Fast, Simple and Effective

I told you I had lots of ideas swimming around in my head!

Recently, Di and I were conversing by email, about scrapping (or not scrapping) those old family photos, as she has just signed up to Ali E's new Yesterday and Tomorrow class.

I have a shoe box full on loan from my mother in law, of my husband's childhood - which is full of stories and adventures of three brothers getting up to all sorts of mischief, plus a few lovely old photographs of his parents (Trevor's father tells a tale about Trevor's mother and a green bikini, back in their courting days!) and of his maternal and paternal grandparents.

The same for me - photos of my childhood, and some rather lovely ones from my grandmother's childhood.

So there are lots, with stories and memories attached.

What to do?  Obviously the task of sorting out them out (taking a cut - I can't use them all!) and scanning is fairly straightforward, if not tedious, but then what?

I've come to a solution - keeping the photos and the stories, simply, fast and effectivley.

I already had a 4x6 two-per-page slip in photo album in which I had slipped some old photos I had printed, for safekeeping. I got to thinking, rather than scrap this in the traditional way, why not utilise this album and get through those old photos quickly?

As you can see above, I quickly scribbled out some notes and ideas, which just tucked inside the album to remind me what my plans are, as and when I get to these photos.  I forsee that it will be done in batches.

My basic plan is to use one pocket on each page for a photo (printed at 4x6) and the pocket below will have a 4x6 journalling card, with the story and or information about the photo. I've made myself a little template, the text will be typed up in Word and printed.  The style of font will remain consitent throughout.  I might use some patterned paper, I might not.  Probably NOT, the focus here is on getting done.

 (as a note, I am not sure if I like this journalling block thingy that I made - font etc, but I can change that later if I get more inspired!)

What about the CONTENT of the journalling, you ask?  Here is the fun part!  My mum is off to visit her sister soon, so the batch of photos that is printed already, and stored in this album, will go with her, with some scraps of writing paper in the pocket below each photo.  Mum and her sister can go through these over smoko, sorry morning tea (for Nicole, who with a slightly horrified tone, asked me recently if I really did stop for "smoko" with my 5 year old! I think she had a different interpreation of the word) write a few notes and memories down, and presto!

The same for Trevor and I, with our childhood photos, and the same for his parents.  The notes will be stored with the photos, and I can simply transpose them and print them out (as much as the handwritten notes would be nice - sometimes its a little hard to read mum's and my aunts handwriting, and that's after 30 odd years of learning to decipher it!  How would the next generation fare?!)

I am thinking that this may become a little bland, but at this stage am not sure what I could do to add that little something extra without straying too far away from my very basic formula. I may turn to the great CZ for some inspiration!

I will probably get an album each for Trevor's & my childhood , and one each for each side of the family (seperating the maternal/paternal etc with title blocks).

So, what do you think?