So I know I take waaaaayyyy too many pictures of my son, but holy smokies is he cute! Now that we are in the digital age, I'm finding myself taking an obscene amount of pictures and fun video's.
What are some fun and creative ways you organize, short of albums and scrap books? I'm not so crafty (blasted!) but fair pretty well with computer programs and can be semi-crafty. My son turns 1 next month and I want a fun way to highlight video's and pictures, but was not blessed with organizational talents so am hoping you might be able to recommend some fun idea's!
Thank you!
On my computer I held them all in a folder that was organized by age. I have calmed down on the pictures since, but I have nearly one a day from birth to one. I also kept a "back up" on a picture holding website photobucket.com. There are also websites that you can submit your pictures to and they make the scrapbook/album FOR YOU! I am blessed b/c my sister is like the BEST scrapbooker but if ever I need it I know those sites are there.
I don't know about videos, but all the photo websites have great scrapbooks. Most of them have an autofill program, so all you have to do is pick out the pictures you want and it does all the work. I personally use snapfish, but kodakgallery has some nice scrapbooks and shutterfly has some nice ones too. I did a homemade scrapbook for my daughter's first year and the the rest of the pictures go in chronological order in photo albums. I also so a smaller paperback scrapbook of each year of her life. It's only 20 pages, so I have to be choosy with my pics. I'm not that crafty or organized either and this is the easiest way to do it for me. Also, I like having all my pics on snapfish. It's like my online backup if anything ever happens to my hard drive.
Windows has a free program that comes with some Windows versions and can be downloaded for those of us who have Windows 7. It's called Movie Maker. You can make slideshows, and you can add video files too.
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker?os=other
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?Family...
My daughter even made a stop motion vidoe with it and I made an end of the year slide show for our Brownie Troop. Have Fun! Isn't the digital age the best!
Update: OOPS the version we use is Windows Movie Maker 2.6 This might work better for you if you don't have Windows 7. Haven't used it so don't know how it compares to 2.6, Anyway, if the links above don't work, search on the Windows website.
I have used shutterfly many times to make ablums, it is super easy and they come out so professionally looking. Creative Memories also has some amazing software that you can make digital books (and get them printed) on. The look FANTASTIC but they are on the pricey side. I have seen friends that have made them and they are beautiful. It is also much more difficult or advanced, it's like buying stickers for scrapbookers but you buy the jpeg instead and put it in where you want it.
I upload all my pics to one computer and save the pics in folders. I have a folder for each year, then I have sub-folders for each month. I clear out my camera's memory each month after saving all the pics into it's folder. For ex. 2011, then 01January, and the pics are in order.
When I manipulate a pic, I save that pic as a different pic, designated with an 'a'....for example, PIC001.jpg is the original, then PIC001a.jpg as a manipulated pic. I do this so I always have the original, and in the sub-folders, the man. pics are next to the original. I never just name a pic since it will be out of order. I back this up onto a DVD yearly (sometimes more often).
I've found this works out great, since if I want to find a specific pic, I just need to look for the year/month and everything's in order. I can then upload to print out, knowing when I left off.
I am not blessed with this talent either A.. Just chiming in to tell you that you are SMART to realize this while your kid is so young and can still do something about it. One of my biggest regrets is not being organized with pictures. They are randomly scattered in no particular order or organization on my computer (for 9 years!!) and the task of organizing them now makes me want to cry. I know I have to do it just not even sure now where to start. I will be anxiously watching your replies!
Upload the pics to Shutterfly, Walgreens, Target, CVS so you can have them somewhere else. Make photobooks, DVD Movies or store them on CDs and organize the CD's by events or dates. You could also scan them yourself and burn them on your own CDs
