Day 25: Printed Pictures

What: Printed Pictures

Why: In yesterday’s post I talked about how to organize your digital pictures. Assuming that most of us still have printed pictures, it is easy to let them clutter our closets, boxes, and drawers. Albums are a great way to organize pictures, but sometimes there is not enough album space to put them all. Then we just throw them all into one box. You can still use that box, but by going through them and organizing them, they will be a whole lot easier to find.

1. Take all of the printed pictures you have and go through them. Decide if you want to keep the picture or not. Throwing away pictures may seem a little odd, but if you are unsure what the picture is of, it is pretty certain that no one else will either. Throw away the ones you don’t need.

2. Organize the pictures by event and year.

3. Find envelopes that fit your pictures. I use size: 4-3/4 x 6-1/2. You can buy them at any office supply store.

4. Put the pictures in an envelope by year. You can also write what events are included in that envelope (assuming you have multiple events in each envelope)

5. Put the pictures in order by year, in a box.

6. Now you have neatly organized pictures and you know exactly where to find them.

Confession of the Day: I am a scrapbooker. Sometimes I do not use every picture that I print, but I still want to keep the picture. I used to just throw them into a box, but sometimes I wanted to find that picture back – that was a hassle. I knew it was time to organize those loose pictures that just sat in a box. After going through them all (and getting rid of the ones I don’t need), I can fit them all into a box and a half. It is a good feeling. Try not to have any “loose” pictures – find a place for them. It will make finding them again, much easier.