What I Do With My Storage Binder Photos

Wow, it's been busy around here the last few weeks. I did find time to sneak in a layout this past week as I was preparing a post for the Finding Photo Freedom Coaches' Blog and thought I would share parts of that post here as well.

Today I want to share with you my process for using and scrapping photos from an event in my storage binders. I flipped through my storage binders looking for something I was inspired to scrap (and, ok, a set of photos that would make a good example for this blog post!). I came across several pages in my Fall 2010 storage binder from Thanksgiving, so let’s start there. I actually had 56 photos that I had printed from Thanksgiving last year.

These were digital prints that I had starred and tagged in PSE, then uploaded for printing at Shutterfly. These were all photos that I love from Thanksgiving and really want to use in some way in my scrapbooking. I realize that as these photos live in my storage binders for a while, other stories may become more important and some of them may eventually end up in cold storage. I am perfectly ok with that scenario. For me, I like to have lots of photos to choose from when I scrap, and as a traditional scrapper, that means lots of prints. So, I first took a little time to sort through the Thanksgiving photos.

Before I continue, I must make a confession – I like to scrap events. It’s true, I enjoy having a record of holidays, birthdays, vacations, and other events in our lives. I also enjoy telling the stories of our lives and simply creating a beautiful layout to highlight one photo. After sorting through all 56 photos from Thanksgiving 2010, I created this event layout using 11 photos.

So, what happens to the other 45 photos now that I’ve scrapped this event?

First, 25 of them will remain in my storage binder because there are other stories that I want to tell using those photos. There are actually four other stories that I know I want to scrapbook with photos from this event. 

Here’s a breakdown of those stories:

8 photos – getting ready/food preparation

I don’t always take photos of us cooking, but last year I snapped photos of me and Robbie making the foods that we always take to holiday gatherings and I want to create a layout about those foods (pecan pie, praline sweet potatoes, green beans). [Update: See this layout HERE.]

5 photos – 10 am not pie/dirt pudding

Robbie and I have a tradition of eating a slice of pie at 10 am on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. We started this the year before we were married because we’re always a little hungry mid-morning yet we usually don’t have our big holiday meal until around 1 or 2 pm. And besides that, once we’ve eaten a huge meal, we don’t always have room for the great desserts. So, we eat dessert first. However, the rest of the family totally skipped the pie this past year because I had made dirt pudding and they wanted that instead. [Update: See this layout HERE.]

7 photos – Bubbles

I love the photos of my great-nephew and his fascination with chasing the bubbles I was blowing around in Mama & Daddy’s living room. [Update: See this layout HERE.]

5 photos – Mama’s chicken & dumplings

Mama doesn’t make this great dish from scratch very often anymore and I want to document how it was one of my favorite foods growing up. [Update: See this layout HERE.]

So, you can see from these examples that even though I enjoy scrapping events and have created a layout about this special day, there are still stories that I want to scrap and those photos remain in my storage binders.

Now, the remaining 20 photos from Thanksgiving 2010 I triaged into my Category Drawers.

Here's a quick breakdown of where the photos went:

1 – Together Forever

1 – Robbie Personality
2 – Nieces & Nephews
2 – Games We Play
1 – Chores
2 – Cooking
1 – Toys
3 – Aunt Melissa & Uncle Robbie
2 – Nichole
1 – Trey
2 – Andrew
1 – Clothes
1 – Sleeping

I hope you were able to see how important storage binders are to inspirational scrapbooking. From one event and 56 photos, I will have five layouts plus photos scattered throughout my Category Drawers that can lead to connections layouts later on.

To read more about how my Library of Memories system is set up, click here.