What Do You Do with Your Family Pics

Updated on May 02, 2008
B.F. asks from Hiram, GA
3 answers

Hi ladies, this is personal but not as personal as some questions but I need to see what the rest of you do and need some ideas. What do you do with your family pictures like the ones you get developed that are like 4x5?? I know many of you have digital camaras now so you may not sure the other kinds of films and have pictures developed and some of you still might. I have pictures from 8 yrs ago when my oldest was born and I have them in these photo boxes and I'm not sure what to do with them. I've had pictures in frames before on display but what I mean is do some of you make photo albums for your children so they have something as they grow or do you make them for yourself and then when you child gets married you plan on handing it over to them?? or for that matter save for yourself or make one for each of you??? I almost 6 yrs ago was homeless and the one thing I grabbed to keep with me was a box of pictures and I have taken them with me everywhere I lost everything and have taken yrs to gather things again but these I felt could never be replaced. My family and I our in a home we rent and hopefully (cross my fingers with the economy) never have that happen again. I'd like to do something but I don't know where to start scrapbooking can be expensive I think and I really don't know if I can invest in that and I heard that if you use photo albums you should get acid free ones and I heard those can be expensive as well. So what do you do with your, what have you done and have liked the best??? please tell me and thanks

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So What Happened?

Thanks for all the advise, I'm trying to work on getting things together.

More Answers

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C.H.

answers from Atlanta on

I can help you. Your pictures are priceless. It is very important to put them in acid free and lignin free albums. You don't want to store them away never to be seen again, correct?

I have 2 teenage girls and have scrapbooked each of them albums to take with them as they become adults. I have also taken the best pictures of those albums (many are pre-digital) and made them into a digital storybook for myself so that I will have something when they leave home.

Scrapbooking can be as inexpensive or as expensive as you wish. And, you don't have to be a creative person to get those pictures in the book and to write their stories. It also doesn't take long to do it once you've figured out how you want to procede.

1 mom found this helpful
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S.M.

answers from Atlanta on

First off, that was great advice you gave regarding timeouts. You were one of the few moms who had expressed the importance of empathy.

It's wonderful that you are thinking of this now. My mom made scrapbooks for my sister and I, but she has kept them, and eventually I started asking for it, promising to take good care of them. (Especially since I've inherited so many of my granparent's photos and have taken it on myself to be the family archivist, even getting a couple of fire safes.)

Only recently has my mother made color copies of all the pages, put them in page protectors, and that way made copies of the entire scrapbook to give us (me and my sister) as Christmas presents. She's still sentimentally attached to the originals, so she'll probably hold on to them as long as she's alive.

A lot of times, children aren't really sentimental enough to appreciate things like that until they are much older. It may not be until they have kids themselves - or maybe it'll be the grandchildren that are interested. So I recommend creating memory books ultimately in the kids in mind, but I (personally) would hold on to them long after they go off to college (or where ever they go).

The first thing is to get them safe. My sister never had time to make memory books or frame some (pricey) studio portraits of her little girl, and they sat at the top of a closet with the cardboard they came with to keep them from bending, or in a brown paper bag. The colors have definitley been damaged. (Cardboard has acid - don't let it touch your photos.) It can be as simple as putting the photos in page protectors.

Scrapbooking can get expensive quick, but here's a few tips. You can get a big box of economy page protectors from places like Office Depot. (Maybe even the school section of the grocery store.) Then you can use acid-free glue sticks. They're fairly cheap. Make sure you write things, too. It doesn't have to be fancy. I sometimes type something up quick -something cute they said or did, and print it up and just tuck it in the pages of an album.

Find a pH testing pen at a scrapbooking/craft store, and you can use that to test paper that can go next to pictures. I've found lots of (fairly) inexpensive decorative paper (the 8.5 x 11 inch - regular notebook-size) is acid-free (safe for photos). You can pick up a package of that at places like Kinko's. It's the kind that people use to write Christmas letters on - you know. Then you can just use regular school notebooks to keep them in. You can always make that fancier later. First thing is to keep them organized and safe.

I'm amazed and impressed that you have time and energy to even consider such a thing with three boys. That's the hardest part, so you shouldn't let the expense stop you.

Ever since my second kid was born, I've just been throwing things in a fire safe ($50 at Home Depot). Maybe I won't have time to do anything with them until they move away, but at least they'll be safe until then.

1 mom found this helpful
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S.S.

answers from Atlanta on

I enjoy scrapbooking and am trying to do that. It can be expensive if you do lots of it and like to be ornate, but it doesn't have to be.

I like to display some in frames around the house. Albums are good too. Yes, you should do acid free (if you look at your parents old pictures they look yellow - that is what the acid does). You can get really inexpesive books either acid free like the old style, or with pockets that you just slip the photos in. Try Target or Walmart even.

You can also get a nice photobox. Wood or cardboard. Just getting the pics out and looking at them can make fun memories.

I am also going to try to do a photobook with some of the online pics, there are some good deals on these as well - but that doesn't really help with the actual pictures.

1 mom found this helpful
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