Sorting Through Your Photo Stash

(Image courtesy of Kamilla Oliveira)

It's natural to take photos of the times spent with friends and loved ones. We want to capture those memories to savor them later. However, with the ease with which most of us can take photos, there's often an abundance of unorganized images cluttering up drawers and memory drives.

If you're struggling to find a way to display and savor your recent photos - especially from the holidays - an answer may be easier than you anticipated. Take a look at these suggestions from writer, Christine Lu, at Apartment Therapy for a few simple ideas to get your photos organized in no time.

Make a photo book.

I know the concept of putting together a photo book may seem overwhelming, but creating a photo book for a specific vacation or event (like the holidays) is much more do-able than trying to capture an entire year. Put those memories into a photo book and if you make one after each holidays, flipping through them together with your family during the next holidays could be a sweet tradition. Shutterfly, Pinhole Press, Blurb and MixBook are all great resources that allow you to easily book together a photo book, but my favorite are the books from Artifact Uprising. If you're an Instagram junkie, sites like Blurb and Artifact Uprising make it convenient to turn your Instagram photos directly into a book. Who knows, maybe this project will you get you into making photo books for other events through this year!

Start scrapbooking.

I've decided that I want to get into scrapbooking this year and I've been doing some research into what would be most fitting in regards to style and resources. If you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on with the scrapbooking world lately, take note. There are tons of ways to make it fit your style in regards to documenting your life with photos and words. The ladies over at A Beautiful Mess have shared several tips and resources about how they go about making their scrapbooks, and the Project Life scrapbooking that Ronnie from Pink Ronnie does is simple, beautiful and totally inspiring.

Organize a slideshow.

Making a slideshow with photos and turning it into a movie is a great way of preserving the digital photos without investing in all the money. This is a great way to share these photos with friends and family, too. You can email them a link to the video and they can experience the photos all in one place. Check out websites like Animoto or Slidely to get started, or start with iMovie if you are an Apple user.

Put them on an object.

There are an endless amount of options in regards to what you can turn your photos into: coasters, calendars, pillows, phone cases, mugs, playing cards — you name it, they probably will do it. However, my favorite things to make when I have several photos to work with are magnets and polaroid square photos from Instagram photos. Sticky9 and Printsagram are my favorite places for these and I have found many uses for them. Magnets are great for covering your entire refrigerator, and square photos look great on the walls. You can make a heart collage, wallpaper a designated section of a wall, or line them up in a large frame. Another great option for square photos is to turn them into cards; you could use these to write thank you notes for holiday gifts!

Delete!

Take some time to go through your photos. Save the ones you really love and delete the rest! This will not only make you feel better about the massive amounts of digital photos you are accumulating, but it will make you a better photographer. Cultivating an eye for deleting and editing will help you learn what makes up a good photo. As you go through the photos, make note of your favorites, so that you have a quick reference for these when you want to go back to print your best photos. For the new year, resolve to get in the habit of taking time to sort, delete and organize your digital photos.