{Hard Copies}

You -- if you're like most people in the 21st century -- probably have way more digital

photos then you have printed ones.

I was right there with ya. But it occurred to me, I put a lot of effort into documenting and

trying to get good shots. Those photos shouldn't be buried in a external hard drive or

electronic folders that are only ever seen by me. They're part of our memories and our

story. I wanted to be able to physically flip through hard copies.

So, I made a goal for myself to get photos printed and put into albums during the month

of March. Progress has been made! I ordered a ton of 4x6 prints -- over 800 -- from

pictures I took primarily in 2009 and 2010. Then, I put them in this album ($13 at

Walgreens). It has space for 500 4x6 photos.

Look at all these glorious pages filled with actual pictures! This album contains 475

photos, in all. (I left spaces in it to create titles and make notes.)

To keep it easy on the eyes, I made sure the photos on each page were either all

horizontal or all vertical.

Pretty much each page or set of pages has it's own topic. I had to do a little counting and

preplanning to accomplish that. It gives the album a sense of organization. And I tried to

get a good variety too -- events, people, pets, and artistic snapshots, etc.

Finally, I was able to use up a bunch of letters and stickers in my stash by making simple

titles on some of the pages.

This album is 100% complete. (I'm so pumped about that, and I've looked through it well

over a dozen times.) I've started a second one that has 199 pictures in it, and it's ready for

more. I still have to do the title inserts and notes in this book. I'm hoping to actually keep

up with photos as I go in 2011.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out my little project!