Scrapbooking from the shoebox of photos

Scrapbooking from the shoebox of family photos, so to speak!

I’m very lucky to have photoalbums [along with some shoeboxes] with a few names and years on some of the photos but the stories have been lost along the way. That’s just one of the things that motivates me to scrapbook our photos, to add the stories. Right now my daughter may not care too much about where we are or what we’re doing but this is a very tangible way to share the story of our lives with friends and generations yet to come. I really believe that my daughter has strong memories of her childhood because she always had scrapbooks to look back on and remember the various moments and events that I scrapbooked. Seeing her share her old scrapbooks with Alex when they were newly engaged was priceless. A visual story of her childhood for him to connect to.

For years I randomly scanned old family photos to preserve them. But as the years have gone on and the photos have accumulated we have found it better to establish a system where the photos are numbered and there is a coordinating spreadsheet telling the who, where and when of the photo. Not sure how long this will be a ‘work in progress’ but when I think about future generations and the transition to the ‘digital shoebox’ I think it’s so incredibly important.

Another challenge I’ve found is that I take a zillion photos since going digital. More than anyone could ever need. So, on my list of tasks, I plan to go through all my folders of digital photos and pick select photos to edit into a format likely to stand the test of time [TIF] and choose only significant, and discard the outtakes.

What are you doing to preserve your stories? Have you backed up your photos somewhere others can access them?
If anything happened to you are there notes that say where your photos and scrapbook pages can be found?

The above page is from the new Frame and Blend Story Layered Template Series at DesignerDigitals.com.

Check out our heritage scrapbook downloads, vintage downloads and layered templates to help you document your stories today.