Data Backup Day

Geneabloggers has designated the first day of each month as Data Backup Day and all genealogists are urged to backup their files. I'd like to encourage everyone who treasures their photos to participate, not just genealogists. Have you backed up your photos and genealogy research data lately? What are you waiting for, a major data loss disaster to strike? If you haven't backed up recently I urge you to do so as soon as possible. If you are up to date on your backup congratulations! Now I'd like you to consider how you are backing up your photographs. Do you use CD's? Did you know that new research indicates that DVD's have a much longer shelf life than CD's. For this reason I recommend that any photo storage you have on CD's should be transfered to DVD. However, this does not guarantee complete safety for your photographs as DVD's can also break down over time and there is no consensus on how long a DVD will last. Some manufacturers say 100 years, other experts say no more than 20 years. For this reason I also use an online service to backup my photos. I use Photo Express, a local photo/scrapbook store that provides unlimited online storage. You can check out the Foto Depot section of their site here for uploading and backing up photos, you will have to sign up to access their services though. Don't rely on only one backup source for your most important photographs. For more information on backing up photos to DVD check out this Epic Edits blog.

Junk, Treasure, and Scrapaholics!

Wow, has it really been a whole week since my last blog! I can't believe how this past week has just flown by. We have been having unbelievably good weather here and my husband had this past week off from work so we took advantage of the weather and did some major cleanup around the outside of the house. We managed to clean out 20 years worth of 'junk' from our shed. We actually have room on the shelves and can easily access our bikes now, which is fabulous now the weather is good enough for a bike ride. Unfortunately, I didn't find any 'family treasures' hidden away -- nothing but a truck load for the dump and a truck load for the thrift shop. Still, maybe someone will pick up something at the thrift shop and count it treasure. You know what they say, "One man's junk is another man's treasure'.

Needless to say I didn't get any genealogical work done this week but I did get some scrapbooking done today. Today I went to my first scrapaholics crop. Scrapaholics is a meetup group I recently joined made up of - you guessed it - Scrapaholics!! They have a monthly crop meetup and also do swaps. It was great, I did the Birthday Card and Ribbon Swaps this month so I now have 12 yards of different ribbon and 12 wonderfully made Birthday Cards - thank you everyone! I also got a great start on a wedding album I'm making for a friend. Maybe these will become a family treasure one day for her descendants. I've posted a few pictures below.

Oh, I did also manage to find time to go to a local scrapbook store that sadly is closing it's doors in a few weeks. They have everything on sale so I thought I would take a look. I picked up another great book. (Did I mention I love books and magazines ;o)!). It's called Modern Memory Keeper: A New Approach to Scrapbooking Your Family Legacy by Ronee Parsons. We must have been cast from the same mold because her approach to scrapbooking her heritage is the same as mine. Her introduction says "Long gone are the days of accenting precious heritage photos with bland papers and embellishments. It's time to shake things up by honoring your family's life and times with a colorful new energy." Although I love the muted tones of heritage colors I have long believed that the colors of today should also be used in our albums. I like to mix things up and I let the photos decide how. Sometimes those old victorian posed photos call for a traditional style layout with muted heritage colors but sometimes using some of todays brighter colors and fabulous paper choices that we have can really bring out the photo. Especially those ones of the unsmiling, prim, older victorian people - you know the ones I mean. It's amazing what a little color can do to add some personality to these pictures. Try it sometime and you'll see what I mean. As Ronee says "Toss out the rules of heritage scrapbooking and embrace a new beginning."

Here are some of the pages (8'x8') that I did today. Thanks for stopping by.

Our Family Photographs

Yesterday when I was out shopping I picked up a copy of Scrapbooks Etc. Photography magazine. If you're like me you want to be able to take great photos of your family that will become treasured keepsakes for future descendants. I'm always looking for ways to improve my photography, especially when it comes to 'people' pictures. I have no problem with nature photography but I struggle when taking pictures of people. I have a hard time getting the right lighting, the right pose (if I can even get them to pose!) etc. I try the candid or 'surprise' shots but never have great luck with that due to the slight shutter delay you get with digital cameras. I do like the fact that with digital cameras we can delete the bad shots, unlike the old film days where you had to print everything to get that one good photo. Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for tips for improving my photography. If you're looking to do the same without spending a lot of money I would recommend this magazine. It covers everything in very easy to understand articles as well as showing you how to use your great photographs in a scrapbook layout. Although I haven't yet had time to fully devour this magazine I can see that it's going to get lots of use. Two areas that I'm definitely going to spend some time on are in the section on taking better photos - candids and portraits. This week I'm going to challenge myself to get a really good photograph of at least one of my family members using the tips from this magazine. I'll show you the results in a future blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

Photographs and Scrapbooks

Hello everyone. In my last blog I tried to give you some ideas for ensuring that future descendants don't destroy all of your precious genalogical papers and hard work. We may be passionate about what we do but our descendants may not be. Karen commented that another way to preserve your papers and photos is to donate them to your local genealogical society. This is an excellent idea if you have a good genealogical society nearby. Your descendants can still look at the records by going to the society's headquarters and the society will make sure that your photos and documents are stored properly and preserved. I think I might do that with my box of documents that includes property deeds, citizenship papers, school records, etc. There's a lot of papers included in this box and I could see a future descendant not wanting to hang onto all of that paperwork. However, I think I'm still going to try to have the Vital Records Binder and One-of-a-Kind Photo Album passed down but I'm going to add to my "Important - Do Not Destroy" label a note to say that if they are not wanted to please donate them to the local genealogical society.

Tracy asked where I got the 3-up Pioneer albums that I use to store my genealogical photographs. I found these at Costco. They came 2 in a pack and were around $18. They hold 300 photos and I like these because there is a space for writing information beside the photos. The only drawback is they are not 3-ring so you cannot add pages or move them around. I haven't seen these recently so I went onto Costco's website and I see they now have 3-ring albums. However, these only hold 200 photos, but,of course, you can add pages. They are $19.99 for a 2-pack which is still a great deal. You can see them on Costco's website.

I definitely prefer to have 3-ring albums. I recently made the switch with my scrapbooks. It makes it so much easier to move things around or add pages later on. I like the cloth ones from American Crafts but there are many others to choose from. The one disadvantage I can see is if you have 2-page spreads that join each other then you would have the rings and separation between the pages. I do 2-page spreads but the space doesn't take away from them so I'm quite happy with these albums. As I mentioned before I keep 2 family history scrapbooks. One for my husbands side of the family and one for mine. The challenge is to tell the whole story but keep them manageable especially as I start to add details of my own life and my children. Which has presented the dilema of which album do I put these in? I'm thinking I may have to start a third album or try to find a way to combine my 2 current albums into one. When I originally started this I had planned to keep no more than 2 family history albums so that it wouldn't be overwhelming for my descendants. I already have issues with my everyday scrapbooking, LOL. I think I now have 10 different albums going. Two baby albums for each of my children, two schoolday albums, a sports album, two vacation albums (with one just for Disneyland) plus one for all our camping trips, a christmas album and an 'everyday' album. And none of these are close to done or up to date! They are all 12x12 albums, so they are large and bulky and don't fit easily on a regular bookcase. As much as my family loves to look at my albums I often wonder if they would really want them all after I'm gone. That's why I've always tried to keep the family history ones down to 2. I do this by not scrapbooking every photo I have. I try to pick only the really special or good ones or the ones that really tell the story. Baby photos, wedding photos, military photos, graduation photos, etc. are the most important. Don't forget photos of old houses, cars, etc. as these really tell the story of the life and times of the people in the photos. I try to include scanned copies of certificates as well. I don't use original heritage photos in my scrapbooks. I scan the photos and have them reprinted. This is also good because you can repair damaged photos and have them printed to the size you want to use.

Below are some of my pages. One is my father-in-laws baby pictures along with his birth certificate. Then there is a 2-page spread of my mother and father in-law. I asked both of them to tell me about their life and then typed up what they had said and included it on the layout. It is important to remember to tell the story. Journaling is just as important as the pictures...but that's another blog. Then there is a 2-page spread I did for my niece when she graduated last year. When I look at these examples I find it interesting to see how much scapbooking has changed and evolved over the years. The 2 pictures of my in-laws were done about 10 years ago. Scrapbooking was a lot simpler back then. I look at these layouts now and think they are rather plain. I think I'm going to have to go through my stash and see if I can embellish them a little before putting them away again. Oh, the woes of a perfectionist scrapbooker LOL.