos per month. It might not be everything you want to include, but you'll be happy to have something together and printed. You can always go back and fill in the gaps.

 

[jacinda]

Oh I have a TON of photos that will never be scrapped - there's just too many years to catch up on. Like Vanessa I only delete photos that are bad/blurry, otherwise I keep them on file. Nowadays I just scrap what I want to, or what I'm inspired to. Sometimes that means scrapping a current photo, other times it means scrapping an older one.

 

[LynnZant]

Never! I have a notebook with a list by month of things I want to scrap some day. Depending on my moods, I look through it and see what inspires me. Doing it this way has left me with no completed years. But, now I'm on a mission to get 2019 done and printed. Maybe I'll give up on previous years one of these days, but I'm not ready to give up just yet.

 

[kristalund]

Oh I have a TON of photos that will never be scrapped - there's just too many years to catch up on. Like Vanessa I only delete photos that are bad/blurry, otherwise I keep them on file. Nowadays I just scrap what I want to, or what I'm inspired to. Sometimes that means scrapping a current photo, other times it means scrapping an older one.

same here!
I get the satisfaction of "completing" a project by creating smaller, themed albums and printing those
ie
Travel Albums
Time periods like Shelter In Place
December Daily
Project Life

 

[rach3975]

I don't delete photos unless they're bad, but not scrap them? All the time. What helps me is taking a big picture approach to each year. I look at my entire collection of scrap-worthy photos from that year and then begin setting limits and taking things off my to-scrap list. I don't know what your organization system is, but this is how I'd do it.

For every year I have a folder of photos that I want to scrap. Within that I have subfolders for how I think I'll scrap them, like "First day of school" or "Favorite toy." (All of my to scrap photos are duplicates so that I can just delete them.) For any partially scrapped years I'd pull all of the finished pages into that folder, too. Already did 2 birthday layouts but still have photos from that event unscrapped? Delete and move on. Have 5 unscrapped sets of playground photos? Choose the few best for 1 layout and delete the rest. Have a small moment that no longer seems as significant? Delete. Then make sure to do 1 page for each of the most significant things left in the folder so they're represented in your album. (They may be significant because they're important or just because you love the photo!) Be ruthless about deciding what really and truly needs to be in your album. I find that's the l one thing I like about scrapping older photos--with the passage of time I have a lot more perspective on what's worth scrapping.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[SeattleSheri]

My rationale for keeping photos is completely independent of what I scrap. I very rarely delete photos and I don't put any pressure on myself to scrap specific events/photos. It's a win-win for me!

 

[Kimberly27]

You ladies are awesome....I am loving the ideas. This has helped, I am glad that I asked. I should clarify I never delete photos...I have a folder of my pics that are copied that I work from so I can delete as I scrap. It helps me feel accomplished. I just finished our 2019 Thanksgiving Trip to Universal/and Beach. It was nice to delete the DONE folder of photos...I still have the original unedited ones in a separate folder. I have gone back and started to organize the photos into folders with how I would scrap them...trip, school, Christmas, Caden(my youngest) sleeping (we have a million of these pics and it can be its own book).

I think my biggest problem is I can't take one or two photos. One of the pages I just scrapped was all of the outtakes from a photo shoot to get a family photo. Our trip to visit family for the 4th of July was about a week long and I took close to 2000 pics (some are my mother in laws pics. She is a problem too in a good way. She travels with us on most of all of our trips so she takes pics plus my pics. I also get her pics when my boys stay with her over the summer )...now my youngest did turn 10 so that takes about 200 pics out of play LOL but still...Christmas don't get me started on the 400 or 500 pics and my kids are now 10 and 16! LOL
Also hubby and I send our kiddos to stay with the grandparents EVERY summer for at least 2 weeks sometimes longer. Except this year we usually take a mini trip or a big trip just the two of us on top of family trips. I have so many TRIPS to scrap. It has been goal this quarantine to catch up and stay on target with 2020 and work on trips...I did a 2018 DC Thanksgiving trip and now our 2019 Beach/Universal Thanksgiving Trip...those are DONE!! I still have an older Universal trip, a DC Trip we took alone, 2 Disney trips, a trip to Paris, Alaska Cruise, our 10yr Anniversary trip (road trip to the east coast states/NY City), Yellowstone and so many more...can you tell we like to travel A LOT! LOL

I think am planning on plugging away at the trips and hoping to get those done and filling in the gaps with the other pages. My poor youngest has nothing scrapped from his first year. I am relying on videos to help me remember what happened bc I am horrible about writing stuff done.

 

[jema]

I organize like many of you; folders and sub folders and never delete my "working copies" until I'm finished.

I scrap what I feel like, but rarely in chronically order. Needless to say, I have multiple albums from 2005 with only two years complete. I will make special albums. The only albums I kept up with was my daughters school years (both out of college now). I would scrap each event they were in; lucky for me they were many of the same things.

One way I remember events, dates etc is my dad kept a daily journal til two days before his death and my husband has to have a wall calendar with everything marked on it. As I scrap I go to both these sources.

 

[aussiegirl]

Like the others, I only delete bad or blurry photos. I am WAY behind also (all the way back to actual paper photos from 2001 (when my oldest was born).

I figure one day when all my girls are married and out of the house, I'll have plenty of time to scrap our memories. For now, it's easier at times to work on the most recent photos, since they are fresh in my mind. Every once in a while, an older photo or memory will work the best for a CT kit or a newly purchased kit. The older ones get scrapped that way for now!

 

[nesser1981]

I think you have to take the guilt away.

If you can get a system for organizing that you like, that will help.

For me, I use ACDsee and I have a section for "to scrap photos" that I tag by Year>Month>Event and if it's a vacation I break it down by Trip>Day and then even more if I need to like for a Disney trip my photos would be tagged something like
Disney 2008
Day 1 - Magic Kingdom
-Fantasyland
-Fireworks
-Dinner
-Tomorrowland

Etc, that way I think it's easier to break the photos into smaller groups, even if you have a ton from that section you aren't looking at so many at once. I also like to tag the kits I'm planning to use and templates sometimes.

I did create a little video (if you haven't seen it) of how I like to tag my stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQHMeQEWbSc&t=18s

That all being said, I personally get twitchy if I get too far behind, but I was almost 3 years behind until the Pandemic hit. But even when I wasn't scrapping regularly, I still would tag and that helped. Now I'm all caught up, including our trip to Yellowstone last month. Now I'm working on the other projects I have on my list.

Sounds like you're making great progress, just finding a system that works for you and maybe set a small goal. Maybe to scrap 2 pages a day, or 4 a week. It'll add up.

I'm doing that right now with my middle's one's first 10 year book, I've scrapped so much lately burn out is finally creeping in. These little pocket pages are pretty quick, so my goal is to do 4 pages a day, in the evening. I should have his done in just over a month if I stick to that schedule.

You ladies are awesome....I am loving the ideas. This has helped, I am glad that I asked. I should clarify I never delete photos...I have a folder of my pics that are copied that I work from so I can delete as I scrap. It helps me feel accomplished. I just finished our 2019 Thanksgiving Trip to Universal/and Beach. It was nice to delete the DONE folder of photos...I still have the original unedited ones in a separate folder. I have gone back and started to organize the photos into folders with how I would scrap them...trip, school, Christmas, Caden(my youngest) sleeping (we have a million of these pics and it can be its own book).

I think my biggest problem is I can't take one or two photos. One of the pages I just scrapped was all of the outtakes from a photo shoot to get a family photo. Our trip to visit family for the 4th of July was about a week long and I took close to 2000 pics (some are my mother in laws pics. She is a problem too in a good way. She travels with us on most of all of our trips so she takes pics plus my pics. I also get her pics when my boys stay with her over the summer )...now my youngest did turn 10 so that takes about 200 pics out of play LOL but still...Christmas don't get me started on the 400 or 500 pics and my kids are now 10 and 16! LOL
Also hubby and I send our kiddos to stay with the grandparents EVERY summer for at least 2 weeks sometimes longer. Except this year we usually take a mini trip or a big trip just the two of us on top of family trips. I have so many TRIPS to scrap. It has been goal this quarantine to catch up and stay on target with 2020 and work on trips...I did a 2018 DC Thanksgiving trip and now our 2019 Beach/Universal Thanksgiving Trip...those are DONE!! I still have an older Universal trip, a DC Trip we took alone, 2 Disney trips, a trip to Paris, Alaska Cruise, our 10yr Anniversary trip (road trip to the east coast states/NY City), Yellowstone and so many more...can you tell we like to travel A LOT! LOL

I think am planning on plugging away at the trips and hoping to get those done and filling in the gaps with the other pages. My poor youngest has nothing scrapped from his first year. I am relying on videos to help me remember what happened bc I am horrible about writing stuff done.

 

[rach3975]

I think my biggest problem is I can't take one or two photos. One of the pages I just scrapped was all of the outtakes from a photo shoot to get a family photo. Our trip to visit family for the 4th of July was about a week long and I took close to 2000 pics (some are my mother in laws pics. She is a problem too in a good way. She travels with us on most of all of our trips so she takes pics plus my pics. I also get her pics when my boys stay with her over the summer )...now my youngest did turn 10 so that takes about 200 pics out of play LOL but still...Christmas don't get me started on the 400 or 500 pics and my kids are now 10 and 16! LOL

For years this was exactly my problem, or at least one of them! Finally in late 2018 I had to admit to myself that I was taking so many photos that dealing with them was stressing me out. I decided that I had to become a lot more intentional about my photo taking. My kids were tweens and teens and didn't want their pictures taken all the time, and even though I'd cut back before then to respect their wishes I was still taking more than they wanted and making up the difference with too many photos of scenery, younger relatives, etc.

Over the last few years I've worked hard at taking a few photos and then putting the camera away. (At least for a while, LOL.) I used to take photos throughout every event, and then I was overwhelmed when it came time to sort and scrap them. Now I try to put the camera away after a few photos (and by "few" I still mean 20+), even if it comes out again for round 2 an hour later. I still get enough photos to bring back the memories, but the photo subjects and I are all happier.

Another change I had to make was with other people's photos. We do a big family vacation with our extended family every year, and I've stopped letting my siblings give me ALL their photos. If they want to sort them and send me a handful of the best ones from each day, I'm all over that! But I don't need their hundreds of photos to add to all of mine.

Since I'm so behind on scrapping, I've only been working on 2019 since July, which means I'm just starting to reap the benefits of my "fewer and more intentional photos" strategy. Looking through what I have to work with for 2019, I will have fewer pages, but I don't feel like the quality of the photos I had to work with suffered. I have almost the same number of scrap-worthy photos and a lot fewer that will end up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

 

[StacyLynn]

At this moment I feel as though I will never be "caught up". I scrap randomly right now, and scrap what I feel like... sometimes I scrap the same pics more that once... cause, ya know, I found a cuter kit..... lol AND i'm okay with that for now!! (It has taken me awhile to get to this point) Life is busy, my kids are growing up too fast! (three are grown now and the baby is 16....) And even though I don't scrap chronologicly, I do print (page by page) and put the pages in my albums in order.

I do not delete photos unless it is just a really bad shot and I have good ones from that event/moment. I always take lots of pics too, and sometimes I use just a few from an event, and that's okay. My photos are pretty organized in folders (yearly, momthly, daily/event).

 

[Kimberly27]

It is funny you would think with a tween and a teen they wouldn't want me taking photos but my oldest will take my phone and take pics if I stop or he is taking just as many as me. I think I have "trained" them over the years of my photo taking. They will stop and say hey mom take my pic, this will make a great photo or hey get in the photo mom. Stop here mom, let's get a pic. I have created monsters! LOL Now I do have events that have zero pics...ZERO! We went to DC in 2018 for a vaca. I took an extra camera for the youngest and he took pics, the oldest took pics and I included all those in the book...one of my faves BUT we drove from there to visit family for Thanksgiving. I took NO pics Thankgiving day...none! We had a ton of family over, kids running everywhere....It was great but no pics. I am okay with it though.
I am trying to get better with fewer pics...my MIL is always with us and I have her, my son upload pics bc I will put my camera away and let her or my son take pics while I enjoy the moment. It is nice having her photos (she doesn't take very many).
When my kids were tiny and would visit her in the summer I would get her photos and make her books for Christmas. I have several summer vacation books from her and my mom pics since they keep my kids for 2 or 3 weeks every summer.

I have decided looking back over photos though that past years will get done now with a double page of ALL soccer pics from 2008 instead of scrapping each soccer game/party etc...if I have a picture that I love I will highlight it but I will just group them all in one big page to get those years done. I like the idea of focusing on trips, big events etc. Scrapping is looking more manageable.

For years this was exactly my problem, or at least one of them! Finally in late 2018 I had to admit to myself that I was taking so many photos that dealing with them was stressing me out. I decided that I had to become a lot more intentional about my photo taking. My kids were tweens and teens and didn't want their pictures taken all the time, and even though I'd cut back before then to respect their wishes I was still taking more than they wanted and making up the difference with too many photos of scenery, younger relatives, etc.

Over the last few years I've worked hard at taking a few photos and then putting the camera away. (At least for a while, LOL.) I used to take photos throughout every event, and then I was overwhelmed when it came time to sort and scrap them. Now I try to put the camera away after a few photos (and by "few" I still mean 20+), even if it comes out again for round 2 an hour later. I still get enough photos to bring back the memories, but the photo subjects and I are all happier.

Another change I had to make was with other people's photos. We do a big family vacation with our extended family every year, and I've stopped letting my siblings give me ALL their photos. If they want to sort them and send me a handful of the best ones from each day, I'm all over that! But I don't need their hundreds of photos to add to all of mine.

Since I'm so behind on scrapping, I've only been working on 2019 since July, which means I'm just starting to reap the benefits of my "fewer and more intentional photos" strategy. Looking through what I have to work with for 2019, I will have fewer pages, but I don't feel like the quality of the photos I had to work with suffered. I have almost the same number of scrap-worthy photos and a lot fewer that will end up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

 

[mmbstaley]

I have been "caught up" once in all of the years I have been scrapbooking - then I had our 4th child, who is now a senior in HS, and that has never happened again. I gave up on ever being able to declare that again - especially since that was the same time we got our first digital camera LOL I'm OK with it. I scrap what I want, when I want, for the most part now. I do more focused theme albums that have a definite start and end to them - this is especially important because like I said in another thread a few days back, things being in chronological order in an album is super important to me. That doesn't mean I complete all of my project albums - sometimes I run into snags, like not having something appropriate to do a particular page in the way I like. I have an album from a trip to Savannah GA that I went on with hubby in 2009. I think I'm about 2 or 3 pages from completing it..... I'm sure I could probably find something that would work now if I just made a point of working on finishing it up. (I really should do that! LOL)

 

[rach3975]

It is funny you would think with a tween and a teen they wouldn't want me taking photos but my oldest will take my phone and take pics if I stop or he is taking just as many as me. I think I have "trained" them over the years of my photo taking. They will stop and say hey mom take my pic, this will make a great photo or hey get in the photo mom. Stop here mom, let's get a pic.

I'm jealous! My kids don't like being in photos, but my 16-year old is the least tolerant and most vocal about it. In the fall he went on a school sponsored overnight trip with 3 of his closest friends, and I don't think he took a single photo! When I was in high school, I would have been the one kid who brought a camera along and shot 2 or 3 rolls of film!