One of the first steps in scrapbooking, and the most daunting, in most projects is to organize your photos. It can seem overwhelming, looking at boxes of photos, to even know where to start.

To begin, be sure to take ALL of your photos out of any of those old-style albums where the photos ´stick´ to the page and you lay a piece of plastic down over it. These are awful for photos! The sticky stuff is corrosive and will destroy your photograph. If you have photos in these, take them out immediately and put them into a shoebox or something else. Anything else.

Find a place where you can spread out. If you have somewhere that you can leave the mess out for a while that works even better!

Once you have all of your photos out, sort them into different piles, being sure not to touch the front of the photos with your fingers. The oils from your fingers can damage your photos. Sort them by year first. Making a pile for each year. Once you have the years sorted you can begin sorting by event.

I prefer to sort them into photo boxes by year. So I label each box with the year. I then use the photo sleeves that the photos come back to you from developing. I write the event on the top of that sleeve and stick them into the box in order of event.

Once you have all of your photos sorted it is time to sort your memorabilia. I like to put it right in with my photos. If it is to large you might consider a different type of box that you could label with the date and store beside your photo boxes.

The next step in my personal photo organization is to plan what I will do with the photos. I choose the year that I am going to start working on and then pull out the first event. I then sort that event into pages that I will scrap. I like to use at least 5 to 6 photos per two page spread. I put those into a gallon sized zip lock bag along with the paper and embellishments that I plan to use. If I have a page idea already for those photos I make sure to jot it down as well. I also include any journaling that I have already written for that page inside the bag as well.

I then store these packets in a tote. When I am heading for a crop I grab the tote and my tool bag and I am all ready to scrap!