February Challenge: Project Photography {step 4 - organize remaining prints}

Last week I shared how I was organizing my prints from "this year".  Meaning current... staying up to date with my printing and photo taking by using Project Life.  However, that didn't talk about that giant back log of photos I still had tucked away in a storage drawer in the basement.... You know, photos from growing up, high school, college days, weddings, events, travels and our new babies.  Yeah, ALL THOSE!  Talk about daunting.  And I only had two albums and a photo box full....

As you can see above, I was "somewhat" organized in the photo box, pictures had already been sorted down by "categories" and bound with cardstock to keep them separated.  The two albums contained vacation pictures in one, and favorite prints in the other {which ended about 5 years ago}.  I know that I don't have the backlog that some do, and started off in a pretty good situation, but I still had some work to do to make the system more effective.

I guess that's what years and years of no system can do!  But I knew that after working away at all those old prints, I would make my life much easier in the future to have a good system!  I had a couple of products on hand already, since I always had good intentions of getting this job done.  I had this case:

And some new boxes I had picked up from Walmart for about $6 each:

What I absolutely LOVED about these boxes is that they were much larger than the standard photo box size.  Actually, the box itself was the same size as a standard sheet of printing paper.  8 1/2 by 11 inches.  That meant that I could store photo cards inside, from all those holiday greetings we have accumulated over the years!  SCORE!

Now, let's back up a bit.  I bought the plastic photo storage case a little prematurely.  I loved that it had a hard plastic case to protect my groupings of photos.  But now that I was finally getting around to doing it, I realized that I am kind of vein.  You may have already noticed this about me... but sometimes I get a solid reminder, like in times like this.  I didn't want to leave the plastic case out on my bookshelves for the world to see.  It wasn't "pretty" enough for me.  And it looked clunky vs. blending in with our decor.  So, goodbye plastic carrying case, hello new turquoise photo boxes!  I decided I would just place the individual plastic dividers into the photo box vs. the carrying case.

Time to sort.  I made a list of categories that I wanted to sort down to {this would definitely be different for everyone}, and whipped up some case labels in photoshop {I found a free template from this amazing website and then modified it in photoshop to be used as these labels}.

Then, I just sprawled the open cases around me and sorted from my stacks of photos accordingly.  I have to mention, I used the same methodology here as I do with my digital file sorting.  I only kept the photos that meant something or were of good quality.  The rest were tossed.

I quickly discovered that I still have a lot of photos that had no room in the plastic cases.  So I have done what I can, and will most likely invest in one more set of cases for the remainder of our prints, because so far, I am loving that they are sorted and protected and prints will be much easier to find and flip through than in previous days!

I am such a sap, doing this brought so many tears to my eyes.  It was so fun to look back at the kiddos baby pictures, pictures from their first days, pictures of the hubs and I growing up and dating.  Memories....

This also made me realize that I have a lot of precious prints from the past of my boys, that I haven't revisited in years.  I decided those needed to stay out on our coffee table.  For now anyway!

I also realized that I had a lot of awkward sized pictures and enlargements floating around, either removed from frames or that never even made it into one.  Those found a home in a scrapbook sized box.

And last but not least.  Greeting cards.  Holiday cards.  Photo party invites.  All those pictures from others that you just gotta hang on to over the years.  I always wondered what to do with those.... until I found that they fit perfectly into these new boxes!  WHOOP!!

The problem was that going through my stack from years past, I didn't do a great job labeling the year on them.  So it is really hard to know for sure.  So those got dumped into an "archived" category of sorts.  Then, I just prepared for the next ten years....

I used photoshop again to create dividers for the box....

Which I also matted on scrapbook paper for added strength...

Then, I just placed the holiday cards in their respective new homes!

I am so excited to have an easy place to pop cards going forward!  Another example how spending some time getting organized now, will be a huge time saver in the future!

So now that the photos have a place to call home within their boxes, the boxes all get popped onto a shelf on our TV stand...

Along with our Project Life album and previous years photo books....

So, still on the ol' "Project Photography" to do list:

• Finish organizing remainder of prints into cases
• Come up with a special way to organize vacation photos {since there seems to be an abundance of these specifically}
• Potentially invest in a photo scanner to digitize my favorite prints from the past {since I have a fear of losing them, going digital would assist in my goal to store them safely off-site}.  I am looking at something like this to make this easier for me, does anyone have experience with a photo scanner?  Thoughts?
• Spend at least 15 minutes per day on my digital file organizing, until it's caught up.
• Burn digital files to disc and store in Safety Deposit box {this is the method we decided would be most cost effective for us.  We are also going to give an online back-up system a trial run as well before investing in that route.  It's important to weigh out all the options}

I realize that tackling photos within one month may not be realistic for everyone.  It definitely isn't for me, since I feel like I have an infinity amount of digital files to get through still and not as much free time as I wish I had.  But the point is to have a plan that's easy to stick to and realistic in achieving the long term goal.  It's OK to re-asses throughout a project.  And focusing on photography this month has already helped me achieve oodles and has not only gotten me motivated to keep at it, but is setting me up to succeed going forward! 

Now we get to play the "what works for you?" game.  How are you tackling all those old prints from the pre-digital days?  How are you storing them?  How about greeting cards and photos from family and friends?  Am I the only one that cries when sorting through these?  Such a softy!  How is "Project Photography" coming along in general?

I decided a little challenge would be fun! This month we are getting all those pictures in order!  Wanna join?  Take photos and blog about your awesomeness as you go!  I am hoping to do a giant, "We did it!" celebratory post where we can all link up our picture organizing success stories at the end of the month!

Step 1:  Sort and purge those digital files

Step 2:  Organize your camera equipment 

Step 3:  Organize your prints - part 1