do you remember when we used to drop our film off and pick it up a week later? i do. and apparently in the 80's i did plenty of dropping off and picking up. as evidenced by the enormous box of old photos in my garage. most of which were still in their little paper envelopes along with the strips of negatives. all those pictures tagging along with me for the last 25-30 years… i knew eventually they'd find a home.
i decided to get a project life album & a box of page protectors and make the entire giant box fit into the PL album. whatever didn't fit or i deemed boring or unneccessary was destined for the recycling bin. i chose not to buy any of the journaling/decorative cards or kits, but instead just use a combination of postcards, old calendars, and other types of found paper to add some visual interest.
i labeled stacks of photos with dates and started cutting the photos to fit into the PL pockets. 3×5 photos are a real pain in the tuchus. that means i ended up cutting about a zillion photos.
possibly a zillion and a half.
along the way i came across some interesting former hair styles,hair colors, and hair textures.
i'm sure you'll agree a reddish fuzzy mullet really suited me. i am almost positive i thought it was a really good idea.
for the last 2 days i've been sorting, cutting, sticking in pockets. i'm almost finished.
it's pretty bare bones. nothing fancy. i threw out 2/3 of the photos i had. it was fun whittling away at the piles until i had a core of photos i wanted to use. my album hasn't arrived yet. when it gets here i'm going to insert my pages and clean things up. do a bit more fine tuning. add those decorative paper bits. make some labels.
my recycling bins are full. there are peeps in my neighborhood who go house to house and dig through the recycling bins before trash/recycle day. i hope when they poke around in mine nothing unsavory or revealing flutters out of the can and lands in my driveway where my neighbors can see it. that would be v.v. unfortunate.
if you've done something interesting with your old photos let me know or share a link!
There once was a girl named MAM
Whose crowning glory was never a sham
Whether red, black or brown
it shone all over town
and only sometimes made her look like a lamb
hahahahahahahah
Love your photos…I have some with an 80’s perm that is absolutely frightful!
one day. one day ill accomplish this….
Oh MAM you are my photo super-hero and wonder woman rolled into one! Kudos to you for getting that massive job done in only 2 days! That is impressive. I like your idea of the photo pockets PL style. My photos (tons and tons) are in photo boxes and suitcases and clear plastic tubs. Yikes!!! I so love your black spikey do and the red mullet, well just chalk that do up to the 80’s, ‘nough said.
Love it that you went through the photos, sorted them and put them in pocket pages. Such a good way to get them out of the box and deep six the photos with no story or blurry images, whatever. I have a closet full of 30 years of photos I have yet to tackle. Was always going to get to it to get them into photo albums. I like your idea better. Thanks for the inspiration- now to find the time- it won’t be for more than 6 months. I have too many other projects to finish in between and they’re in another state for now.
Aloha, Kate
great idea! i may have to do the same~love the short haircut you had. red fuzzy mullet. not so much 🙂
Remember the drive through photo kiosks? ‘Not sure if I am happy or sad that most of them seem to have turned into drive thru coffee places now!
You can play w the photos themselves. Altering them w bleach on a Q-Tip, defacing w oil pastels and alcohol inks or Copics. And many other potions…
Eighties, baby!!
I didn’t sort, I just had all of mine digitized w Groupon (and then some$$$) – I still should sort but now they live in the inter ether
As well as your classes, I’m addicted to those at CreativeLive, and before Christmas, Becky Higgins gave a Project Life three day workshop. I never would have thought I’d get hooked, but during my popping in and out of her presentation, the lightbulb in my head went on, and I realized this was the perfect solution for getting my older photos into albums with little fuss.
I did start out simple, but since I don’t do simple very well, I let Photoshop- another addiction, take over to help create little cards for the pockets, so now, of course, it’s taking ages to fill the album.
I did enjoy gathering all the Christmas Photos together, and see how the little ones have grown over the years.
BTW, I love your pixie style!
Last November I began the same thing with tons of old photos in a Project Life album. And as you pointed out, using odd shaped pictures from years ago is a challenge with the page protectors but I find it fun too. I am using anything I like for embellishments and background but now that I know you are creating a similar album, I will be checking yours out for additional ideas. Hope your first day back to the classroom went smoother than you anticipated.
Just yesterday I posted a Map of 2014 I created for the Arty Cartophile group wherein I point out a major goal this year…finally do something creative with my photos. I have already sorted them somewhat but now need a way to use them. That includes old family photos. I have long been keeping odds and ends in years- and- decade-labeled boxes and now as I approach the last 1/3 -if I am lucky – of my life I want to pull it together with the photos. But one thing I have already begun is to put a photo on each page of my current art journal that I can relate to the art, even if in the most obscure way. I have also given myself the assignment to build each page on current news even if it ends up being gessoed over over to death. Somehow I like to think of this as a bit of past and a bit of present on a page I or someone else will enjoy in the future, as well. Just something to challenge myself and have some fun…and use some of those otitis. Love what you have done there and that spikes hairdo just sings!
I love Gail’s idea of showing all the different hair styles she’s had. I think I may do this — wouldn’t it make a great project to put online?
That is one amazing project.
I tossed ’em, Dano! Whittled a life down to one plastic shoebox full of photos organized into categories. Cheaper, easier and less space-consuming than putting them in albums. Rose Cottage is half the size of Moss Cottage!
I bought a large Marcy punch, a square one, used that instead of hand cutting. Then I made a collage on 12 by 12 scrapbook paper, put them Into a page protector and into my 3 ring binder. Cleaned up all my old photos that way.
Several years ago I did a photo spread in my journal titled “HAIR-the long and short of it” showing all the lengths, colors, etc. of my hair over the years. I think I was trying to decide if I should cut my hair of not, but what started out as a simple shuffle through a bunch of photos turned into a project that showed me a whole lot more. I could see by looking at those photos who I was at that particular time in my life. Sometimes I was “me” and ok with that. Sometimes I was trying not to be “me” and obviously that wasn’t working.
If I doubt the worth of journal keeping today, I remind myself of all the things I can learn by just looking at a photo from the past …………. or one taken ten seconds ago.
Seeing your hairstyles through the years made me smile. Thank you for the journey
PS: What size album are you using?
That is just the most amazing project to take on! Wow! Wow! (two Wows plus). Also, is that Pat Benatar or Joan Jett in one of the photos? Love the look!
Best to you, Nancy
I love this. I’ve never been a project lifer, it’s never really called to me. But this is a fabulous idea. I might just have to give this a try with the old photos. And thanks for the idea of a blurb book for photos of the digital sort. That project is next on my list. And I’m loving the photos of you! My favorite hairstyle is the black pixie cut. There’s something mischievous behind those eyes. 🙂
I’m doing the same thing with old photos…first I’m tackling the almost 20 years of Phil & I together…then I’ll go back & do times before we met…both for him & for me. Project Life makes it easy…even if photos need to be trimmed. We gave his Mom a couple mini albums for her 75th birthday…and now I have a big box of her pix to put into the albums since I’d “be so much better at it”!!! Oh well…it’s winter in OH so why not have a big project? Can’t go out much anyway.
Digital cameras have solved so many problems. With just a LITTLE discipline we can take photos until we get one we like and discard the others. Developing the discipline to delete is something of a problem though…. .
there MUST be a class you can come up with to deal with all of these photos printed on paper.
i, too, have bins and bins and BINS of photos…..i used to put them in albums but now they are sorted into envelopes by year……
I have a bit more patience for such projects or maybe it’s just old age procrastination. I’m the woman who goes into Michaels twice in a day with her weekly 40-50% off coupons (newspapers, phone etc) and uses each one on a packet of vinyl pocket page holders. (I slither back in and hope for a different clerk…using up my JoAnn’s, AC Moore or whatever I have. My husband does not understand this operation and thinks I should just pay full price and deal with it. Silly man.) The empty 12″ album awaits a goodly supply of photo holders before I start. btw, that album is the pretty Becky Higgins yellow polka dot. Love it.
My biggest gripe is that those older photos were NOT 4×6 and of course not 3×4. What is that odd size? Remember when that bigger style came in and of course required one to get newer photo albums? Oh we had no idea what was coming with digital.
I’m with the group that feels that cute pixie balances that mullet. Don’t you just giggle when you see a man still sporting that …uh…”style”?
I have been working on over 40 years of photos. Lots were slides or weird film formats so had to send them out to be digitized. Very time intensive.
I am so impressed that you did this all in just 2 days! It’s going to be so nice and easy to find those special moments now. And that short hair, those hoops, the simplicity of the black turtleneck…..you were always stylin’, MAM!
Something we all should do… Go through old memories and sift. Project Life sounds like a very manageable way of sifting… Escpecially for those of us with way too much photographs.
When it became necessary for Mom to move in with me, a lot of her things went to my brother’s house to help with storage issues. The photos from our childhood were in a huge storage container. Mom passed away 2 years ago and now my brother is holding all her things hostage..including all the photos. I would so love to go through those old memories…hopefully, some day he will share. I loved your pixie look too:-)
do you rent out your services??you are my hero!! Good luck at school today.
Oh god. I had a fuzzy mullet too. Had forgotten about it. It went green when I spent a few too many days at the swimming pool.
Your memories are just what I need to jog mine. xxx
Pamela Anderson has a pixie now. I could totally see you going back to it. For reals.
What a brilliant use for those Precious Pockets Pages. Very fresh. I am so amazed, and impressed,that you started the project and finished it in 2 days. I stand in awe of the focus you are able to maintain in all you do. Oh,look! Something shiny! Gotta go.
loved going through old photos that are not mine, seems I often find others lives far more interesting than my own and as much as I hate to admit it, most of my photos circa 70’s through early 90’s actually made it into photo albums. (I do fondly remember the excitement of dropping off rolls of film and then having to wait to see how they turned out) that anticipation was kind of fun. When we start talking photos late 90’s on…I was good about getting the kids baby photos into albums but the busier their lives got and as they got older the less time I had for keeping detailed albums. I never fell into the scrapbooking thing so eventually I went back to the trusty, old, tried and true shoe box for photos, (though I purchased one of those fancy, shcmancy ones meant for photos) same size as a shoe box tho and aside that it’s heavy duty with a nice sturdy lid and fancy little metal pull on the front and a place for a label, I still just toss the photos in, every so often the girls get a hankering to re-visit their childhoods and I’ve found that there is nothing quite so fun as pulling those pics from the box and laughing at the way they were when they were little, much easier to handle than those unwieldy massive photos albums that are heavy and clunky to hold. The box on the other hand holds vastly more interest to my DD’s than all those albums I spent so many hours putting together, even tho it was just putting photos in the plastic sleeves but there is something to be said for sorting and culling and from here it honestly looks like you’ve had fun doing it. I’ll let ya know if the wind accidently blows a photo or two northward and lands in my back yard, least I’ll know who they belong too. 😉
Totally love the idea of using the Project Life pages to clear up old photos, of which I have MOUNTAINS. I could devote at least one page to crazy hair of the 70’s and 80’s.
Thanks for the great idea, adding it to my list of 100 things to do in 2014!
Good for you, MAM! Getting that done was almost work taking the hiatus all its own.
I think the pages look great.
I was thinking of doing that same thing and of course would also decorate my pages with my own “found” papers and ephemera. Thanks for the inspiration to get at it! Have fun at school tomorrow!
I just started sorting all my pix today as well. Must be some “new year – clean out the crap” resolution that I didn’t know I had made!
Is it interesting that the photos from 1996 forward are in a huge vintage suitcase. In no order. My kids rifled thru it whenever they had a project (or worse, someone died).
Now the photos from 2004 to now are on my computer.
I am worthless with photos.
I love your black spiky hairdo! I’ve been doing a PL 9×10 Studio Calico Handbook album for six months (with current photos) much like you are – pretty much photos and a journaling card here and there, though I do print a line or two on the actual photo. I hate messing with all the tiny embellishments, too, and I like a clean look.
I love you with that spiky pixie cut…the one with you dressed in black. Very nice.
I’m sure most of us could pare down the boxes of photos by 2/3…I don’t like to sort them though. SOOOOOO time consuming.
such a great idea!
I need to sort photos too. Great idea!