Honey and Lemons
Happy Monday! I hope you had a good weekend. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend here, and I spent some time outside. But I also did a lot of scrapbooking.
On Friday, I did a mountain of organizing. Most of my scrapbooks are chronological, but I also do some project or subject based albums (Henry's sports, vacation albums, December Dailys, Week in the Life, etc.). I reviewed all my albums and all my already-printed photographs to see where I stood.
1. My chronological albums up through 2009 are complete.
2. For 2010 and 2011 chronological albums, each of the albums needed about six layouts to be complete.
3. Clara's and Henry's birthday albums each needed a couple of pages (these are simple albums where I scrap one layout each year of their birthday gathering).
4. Clara's middle school album was started and then abandoned. I thought about chucking it, but instead rounded up the photos and memorabilia needed to turn it into a "done" (if not perfect) project. It needed about a dozen simple layouts (24 pages or so) to complete.
5. Henry's sports album needed layouts for senior year soccer and baseball and then all-star pages from back when he was 13 and 14 (I've been avoiding these layouts because I had been planning on finding more pictures). At this point, I decided to scrap what I had and continue with the "done is better than perfect" philosophy."
6. I plan to do photo books for our 2012 trip to Barcelona and Clara's junior cross country year. I'll do the latter on Shutterfly but may return to Mixbooks for the Barcelona one. The Barcelona one is bound to be a bit fraught because that was when Paul was diagnosed with cancer. The kids were only with us for a few days. Paul spent the whole three weeks while we there in the hospital, but he encouraged me to go on outings with my camera as a form of therapy, and I did. I'm not even sure if I have edited those photos yet!
4. For 2012 and 2013 chronological albums, I have photos printed for most things that I want to scrap but haven't started any pages. There are some things for which I need to order photos, too!
5. For 2014 and 2015, I'm just starting the process of ordering and printing photos of the things I want to scrap.
On Saturday, I dove into the project albums. I made 26 pages to complete Clara's middle school album. Super simple, but really cute (IMHO). I was reminded again how happy I am to have what amounts to a small scrapbook store in my craft room, with lots of appropriate paper and embellishments ready to go.
On Sunday, it was time to turn to the last few lay outs for 2010 and 2011, as well as the birthday albums, because I love the feeling of getting unfinished projects done. I decided I wanted to complete these before facing 2012 and 2013. I did seven pages in Henry's birthday album, and now it's complete! I was only able to do one page in Clara's album because I need to order photos from her 15th and 16th birthdays. I also did six pages from 2010 to compete that chronological album! Then, I also organized the 2011 pictures and worked to complete journaling in Clara's middle school and the 2010 albums.
Layouts coming soon.
But, for now, here's my big take away . . .
I need to bring my big camera with me to more events. I love the ease of my iphone camera, but the process of getting photos off my phone is a pain in the rear. Before the iphone, I brought my camera and took photos at all kinds of events. And then I printed them. And then I scrapped them. The reason I don't have photos printed for 2014 and 2015 are because most of them are on my iphone. The bulk (75%) of photos on my computer hard drive from my big camera are of Clara running. Another 10% are art photographs taken for photography classes (like the one up top). That leaves very few DSLR photos of family gatherings, outings, etc. The iphone has definitely changed my memory keeping practices (and not necessarily for the better). This year, I want to take more photographs with my camera (and fewer with the iphone). I know the saying "the best camera is the one you have with you," but all that means is that I need to take a better camera with me.
Thoughts?
loving the yellow and blue
ReplyDeleteI faced the same frustration with photos on my phone but found a solution with Dropbox. I use dropbox anyway to store photos and documents. I installed it on my phone and set the gallery from my camera to automatically update to dropbox. so each time I load the card from my camera, my phone photos are there waiting for me in the same folder. I love it so much I'm contemplating a wifi card for my camera
I can't believe how much you've managed to complete in such a short space of time....you sound really well organised.
ReplyDeleteWow!...so much organising in such a short space of time! Xx
ReplyDeleteYes! I pull photos off my iPhone regularly, the same way I do my cameras, but I've just invested in a picturemate to print at home and the quality of the photos is awful! I've also been lucky enough to invest in an Olympus em-10, and the quality of images, just on auto, is mind-blowing to me! It's reminded me that i need to take my big camera with me more often (it's smaller than my Fuji, that I also carry with me!)
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting post Rinda. I too feel I need to compete an assess,net of "gaps" in my albums although I fear the list will be very long! You have inspired to do so! But hey I know already I'll never be "caught up". I'm just scrapping a trip to Barcelona too. Only started it this week as off work for a week as its school hols. Such a shame yours was tinged with sadness and you couldn't see it with Paul as its a beautiful city. Oh and I too just plug my iPhone into the laptop and move the photos over like I would from my memory card - simple :)
ReplyDeleteVery impressed by your scrapping - both how much you got done, and how organised you are!
ReplyDeleteI used to carry my 'big girl' camera everywhere, and stopped when I got my iPhone. Like you, I find it a bit of a pain to get the photos off, but worse - I don't love the quality :( I'm still finding the balance (I can't take my big camera everywhere, so Project 365 won't get done if I don't use the phone, for example) but I do need to get back in the habit of having my good camera charged and ready and actually bringing it along to things!
Gosh you have been productive!
ReplyDeleteI download from my iPhone to my computer everyday. If the photos aren't great but I like them I'll edit them either with an app or in photoshop. I like that the photo creates the memory for me regardless of quality. A beautifully composed and printed photo is wonderful but for the memory I'll play with it. All that said I am contemplating upgrading my iPhone for a better camera. I have a 4, the 5S has a far superior camera and won't be as expensive as the 6 or 6s.
Oh my I thought that was an almost insurmountable list of scrapping still to do, and then you got so much done, that I have no doubt you will plow through the rest of it as well. I, myself, am afraid to make an assessment of the holes that still need to be filled in my albums.
ReplyDeleteOh well done on both creating the project overview so you knew what needed to be done and then tackling it.
ReplyDeleteI upload my photos at least daily - to Dropbox as Helena mentioned. I tend to print in batches to scrap as I found that the other printed 'just in case' or for storage boxes as suggested by Stacy Julian just hasn't worked for me.
I'm catching up with lots of blog reading today & am impressed with how you got all this organized & completed so much during the weekend! I've gotten pretty good about getting photos off my phone & into my digital workflow, although I do still enjoy bringing the point & shoot or DSLR to events.
ReplyDeleteWow! I'm exhausted reading what all you managed to get done in that one weekend. I really need to take the time and get everything organized. As for the iPhone (I just got my first one this past summer) I was able to take some classes on it on the recent cruises we took and discovered some things I didn't know plus was reminded to make sure it's all backed up so now I connect my phone to my computer and download everything new that I've taken. I had been using dropbox but it was full and they wanted me to buy more space - that wasn't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteBTW, we didn't take the DSLR on the cruises we just took in February but used our iPhones and G15.