Penneyw, you're the new winner!

My mom got into scrapbooking right before I had my first child. She keeps up (I think). I, however, got two months' worth of scrapbooking done and then, ummm, none. So, the kids and I went to France for 6 weeks in the spring of '06 and I said that I would start getting things in a scrapbook (note I did not say "scrapbooking") starting with France, work my way to "caught up" and then go back to when oldest was born.

I *JUST* at the end of May finished the France bit. I'm hoping to make good progress in July. The kids and I will be at my family's for most of the month, and I shouldn't have too many projects keeping me away from the scrapbooks/albums.

One thing I decided while I was doing the France thing is that I don't want to do a fancy scrapbook like my mom and friends do. Two main reasons: 1. it takes so much time, and obviously I'm not getting it done, so shouldn't be making the task take forever, and 2. it's not really my personality -- I'm not a real flowery person. So, my albums are a cross between

• the albums of old where the photos were just put in there and if you were lucky the dates and names were included (and if you were really lucky, what the event was) and
• the cool scrapbooks that others do. It works for me (and dh). We pick the best pics and write up who/what/when/where and I tend to put a little story to it, if there is one, and there we go.

I still don't have a digital camera (well, I do but it's cheap and I don't know where the cords are to download what's on it -- that's why there is still a pic of a yellow rose and not me here in the community). I leave dh to do the research on such things and every Sunday when the sales flyers come with the paper, I find a camera on sale and ask if it's what we want and he keeps saying, "No." Really, I told him, I'm going to go out and buy my own, so he'd better just decide to bite the bullet and make do for now.

Penn, hoping to stay focused and motivated in July

First, Penn, I can't help remarking on your pun (possibly unintentional) at the end of your post about staying "focused".  A little double entendre there, both fitting the subject!

Susan, I love, love, LOVE pictures, but I'm truly horrible at getting them organized.  The one exception was when a friend and I went to Europe in 1980 and again in 1983.  I carefully recorded each picture I took and what it was in a pocket notebook, and after developing them, I put them all into an album with notations on them.  Prior to that I had stuck some pictures into either slip-in albums or the old sticky page type with a clear sheet that holds the pictures in through static cling or something, but never anything terribly organized. 

Since then, even though I've taken literally thousands of pictures (maybe even tens of thousands), they lie around in the envelopes the developers put them in.  Seriously, when DD was little, I used to see photos of missing children that said they were taken a year or two prior to the time the child went missing.  (I assume that was because the family didn't have a more recent picture.)  I always thought that, heaven forbid, if DD ever went missing, I'd have to ask the police which of the 200 or so pictures we took of her that month they wanted to use.  Literally, the women at the photo counter in my grocery knew me by name and would call me when my photos were in.  That's how many we took!

Now, I have a wonderful SLR digital camera, and I'm very thankful that those pictures are at least organized by date or event in folders on our computer.  We used to be very good about backing them up, but I'd better check with DH to make sure he's done that recently.  I do periodically go through and look at them, and I'd be heartbroken to lose any of them.  Last fall we had a little flooding problem that ruined some printed pictures that had been sitting in a cardboard box on the floor in our office-like room (along with the negatives), and it broke my heart! 

This past Christmas, DH gave me a really nice digital picture frame, and I've enjoyed it so much!  Not only can I showcase a whole bunch of pictures in one frame, but I actually get to see them every day (as the frame sits here beside my laptop in the living room) and guests get to see them, too!

I have my pics organized online and older photos are in albums.

Do you keep your photographs organized? Did child #1 get a full baby album, and child #2 and beyond get only half?

You brought a lil gulit trip that I have with this topic. I have two children. My daughter was first and she has a book with hosptial picture time, weight and other information about her birth. Her book has lots of baby pictures. My son has one baby picture and the rest are pictures with his sister. No album of his own.  The topic actually comes up every now and then and I have no excuse to offer.

I afraid my photos still need to be organized.  I think I know where most of them are.

Hey, Susan--what a fun post!  I've kept scrapbooks for trips I've taken, but I was never into the more traditional "This is my life" books.  As a matter of fact, when I was in grade school, I kept a scrapbook of Disneyland pictures.  And no people were in the photos, LOL.  I guess it was my "happy place" that I would go to when I needed it, because I was (and still am) a Disney lover.

But that's what scrapbooks are for--a place to keep treasured things.

Chris/Crystal

When the Sun Goes Down..., Blaze, out now

The Texas Billionaire's Bride, SSE, July

www.crystal-green.com

I only have one child.    All her photos are in albums, I even did a couple of scrapbooks when she was a baby.  Since we got our digital camera in 2006, I now store all our digital pictures on Shutterfly.  I made a photo book when we took our cruise in 2007 and I did a 2nd grade photo book too.  I also made a photo CD with pictures set to music.   I love taking pictures, so digital photos are much easier to organize.

The only photo album that is organized is my honeymoon and that was almost 11  years ago. I do have some of my kids picture of when they was born in albums but after that I'm been a bad mother. All my pictures are in a box that I neeed to get organized in my spare time from work, kids running here and there, supper etc.!!!

Congratulations Penn-eharlequin

Happy summer reading!

Penney

Didn't have to change much.

Congrats, Penneyw!

Hi Susan

Thank you, I'm sick and just saw your message. I've sent you my info.

Thanks

Penney

Thanks everyone