Photo organizing can be a daunting project for sure. It involves lots of tedious, repetitive tasks, as well as a pretty good dose of “stick-to-it-tivness”. But it’s so, so worth it, as you are about to see when you embark on this week’s assignment:
Celebrating and sharing your digital photos!
The whole point of organizing your photos is so that you can easily find the ones you’ve identified as the Best of The Best, right?But let’s not stop there.
The next step is to liberate those digital images from your computer and display them in meaningful ways so that you can celebrate and share those important moments, milestones, and life events.
My goal today is to spark your imagination by exploring some photo products that I have used to both celebrate and share family photos.
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Canvas Prints
Definitely one of my favorite ways to display the Best of the Best images is by creating canvas prints. In my home, we have a media room in the basement which is dedicated to all of our favorite sports teams, including the kiddos’ swim teams:
and the Pittsburgh Panthers:
our gallery wall that incorporates several canvas prints
Over the years, we add canvas prints to commemorate special sports-related outings and events. Brian always asks for new canvas prints for his birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas (it’s a no brainer gift for me to give!). My favorite source for canvas prints is Canvas Pop. Their canvases are both top quality and affordable.
I’m also a huge fan of digital photo books, and my family members are as well. I love to create photo books for special trips and vacations, such as our trip to Florida a few years ago:
Of course, digital photo books are a hugely popular gift item, and I’ve created my fair share of photo book gifts.
In fact, I create one for my son for his birthday each year, which includes highlights of special swim meets. I love to see the smile that it brings to his face each time he flips through the pages.
Intimidated by the idea of creating a photo book? Don’t sweat it.
Most of the online software offered by the major photo book services are surprisingly easy to use, even for amateurs. I’ve used a ton of online photo book services, and Mixbook is the one that I go back to repeatedly.
A relatively new alternative to the canvas photo print is photo “wallpaper”. Creating a removable wallpaper collage of your favorite photos that you can stick anywhere on your walls {without causing damage…bonus!} is pretty darned cool.
Here’s a great photo collage that my son gave to my husband for a birthday gift:
Online Photo Sharing Sites
As much as I love creating print products of my Best of the Best Photos, one of the easiest ways to share these photos with others is through the use of online photo sharing services. Of course, the most popular version of this option would be sharing photos via Facebook, but I encourage you to go beyond Facebook and explore other options.
Photo albums are pretty much the gold standard for displaying print photos. Just make sure you choose the right kind of photo album, one that’s photo safe.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few photo storage products on the market that can harm your photos over time because they are made with materials that contain damaging acid and lignin. So just be sure your photo albums are archival quality by looking for the “acid- and lignin-free” designation.
I’ve been a scrapbooking hobbyist since the late 90’s. Like most other scrapbookers, I starting out with traditional scrapbooking, then gravitated more and more towards digital scrapbooking. Over the years, I’ve really enjoyed scrapbooking as a creative outlet.
I’ve been a long-time user of the Forever Artisan design software (formerly known as Storybook Creator) and it’s still my tool of choice for creating digital scrapbooking pages.
Here’s just a sample of my creations using Artisan:
Your Assignment for Week 10: Celebrate & Share Digital Photos
Spend some time looking through your newly organized digital photo collection and select your Best of the Best photos
Explore options for displaying/sharing these photos, including online photo sharing sites, digital photo books, photo wallpaper, canvas prints, archival-quality photo albums, and digital scrapbooking software
Decide on one or more options and create/display your photos
Return to this post and let me know what you end up creating! I’d love it if you share a photo of your creations with me via Instagram (tag me @refined_rooms and use hashtag #DPOCHALLENGE)!
To make the photo organizing process a little easier, I’ve created a free companion resource for Challenge peeps, the Digital Photo Organizing Tool Kit.
Just enter your information in the form below, and the Tool Kit will be sent straight to your inbox!
This post is part of the 10 Week Digital Photo Organizing Challenge
Just stumbled upon the Challenge? Start by reading the Challenge Overview post first. Then work your way through the weekly Challenge assignments, including:
Natalie Gallagher is a former professional organizer and home stager who has spent the past 12 years helping people achieve their vision of an organized and beautiful home via the Refined Rooms brand. During her time as a professional organizer, she was a member of the National Association of Productivity & Organization Professionals, serving as Director of Communication and Technology for the North Coast Ohio Chapter.
She is also an APPO-certified photo organizer who specialized in helping her clients with photo organizing and paper management. Natalie earned her staging and redesign certification through Home Staging Resource in 2013. She loves to teach home sellers how to stage their homes to attract buyers.
When not blogging about home organization, decluttering or decorating, she's likely making plans to tackle the next DIY home improvement project on her never-ending To Do list.
2 Comments
The best system for organising digital photos I’ve read. And very well presented in weekly assignments. Thanks for sharing.
I’m so flattered Anne! Thanks for the kind words. I know what a struggle it is to manage our digital photo life and I’m thrilled to hear that you found the blog challenge helpful! Be on the lookout for more digital photo organizing resources later this year!
The best system for organising digital photos I’ve read. And very well presented in weekly assignments. Thanks for sharing.
I’m so flattered Anne! Thanks for the kind words. I know what a struggle it is to manage our digital photo life and I’m thrilled to hear that you found the blog challenge helpful! Be on the lookout for more digital photo organizing resources later this year!