Photo Organization and Scrapbooking

I’m trying to get my actual “scrapbooking” hobby back “online” … which doesn’t meant “on the internet” but … “alive in real life.” I’ve had some new supplies for more than a few months now, but have trouble getting anything going still. I have ideas, many, many, many, which is the problem for me. I can’t just start and get into it because I am very visual and in my mind’s eye I have plans and see it all with clarity, and it’s too much to dive into.

I, in the last month, took over an old computer armoire that I was letting DD use to put stuff in, in her bedroom. It wasn’t well used though to organise her things, so finally I saw the light and brought it downstairs to the main level of the house and filled it with my scrapbooking things. For the first time they were organised in a more organised manner. 🙂

I open the doors and look at it all, finger this and that and dream, but don’t scrapbook yet. I did start an attempt to do a small book of a small series of photos I took of my DD in 2002 in front of wildflowers that I had growing out front. I started that when I had my things upstairs on a table still. I ripped some things out not liking them afterall and had not gone far into it anyhow.

I also got a little scrapbook set in a box at Target in early February, marketed for the holiday that falls on Feb. 14. I had ideas to get it done to give my DH, but I lost interest when I didn’t find the photos that would inspire me. I found a few, but needed more.

That’s where this whole scrapping thing lays: In my very organised photos of the past.

My old photos are all in the sleeves them come from the processing plant in. Most all I’ve written on the back of the sleeve as to what is inside, to some degree, and a date. Earlier ones are well marked, the ones going back to 1992, when I got married. The last 5 years are a mess though. There are a few rolls of film not developed still, from 2003. From 2004 on all the pictures are digital and that presents a problem, since most all are on the computers and not printed out. I have things to take care of that, but it’s that I need to acually go through all of them and rename them and use a program to sort them out.

In the past I’ve tried a couple of things to do that, but I didn’t like them. I do know that my need is not to use a program first, but it’s to truely get to know what I have first hand and change the names and put the right ones in the right folders named rightly … as I am doing this year with all my newly taken photos now. The point to it is that the ones in the past are many, and have many, many needs for attention, since they are mostly all from another camera and not saved with names, just ugly numbers. My newer camera is easier to deal with and use, being a Canon Digital Rebel (the older version), and the other one (digital) was a horrid lesser type of camera. My film camera is a Canon Rebel, and I loved it and wanted the digital version for so long, but couldn’t get one first, had to get a cheaper one first.

So anyhow it’s all that, the mixed-up way, –it’s film and prints and then differently saved digitals– it all has to be arranged so that I can use the digital and know it’s all sorted and named the same as my current way of doing new photos, and then get the good prints into the computer as well, so that all can be looked at via a nice program to tag photos and blah, blah, blah etc. … them and get good use out of finding exactly what I want and to know if I have prints of the photo I want to use, or have to print one out for use myself.

I’m now going through my CD binder to pull out all home burnt CD’s to see what’s hiding on them … I have photos and other stuff that has sat too long on them. I don’t burn CD’s anymore, but have an extra drive to hold stuff, and also can burn DVD’s if I want to, but I haven’t really yet done that with much, only tested it out by putting a ton of digital pictures on a disc to see if they’d fit and work out and they did with plenty of room to spare, what would have taken several CD’s. Yeah, I could have just looked at the actual numbers for the files and known it would fit, but I prefer just to do to see how it works out IRL.

All my film prints are in sleeves, as I said earlier, but they need to all be in same-container things. Some are in shoe-box-like photo boxes, but many are in big Rubbermaid containers, the really big ones. I have a ton of photographs from 14 years, not counting the stuff from before 1992 that I have, not all very well arranged, many photos loose … I didn’t have “my own” camera back then.

I really do love my digital camera though, it really frees up picture taking and makes it more fun. It’s instant and I only need prints of what I want, and do them myself, or can take them elsewhere to be printed. In the old days I did take more pictures than I currently have done. Part of that was motivation due to the children being babies and toddlers. Lately they are all older, of course , not toddlers any of them any more. The house is torn apart and the yards aren’t updated enough as our plans for them didn’t get going fully and things are just mish-mosh everywhere, so photography has fallen on hard times for me, motivation being so much less due to it all. I’m trying to get that going more, even do have a pro account for flickr to motivate me, but I haven’t used it really since upgrading a few months ago! I was in a fog to some degree these past months, feeling stifled by a lot, and that has to do with not having my hobbies up and running, scrapbooking, counted-cross stitch, photography, bird watching, rubber stamping, etc. some of that has to do with our kitchen, some has to do with the lack of a family room for years, and other things are due to children messing with supplies and equipment and plainly just ruining things I needed to do things. Life gets bland when fun goes away. I’m fighting it now. I’ve had some good books to read lately and that helps, rich fantasy literature really helps to inspire creativity.

So I’m going to get to Michael’s sometime soon, this week, and fill in some of my little things that I need to fill out scrapbooking, embellishments and tools, and a few rubber stamping supplies. Those things and the organization of the photographs I have to do are all connected and will get things pumped up for me to actually create, and spur me on to take more photos and try and set things up for even more photos (I’m not a professional photographer, but a pseudo one, born with the eye for it, and self-propelled.) I have been organized with my photos, but not to the nth degree that I needed to in the old days, the inbetween days it all got much worse, and so I’m now able to group it all together into one cohesive manner.

🙂

THEN I have to actually sit down and start doing layouts and put them together in books. I’ve seen so many layouts online, in books, magazines. I don’t want to duplicate other layouts, only think for myself and put the materials I have to creative use. I usually do all artistic things that way, just do it, think as I do, let my inner self figure it out. It’s how art is really made, to do it, not think it. Let the right-brain lead and let it flow out. 😉 Deep organization isn’t easy for me, being very visual-spatial, but I do have a somewhat knack for organization if I have the right tools and a drive to use them then, and I do enjoy it, as long as it goes well. I am hoping I can do all I’ve planned, to get all things organized in my computer, and in my boxes, and get it all together in a program and tagged appropriately. This is the basis for creativity, a good organization base … it’s the lack of that which has kept me from doing what I love, actually scrapbooking.