Pictures

I was searching for a picture the other day, rifling through boxes and getting extremely irritated, when I finally made a commitment to organize all of my loose photos.  I was into scrapbooking for about a minute, and produced a few nice albums.

Then I discovered the ease of making all of my photo albums online.  I love how compact the books are.

Now, what to do with all of the extra photos that I have amassed over the years?  The photos that I had every intention of putting into some sort of album?  Well, they all ended up here.....

So, I made a plan, and off to Ikea I went in search of containers.  I found these.....

I printed off categories -- Birthdays, Holidays, Vacations, etc.  Ten in all, plus a bigger bin for the larger school pictures and cds.  I taped the labels onto the front of each container, making the sorting process quick and easy.

I went box by box, sorting the pictures that I wanted to keep into the appropriate bins, and throwing out any duplicates or unneeded cards, papers, or photos.  The process went surprisingly fast, and in no time at all (okay.....maybe a full Sunday afternoon), I had all of my pictures like this...

I am very proud of how well I was able to consolidate.

Aren't they pretty all stacked up nice and neat?  And the bins that I got at Ikea were perfect.  And here they are all organized on the closet shelves in my basement bedroom.

I still need to print out bigger labels to put on the front of each container, but the hardest part of the job is done!  One more organizing job off of my list. :)