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My room was dark, but I could see the light from the hallway window through my doorway as I woke up to my Mom’s soft voice. She was sitting on the side of my bed holding a small object. As consciousness slowly came to me I realize the object was a camera she and my Dad had. She was offering it to me! Excitement aroused me to become fully awake. A camera! For me!
I was very young at the time and it was my first camera. I loved that little thing, though the quality was absolutely terrible. Something about capturing a moment intrigued me. I remember praying as hard as I could that God would give me a camera that would take a picture that looked exactly like the way we could see.
I lost all my earliest photos, but here’s one from 2007 that I’ve always been quite proud of
I still love taking pictures, and, though I don’t think I’ll ever pursue it as a career, I love it as a hobby. One thing I’ve learned, though, is that if you want to take tons of pictures and actually do things with them, you have to be organized. I’ve learned the hard way that sorting through thousands of pictures gets old.
So, I’m going to share my method of organizing and printing our family memories.
(Before I go on, I just wanted to let you know there is a surprise at the bottom of this post!)
1. Take great pictures- I used to just snap away figuring I would sort through them later. Yeah, that didn’t turn out to be so fun. Now, I make sure to pay attention to the lighting, subject, background, and clarity of the picture. It’s so worth it to take a few good pictures and keep most of them, than to take tons of bad pictures and keep a few of them. You don’t necessarily have to have the best camera to capture good photos and there are tons of resources on how to get those pictures on the web.
2. Delete as you go- If you know you just took a horrible shot, delete it right off the camera. No sense in wasting time and computer space uploading it.
3. Upload onto your computer often- Very often. I do it every day that I took pictures. This is just one more step that helps so much in organizing.
4. Decide on a filing system- I used to file pictures by event, naming different folders and adding the pictures accordingly. This was a lot of work, and I realized it could be totally avoided by sorting by date. Guess what, your computer sorts by date for you if you so choose! One less step to worry about.
The nice part about doing it this way is that you can click within the month and have it sorted by day, and then even further by time etc.
5. Edit and delete from your computer- There are tons of great editing software’s out there for free. I contentedly used them for years. My favorite has always been Windows Live Photo Gallery. It has a lot of neat options like facial recognition, and editing tools. You could keep all your photos sorted and stored there, which is what I always used to do until I got a new laptop and didn’t take the time to download it… Click here if you want to download Windows Live Photo Gallery (it comes pre-installed on some computers, so check if you have it first).
I’ve also used Picmonkey a lot recently. It’s a website you can use for free, with the option to upgrade for a small cost. Picmonkey has a lot of fun overlays, frames, and text that you can spruce your photo up with.
6. Download the Shutterfly Uploader- I love Shutterfly, but more on that later If you are going to use it, I recommend downloading and installing the free uploader. It will save you a lot of time in the long run. This link will lead you to the download page.
7. Create your Shutterfly account- I got a little ahead of myself, but while the uploader is downloading, go ahead and create your account for Shutterfly if you haven’t already. If you are a new customer you get 50 free prints! Can’t beat that, right? Click this link to get started: Enjoy 50 Free Prints from Shutterfly. Join Now.
8. Create Art- Once you have your Shutterfly account started, the uploader downloaded, and your pictures sorted through, it’s time to begin creating masterpieces! There are tons of options to chose from in Shutterfly from photo books, to prints, to wall art, and picture gifts. I love to customize things, and they have great options for that, but if you don’t want to mess with design, they have some really cool looking preset designs.
Here is what I use Shutterfly for:
- Photo books- I’ve never gotten into scrapbooking, so this is a great way to put together our pictures in a fun/stylish book. The cover and page options range from everyday photo book to wedding type quality. (speaking of quality, the photo below is lacking in it. Should have deleted it from the camera ;)(I’m learning how to use an SLR camera, give me a break)
- Event Cards- Love their Christmas cards! The designs are always very trendy, they have a lot of different finishing options like matte or glossy, they make it easy to customize, and, if you chose, will even address and mail the cards for you (this costs extra, so I’ve never done it, but it may come in handy one year) They don’t just have Christmas cards; there are birth announcements, invitations, thank you cards, save the date’s, etc. Hey! Speaking of which, do you want a free card? Follow this link: FREE CARD.
- Photo Gifts- I’ve ordered a calendar, a mouse pad, and address labels from them and am quite pleased with how they all turned out. By the way, I got the address labels and mouse pad for free (well, for the cost of shipping), just for being on their email list).
9. Save Money- Shutterfly is great to their returning customers, and here is a list of just how great:
>Give them your email address and they notify you of sales so you don’t miss them and send you surprise coupon codes that are not open to the public.
>With bigger orders they almost always give you a coupon. I’ve gotten anything from 25% of any order to $20 off any order.
>You can get free shipping for orders over $39.00 (this may be only for a limited time) by using the code: SHIP39
>Have I mentioned they have great sales?
10. Enjoy the memories- Brian and I love looking back at our pictures. Going through the memories and reminiscing on what we’ve done and where we’ve come from is such a powerful bonding experience. I sometimes wonder if families sat down and told their stories to each other more, if they would be stronger for it. What would happen if the stories of love, of trials that were overcome, of hurts, and of great joys were passed down through generations? Maybe that’s why I love pictures so much. They facilitate those stories to be shared, they give a visual of my family’s legend.
In other news….
Surprise! I’m starting up a newsletter! I’ll send it out monthly and it will contain a run down of the best posts from the month, plus extra goodies like printables, coupons, and bonus tutorials for it’s subscribers.
Now, I will probably have fun putting it together no matter what, but it would be even more fun if I could send it out to people, which means I need addresses to send it to. So, if you are at all interested there is a sign up in the sidebar to the right of your screen (under the title Subscribe) or at the bottom of your screen.
Sign up before January 15th for an extra coupon code from Shutterfly.
Hope you are able to have fun as you organize pictures and that you are able to enjoy your memories.
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