ten years of photos to go through! Any hints?

[camper]

I have about ten years of photos to put in albums. I'm not even sure if it is better to use the pages with clear plastic envelopes to slide the pictures in or the magnetic pages. I won't have the time to do the beautiful scrap booking some of you do but I thought you might have some advise to get me started. Some of the photos don't even have the year written on it so I'll have to figure that out! Any one have any ideas that might help with this project? Thank you in advance.
camper

 

[chessie]

I think I would start by grouping them into some sort of categories. I don't know what type of pictures you have, but maybe put all the same person together or the same event. Then you can decide from there just what you do have.

You don't have to be extremely creative. Creative Memories sell something called short cuts. They are various colored strips, triangles and squares. You can accent the corners or make a border. Then you can journal what you can.

The main point is to get preserve them. My first album was done that way. It looks nice. Even though my style has changed I am still happy with that album.

Chessie

 

[bananiem]

Die hard scrappers will tell you both the plastic sleeves and magnetic albums are bad for pictures. You could get the scrapbooks at Michael's or any craft store, glue them in with a tape runner or glue stick and add the clear page protectors. You wouldn't have to be fancy and I'd think it would go quickly to just stick 'em in.
I have photos yet to be scrapped in photo boxes, labeled by year. You could do the same only by person, event , etc.
If you want to try scrapping, start small, just one event or person. My SIL does a 2 page spread each night after the kids go to bed. Only takes 30 minutes or so and is kind of a stress reliever at the end of the day. You don't have to devote large amounts of time to it.
You never know, you might get hooked...

 

[BevS97]

I also have years worth of photo#s - they were all in a mess in a drawer. What i did was sit one night and sort them just by year. I found with a little thought and some guess-work, I could work out the year for most of them. I've then put each year pile into a brown envelope. I imagine brown envelopes aren't that safe either, and I am hoping to get some better storage until I can scrap them.

I am currently working on my WDW trip album, when that's done I will start with my dd's baby pics (she's 3 now) and work forwards from her birth to today, and only after that will I look at the very old ones. I think many of the v. old one's are not worth serious scrapping, so i will probably just do a page of each event, and then store the other photo's in a safe photo box.

I found a great article on one of the scrapping sites about getting started, I'll try and find it and post you a link

Bev

 

[LisaTx]

If you're not going to scrap, I would definitely go with the plastic sleeves over the magnetic pages. I think the magnetic pages are much more damaging than the sleeves. Just be sure the you get an acid free album.

 

[Jenn]

I sorted through at least 5 years worth of pictures at one time. I elimiated doubles and really bad shots that didn't come out. The pictures were all still in the envelopes from the photo developing place so I marked the outside of the envelopes with the dates. We have alot of kids in our family so I could pinpoint the dates by the ages of the kids. Then I put them all in order by those dates and bought several large photo albums and started putting the pictures in. With each new envelope, I tried to put the pictures in the proper order (i.e. beginning of the vacation to the end, Christmas morning throughout the day, etc.). Then I marked each album on the inside cover with the dates it covers (for example March 1998 - December 1998). I am the only organized one in the family and let me tell you it is great - family often looks through my albums and comments on how anal I am. Right now I have about a year's worth to put in albums but that shouldn't take me too long to tackle. Good luck!

 

[MerryPoppins]

Don't put photos in magnetic albums! They discolor and become stuck. Eventually you would be very sorry. Those albums are deadly.

I would choose pocket albums over magnetic ones in a heartbeat, but only if they are photo-safe. Some of them will also damage your photos.

Please consider putting them in a scrapbook with page protectors. You can use a safe adhesive and it gives you space to journal the "who, where and when". You don't have to "scrapbook" if you don't want to. Although, I think you might find it fun if you ever tried it.

Best of luck sorting all those photos. I've been there. I sorted mine by years and put them in photo boxes. Once I put them all in the right box, I sorted them in approximate chronological order. It was a real job.

 

[dizfamily]

Please don't use magnetic albums or even the plastic sleeve albums!! If you really want your memories preserved, use an acid-free scrapbook. You don't have to get fancy, like others have posted....you could even just plop the photos themselves into the scrapbook with nothing else. But like many scrappers believe, I think journaling is one of the most important parts of a scrapbook. It tells the story of your and your family's lives. As far as organizing the pics, I recently helped my SIL organize her pics. She had 7 years of pics thrown into 2 rubbermaid bins. I sent her to the store to get a bunch of photo boxes and we organized them by year and then by month. We started out by just making piles for each year. Then we took that year and organized it by month as best we could and filed them in the photo boxes. It wasn't as difficult as you'd think....probably took us a few hours or so. Then whenever you have time, you can start getting them in scrapbooks. Good luck!!

 

[Lesley]

To start you need to organize the photos....get a photo box (or any box that will hold them well) and use acid free paper to make divider cards. I have a beautiful box from the Bombay Company that was given to me as a gift....so I used this, but it doesn't fit any of my current photos so for those I use a box I got at Hallmark. Then divided the photos by year and event or person. Use your dividers to label each. Do remember that this is a temporary sorting system. Its not a good idea to do this for permanent storage.

Then get yourself a scrapbook. When I researched albums I found the Creative Memories ones to have the best reputation for durability and photo safety. Look into it yourself. You don't need to get fancy, or use any mounting paper or stickers at all. Just use a photo safe adhesive (mounting corners, splits, photo tape or a tape runner) and stick your photos on the pages. Use a water resistent, fade proof pen to write about your photos. You don't need to be a novelist....just write the who, what, where, when.....the basics. If there are certain thoughts or memories you'd like to record you can. A good general rule is to write in anything you'd tell folks looking at the pictures if you were there. When you're done that just pop a page protector on and that's it. Its actually easier than trying to slip photos into those plastic sleeves....and much safer for your photos.

And the best part is to enjoy thinking about the memories in the photos as you put them in the album! Have fun!