This is a guest contribution from Connie Hanks at Clicky Chick Creates.

My memory isn’t what it used to be. Back in the day, I could remember details like no other. Truth be told, I’m not that old. At least I don’t feel like 44 is that old. But then again, I’m 44 going on 29, yes, again! But really, I used to be able to recall lots of specifics from years ago, just looking at a photo, or chatting about an event or date in the past. Details that my college girlfriends (we graduated 20 years ago!) would call me about on a whim and I could rattle off dates, locations, names, music (titles and artists) about a random Thursday night adventure we had! But alas, my mind, much like hard drives, is running out of space and clearing out old memories to make room for new memories. At least that’s how it feels to me.

Being an avid photographer, hobbyist-turned-professional, and digital photographer since 2004, my digital collection of images has recently passed the 150,000 mark. That’s a lot of details to manage. A lot of events. A lot of locations. A lot of people. And even more memories.

A couple of years ago, I could recall a specific image I wanted to use in a scrapbook layout, or for a blog post, and it might take me 10 minutes to track it down, but it was somewhat manageable. Now, those searches are taking longer than I’d like to admit. That’s why I’ve recommitted to spending 10-minutes-a-day on photo organization. I go in and out of keeping my personal images super organized. I’ve been “out” for too long and need to get back “in” to properly cataloging my digital files.

So what does this entail? It’s simple: labeling my file folders and adding metadata. I use (and love) Lightroom. Not only is the photo editing capabilities fantastic, but the photo management processes are great too! What do I mean by labeling file folders and adding metadata? Labeling folders is exactly that: giving the file folder a good description. For example “Steve’s 45th birthday Ocean Beach” and the keywords would include: swimming, ocean, OB, waves, blue, family, summer, sand, fun, boogie boarding, splashing, silhouettes, cloudy, clouds, blue sky.

An everyday example is this photo of my baby having an afternoon snack of blueberries. The folder is named “Lexi blueberries” and keywords include: fruit, snack, ballet, tiny, dancer, bowl, fresh, healthy, hands, hold. As memory keepers, there are times we are seeking a specific photo to help tell our story. But sometimes the search for that perfect photo derails us from telling the story at all. Sometimes we get side-tracked during our search. Perhaps we find a different photo and tell a different story. Or the worst is when we get frustrated and give up on creating a page in the story of our lives because the unfruitful search has taken too long.

In this day and age, we’re blessed to have digital cameras and have loads of images in our personal collections. Oodles and oodles of images to help tell and share our story. But it can also feel overwhelming at times. But don’t let the overwhelm dissuade you from documenting your life. Adding details into your digital images via folder naming and keywords helps you in many ways. Not only to find the images you’re looking for, but to jot down some of those otherwise forgotten details.

With a full cup of coffee, a robust hard-drive of images and a heart and mind brimming with details, I’m looking forward to spending 10-minutes a day to get my photos organized once again. I know it’ll go by in a flash, just like all the fabulous moments that have made those memories! I hope you’re inspired to share a little one-on-one time with your digital collection, too!

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Connie Hanks is a photographer, crafter, planner, you-tuber, Etsy-shop-owner and volunteer-extraordinaire who never outgrew her love of glitter or seeing the world as colorful as a fresh box of crayons! She loves to dream, travel, play with her daughters, sing while her hubby plays guitar and rarely misses an opportunity to be behind the lens when she’s with family and friends. Paper crafting in all it’s forms – card making, scrapbooking, pretty planning, mixed media – it all makes her heart pitter patter and puts a smile on her face!  You can find Connie over at Clicky Chick Creates.

This is a guest contribution from Beth Solar at Scrapping Wonders.

I have been scrapbooking since 1999, wow when I say that it makes me feel old but I digress. I started scrapbooking after I had my first child and of course it all began with a Creative Memories party. I loved telling the story behind why I would take certain photos and capturing my now 16-year-old childhood.

He had so many good memories that needed to be saved, even now he still looks at the albums that I have made for him. Now times have changed and people take photos all the time on a daily basis, they take these photos with their smartphones and they share them all on social media but I often wonder what is the point of taking all these photos if you aren’t going to share the story behind these photos.

Why would you take photos of yourself, or daily activities if you never plan on sharing them with others. You have a story to tell whether you are single or have beautiful children. You have a story about yourself that you are documenting with every photo that you take but if you never actually share these photos in an album and share the story of why you have taken that photo then what is the point of the photo.

My honey has tons of photos that just sit on his computer and I often ask him what is the point, he has stated that he knows the story and he can look at the photos and remember why he took them. My response to that is but I don’t know those stories and the kids don’t know those stories so what happens when you aren’t here on this planet any longer, who is going to tell the story? His response was that I have a point! Who do you want to tell your story? Do you want just some random photos to be looked at and your story to be told that way or do you want an actual story to be told through your eyes?

I personally want my story told, I want my family’s story told, I want my kitty cat’s story told and I want it told through my eyes, through my voice and the only way to make that happen is to scrapbook. You don’t have to get all crazy with your scrapbooks, you can keep it as simple or as extravagant as you want but the point is to have fun and to preserve your memories.

There have been several times in my life that I am so thankful that I had a camera handy and was able to take photos. I have three children and each of them the camera came to the hospital. My sweet girl was born prematurely and I am so thankful that I was able to document her time in the NICU, getting stronger each day so that she could come home to me.

I am also thankful that I was able to document two of my birthdays in the hospital. My birthday is only a few days after two of my children, which means that two of my birthdays were spent in the hospital due to childbirth. This is a part of our family history that three of us have birthday’s right after each other and this story should be documented.

There are tons of ways to get the photos off of your phones these days. If you have an iPhone you can do it quickly and easily with the project life app. If you have an android phone you can still do it quickly and easily using a few other apps. I suggest the Bubble Frame app if you have an android phone as you can create mini layouts by using this app and get as fancy as you want.

Here is a list of suggested apps that you can check out in order to get your phone photos scrapped quickly and easily:

• Project Life (iOS only) with this app you can create scrapbook layouts.
• Bubble Frame (iOS and Android) with this app you can create collages and mini scrapbook layouts.
• Phonto (iOS and Android) with this app you can journal on your photos.
• Rhonna Designs (iOS and Android) with this app you can journal on your photos and create journal cards.
• Snapseed (iOS and Android) with this app you can edit your photos.
• Camera+ (iOS only) with this app you can edit your photos and have more camera features when you take a photos using this app.

I hope you take the time to get the photos off your phones and into albums.  There is no reason for you to let your photos sit in your phone and not in an album.

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Beth has been scrapping and crafting for ten years. She loves preserving and sharing family memories, recording history for her husband and three active kids, extended family and friends. She love all things crafty as well. She is a phone-photo NINJA, stealthily snapping photos, then swiftly and skillfully transferring, organizing and using those photos in super-fun projects to save and share. You can find Beth at Scrapping Wonders where she shares tips on how to get the photos off your phones quickly and easily.

This is a guest contribution from Carrie Arick of Digiscrap Geek and Be Photo Wise.

I was an early adopter of digital photography, but not an early adopter of backing up my digital photos. I had to learn the importance of protecting my cherished, visual memories the hardest way a mom could: by losing all the photos I took of my newborn son.

I thought I was tech savvy. I grew up along side personal computers and technological breakthroughs. I loved that I had a camera with an LCD viewer, grid lines to help me frame a shot and a floppy disk that I could pop into my computer, giving me immediate access to my photos. My days of waiting to see how those images turned out with crossed fingers were over. A dream come true for an impatient gal who loves technology and pushing buttons.

While everyone was marveling at the benefits of digital photography, no one was talking about backing up digital photos. Sending files to our local drug store via the internet for processing wasn’t an option, yet, in our rural community. I didn’t know the difference between web resolution and print resolution. I didn’t know it at the time, but instead of being savvy, I was in the digital photo dark ages.

What I didn’t know was how easily hard drives crashed. I happily snapped away for the first months of my son’s life, transferring photos to my computer’s hard drive, sending a few small versions to my parents a thousand miles away and erasing the copies on the floppy discs so I could reuse them. Backing up those photos never crossed my mind.

Then it happened. My hard drive crashed. The data, including all those wonderful photos, was lost. My heart ached. I was completely betrayed by technology and my own ignorance. The great lesson in this tragedy was that my photos needed to be protected. So, I decided to stop erasing those floppy discs and store my photos on my sister’s hard drive as well as my own.

In 2001, that was not an ideal system. Floppy discs were easily corrupted and hard drives crashed with alarming regularity. I supplemented my digital photos with film photographs, printing doubles and storing one set in an album and the other set in a photo box. I collected film copies of photos of my son from family members to replace the lost photos. I made it out of my son’s first few years with a good collection of photos, but very few from those first few, incredibly special months. Still, even today, there’s a pang of pain when I think of those lost files.

The technology has come a long way. The quality of the photos is unfathomable to my 2001 self. The access to digital photography is more equitable: everyone is taking photos. There’s an option for safe-guarding photos for every person on any budget and a system for every lifestyle. Yet, while the information about backing up takes a few moments to find and protecting our photos can be done easily, there are daily horror stories about people losing their precious photos. They are learning ,the way I did, how important it is to back up and protect photos.

Now my nieces and nephews are collecting their memories with phone photos and even having their own children, I’m preaching photo protection. As the older generations of my family slowly fade away, I’m collecting old photos and stories as fast as I can, because those photos need protecting, too. I remind everyone to back up those photos and photo files because once they are gone, they are gone forever. I know. You just can’t go back. I don’t want anyone to ever learn the importance of safe-guarding their photos they way I did.

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Carrie is a mom to an ASD teenager and wife to a Chiarian living in coastal Delaware. Currently, Carrie is the Creative Team Manager for Just Jaimee, the producer and host of The Digiscrap Geek Podcast and creative team member at Get It Scrapped. Carrie’s other passions include genealogy and family history, playing Call of Duty, binge watching TV shows on Netflix, visiting the beach, reading, doting on her cats, making cards with digital products and front porch chats with her neighbors.  Learn more about Carrie’s passion for memory keeping by reading her Photo Story.

This is a guest contribution from Erin Piemontesi of picturepeace.weebly.com.

Do you enjoy your photos? I do! I adore bringing up memories and sharing them with my friends and family. As many posts on this blog have detailed, it is essential to have a system for preserving your photos. Not only from disaster, but for posterity and enjoyment. Once you ensure your photos are organized and securely backed up, what are your options for seeing and sharing them easily? To prevent losing our pictures in a sea of digital clutter, one of my favorite solutions is to make photo books and digital albums.

Why make a digital photo book/album?

Photo books or digital photo albums are basically story books of your memories. While traditional photo albums are charming, these days most of our photos are digital and much of our work is done on computers and smartphones. This makes creating a digital album a more logical (and longer lasting) choice.

From celebrating vacations, children’s school years, special events, gifts for any occasion, family yearbooks, to genealogy tributes, photo books & digital photo albums are easy to make, easy to store, and easy to enjoy. They are a streamlined, archival-safe way to document your photos. There are endless options in a digital album. Most vendors make it simple to duplicate photo books if you choose to give copies as a gift. For those who like to incorporate elements of traditional scrapbooking, you can add scanned documents and memorabilia, as well as include journaling to personalize a story in more detail.

How do I make a digital photo book/album?

The fundamental difference between a photo book and a digital photo album is the overall quality. Most photo books are good enough and long-lasting for smaller projects. A photo album will typically have upgraded finishes (cover materials, paper choices, lay-flat binding, etc) and be a larger investment.

Most stores that offer photo printing usually offer basic photo book services. There are also several photo sharing websites and specialized photo gift companies that offer photo book and album creating services. Many offer frequent discounts and Groupon-type deals.

Depending on how comfortable you are with photo layouts and editing software, you have a range of vendors to choose from. Most of the drugstore and photo sharing/printing websites offer web-based designing – that is, only usable when logged in to their website. These are typically very simple to use. Many of the higher end photo book publishers have free or low cost software you can download to your computer and work without internet access until you need to upload for printing. Often, these have more extensive layout options. However you may need to have more experience to take full advantage of these programs. In almost all vendor choices, there is usually a range of layout possibilities from pre-designed templates (just drag and drop your photos), to complete custom design.

When you are ready to make your photo book or album, choose a small number of your best photos, ones that allow you to tell a story. Most photos books have a minimum of 20 pages and can add pages as needed. Embrace editing your photos to make them look their best. Less is usually more in a eye-catching and memorable photo book.

How a Photo Organizer can help you

Though it is relatively easy to make a simple photo book, knowledge of the best vendors, design software, layout choices, and storytelling ability does not come easy to everyone. When you are excited and ready to make an album that will showcase your history and your loved ones, but find it overwhelming to learn photo book software and decide on 20+ pages of photo layouts, consider seeking out a professional. Many members of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO.org) have years of experience creating digital photo albums for their clients; some have even captured an entire lifetime’s worth of stories into quality photo albums to hand down to a client’s family members. What an incredible gift!

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Erin Piemontesi has been making scrapbooks, digital photo books and albums for over 15 years. Now, as a Personal Photo Organizer, she loves making them for her clients to allow them to enjoy their photos for decades to come. She lives in Northern New Jersey. You can learn more about her services at picturepeace.weebly.com.

This is a guest contribution from Jan McCallum of Pixels2Pages.

Most people consider ‘scrapbooking’ something that women do, and for the most part, that’s true.  I became a professional scrapbooker back in 1994 after learning about Creative Memories at the bridge table.  That’s all it took – I left my career as a registered pharmacist to become a consultant for a company I’d never heard of, selling products I’d never seen, because I heard one woman’s story about one scrapbook page she had made at a class.  My mom (and my husband) thought I had lost my marbles.  Who does that?

Mind you, I was not new to scrapbooking.  I still have a small plaque in my office today that says “Best Scrapbook” – I earned that for my sorority pledge class scrapbook at the University of Tennessee, way back in 1974, twenty years before I answered what I know now was my life’s calling.  I served as Historian in more than one club or organization in those twenty years, and even more in the twenty-one years since.

Imagine my surprise when I took my kids home for a visit one summer in the late ‘90s, several years after my dad died.  My sister and her kids were there, and in the middle of the living room was a large box full of magnetic photo albums.  Being a Creative Memories Consultant, magnetic albums were like poison!  I couldn’t imagine what they were doing in Mom’s living room, so I asked.  My sister said nonchalantly, “Oh, those are just Daddy’s war albums.  Kerry was using them for a school project and we brought them back.”  Daddy’s war albums?  What war albums?  Why had I never seen these?

I sat down to look at them, and as I held three HUGE albums in my arms, all I could do was look at my mom and say, “Don’t you see?  How could I be doing anything else but what I’m doing?  This is what I was meant to do!”  Although the magnetic albums were not the original albums that Daddy made, they were where they had ended up.  The original albums were on old-fashioned black photo paper and craft paper, and each photo was meticulously adhered with those black photo corners that are so difficult to work with – and I’m sure they weren’t self-adhesive.  Daddy had done lots of journaling, and on the black pages, that meant he had written carefully with white ink and a fountain pen.

You see, these albums weren’t compilations Daddy had made in his retirement.  They were scrapbooks he had kept as a young soldier during World War II.  The first one, on the light brown craft paper, was the story of his enlistment at age 20 (he hitchhiked from his home in west Tennessee to Memphis to volunteer) and his Boot Camp training and the friends he made there.  The second album was a chronicle of his first ‘cruise’ across the Atlantic and the training he received while stationed in England.  I learned how very seasick my poor Daddy had been, and I tried to imagine what it must have been like for a poverty-stricken young fellow, straight from the farm, to be living overseas and learning to build airfields.  Even as I read his own words, I could barely imagine the emotions he must have felt.

The third album, the one on black paper, was titled “My Travels in Germany: March 28, 1945 to October 15, 1945 – Germany As Seen By A GI in 1945”.  Daddy was 23 years old in 1945, and was part of the division that went ahead of General Patton’s troops and built the airfields they used.  One of the most poignant pages in the album was about the liberation of Paris and the levels to which a ‘desperate people’ will go.  Many of the ‘photos’ in Daddy’s book were not really photographs, but they were some sort of war trading cards – photos of Eisenhower, DeGaulle, Patton, and other leaders and places of the day – with numbers on them, like baseball cards.  These books were fascinating reading – a glimpse not only of the history of the world, but they told a story of my daddy that I hadn’t known – they are a TREASURE!

Your family has photos and stories to tell, too, and it’s only too late to get them told if you wait until the people who can tell them are dead.  How I wanted to sit down with my dad and ask him more about these albums (and seriously, how come I didn’t know about them in the first place!!) and of his time in the War.  What is it that you want to share with your children and grandchildren?  You know, it doesn’t have to be in a book, but it does need to be something permanent!

Today, I’m a digital scrapbooker, and the company I started five years ago (www.pixels2Pages.net) teaches people how to use Artisan (digital scrapbooking software) and Historian (photo organizing and editing software) so that their priceless photos and stories are preserved.  I use FOREVER to house my precious photos and finished pages, and I’ve given FOREVER accounts to my children and siblings so that all of us can have access to our shared histories.

As long as you are breathing, it’s not too late to start – what are you waiting for? If you need more inspiration (or instruction), join me and other p2P team members at Forever LIVE. It’s going to be the Photo Party of the Year, held in beautiful Buckhead (Atlanta), Georgia, on September 24-27! In addition to celebrating Save Your Photos Day, you will learn even more about Artisan, Historian, and Forever, you’ll have plenty of time to work on your photos, and you’ll meet others who are doing the same thing. Click HERE for details and to register.

Here is a digital scrapbook page that I made several years ago, using parts of Daddy’s scrapbook.

I was lucky enough to have an aunt who saved one of Daddy’s many letters home and who sent it to me when she moved to a retirement community. Again, the insight it gave me to my dad was worth waiting for. It makes me cry every time I read it.

Here is the text of the letter on the page above:

Germany

May 13, 1945

Dear Mother,

Today is your day, that, every boy and girl in America and overseas knows and at sometime during the day most of us will think of you, Mothers, who are at home fighting every minute of the day and night to remain cheerful and to keep us who are away from home the same way. This is the third Mother’s Day I have missed being home for, but I believe I will be there for the next one. Major Keane, our commanding officer, has given every man who wants it a half day off in memory of our Mothers and Mother Nature has done her part in sending forth a very beautiful day. There is not a cloud in the sky and early this morning I got up and walked out on the runway admiring the snow-capped peaks of the Alps in the distance. I gave thanks that I had been among the lucky ones who have come through this war safe and unharmed, and that my Mother is still back home waiting and praying for me to come back. There are many boys who will go home but it will no longer be home because his best buddy, his Mother, has been called away. Those are the boys who I feel sorry for today more than anyone else. There are many of them because in my small section of 8 men 2 of them have lost their Mothers since coming over seas.

Mother there is so little I can say, for the millions of things you have done for me, never tiring, always ready and there when I needed help, nothing was ever too good for me, and last but not least you always taught me to do the right thing. I guess the best I can do is try to live the way you want me to and say thanks for everything. You have been the best Mother a boy could have especially through the last three years of my life. You see that I always have a letter from home on the way, you are always in high hopes and feeling sorry for everyone but yourself and you still believe in me with undying faith.

To you Mother goes my hopes and prayers on this day, your day, for the best a Mother can have in this world. You are the best Mother in the whole wide world and one of these days I will be coming home to prove to you I mean every word I have said.

Lots & lots of love,

David

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Jan McCallum loves travel, photography, storytelling, food, and games – and digital scrapbooking! She is the founder of pixAbilities, LLC, which is a team of eleven women from around the world who own and operate www.pixels2Pages.net. pixels2Pages, or p2P, is committed to helping people celebrate their photos and stories using Artisan and Historian software by Panstoria.