I have always taken photos of everyday things such as my children playing at the park, flowers that they have brought me, eating a favourite meal etc so although buying film and getting it processed took a chunk out of a small budget it was something that was important to me as there are only 5-10 photos of me from birth to getting married. When digital cameras first appeared I so wanted one but it wasn't until 2002 that I was in a position to buy one. It was love at first use as I was able to take loads of photos and not have the expense of getting them developed to see if they were in focus or what I wanted.
At first all my digital photos went into the 'My Pictures' folder on my computer, usually saved with a relevant title, thankfully. Then in 2004 I discovered scrapbooking and it was like being in a cult of special people. I was instantly hooked as I wanted to record the stories behind the photos for my children and grandchildren. I still had a bee in my bonnet about how few photos there were of me and my parents, aunts uncles etc. Although I didn't have as many photos of my children as I would have liked, I had some. For my grandchildren I wanted more and as I had 2 granddaughters by this time I had plenty of photos to get me started.
So my photo taking and printing increased but my storage was still one folder with everything in it. Time passed and around 2006 I managed to buy my first DSLR, a Canon 400D. The amount of photos I took increased dramatically because I was still in the first throws of obsession with scrapbooking and I needed to have good photos. The trouble was I seldom liked to delete any photos and consequently I was drowning in them and could find nothing! Then I stumbled upon Stacy Julian's Big Picture Scrapbooking.
At last a way of sorting and organising all of my photos. That was the start of weeks spent in front of my computer sorting, deleting and organising photos. I bought photo albums for my newest photos and managed to get a 4 drawer metal file cabinet quite cheap and away I went. This process took many, many weeks and there were many times when I just wanted to give up. Perseverance paid off in the end and I had a fantastic system that really worked. Eventually though my love for scrapbooking continued but my ability to create pages seemed to have vanished. The photos and the supplies continued to increase but the pages made almost never did. Things in the house changed and I had to shuffle my craft stuff into a smaller and smaller space.
One day I decided I needed a radical rethink of storage and I changed my photo system. I bought these and muddled all my photos up so I would have pictures at random in the hope that it would help as I desperately wanted to create but just couldn't get past the block in my head. These boxes were mounted onto the side of my expedit unit freeing up a large amount of space. I also sorted photos and stash into categories such as Christmas, Halloween, Summer and stored them in RUB boxes in an effort to make going to crops easier.
I quickly found that having my photos all muddled didn't help so I resorted them by people.
Then things changed again in the house and I had a new craftroom downstairs. As our bathroom is downstairs and I was having increasing mobility issues it made sense. That was 7 weeks ago and I think I finally have everything sorted. I haven't actually made anything much, 1 page at a crop is about it but the urge to create is back which is fantastic. This left me with the problem of sorting all the digital photos I had taken in the past year. I had become very lax about processing photos because for many months my hands were simply too sore to hold a camera.
I have just placed a large photo order and have made a start on sorting my digital photos, though i seem to have a lot of duplicates somehow. I have albums waiting for the new pics when they arrive and I am hoping to be back on track very soon. Wish me luck please, as I may just need it! Take care x
