Got Photos?

If you're anything like me and tend to put some things off, you probably have stacks of photos somewhere in your house. I was really motivated at one time to tackle them. I even took a Creative Memories class and bought some of their stuff to make a nice little album. Well, it took me THREE YEARS to do ONE ALBUM. I said enough is enough...there had to be a better way and there had to be a better way that looked just as creative and nice...just as nice as what they can do.

So after brainstorming a bit, I came up with collaging. Let me give an example. I have about fifty photos that were taken in one day, at a pool. I wanted to put them in an album. I couldn't imagine putting them in a regular binder...one photo after the other...all with the same background...how boring...plus, I'd run out of album space before long. But, I couldn't whittle them down to a few choice ones...look at the expression of my little boy in that one...and look at that other photo where the boys are laughing with glee...I can't choose one over the other!

So then in a selfish moment, I said why can't I use them all? These are OUR photos for OUR family, and I want to be able to look back and get a real sense of how much fun we had that day at the pool!

I'm sure it's been done before, and if my Creative Memories teacher covers this, it must be in a more advanced class, but what about cutting up the photos to make a collage? I know, I know..you're not supposed to cut-up photos...at least that's what my mom taught me. That was a big no-no in our house. I had a hard enough time cutting off the ends and corners of photos in my class but quickly learned that if there is nothing distinctive in that part of the photo, it's okay to cut that part off. So I started cutting beyond what I was taught and was able to fit all the shots on two facing album pages...and I think it does look very nice and creative...AND, I can get a real sense of the joy and happiness we experienced as a family on that day!

Here are a few more nice examples of collaging. I am not that creative myself, but I hope to use some of these ideas in the future:



How do you deal with all your photos? Do you even print them out? Do they stay in your computer? How do you organize them there? How do you put your albums together? I would love to hear your thoughts!