One of my 2008 resolutions is to become a better family historian.

You see, I still take pictures like I’m using an old 35mm. You know, film.

Here in the digital age, I should be taking thousands of pictures. Yet, I just snap one or two….per week. Ummm……what’s up with that?

So, to fix the situation. I resolved to print a weekly family newsletter. I keep my digital camera at the ready, and snap pictures of the most mundane things.

I think I have enough material for the 2008 week 1 issue!

Hopefully I will keep up the pace.

Do you keep a family newsletter? What program do you use to document all of it? Or perhaps you keep detailed scrapbooks done by hand? I would love to get some ideas on how to turn my newsletter into a treasured keepsake.

This week’s poll is up in the right sidebar- be sure and cast your vote.

Last week’s poll results can be found by clicking the polls tab above. Surprisingly, a good portion of voters are not sending out holiday cards this year.

Every year I am tempted to just skip the holiday card process as well - it would cut down on holiday stress. I still cannot believe how difficult it is to get 4 children to pose for a picture once a year. The arguments, the drama, the OPINIONS…. I am sure Santa didn’t envision this!

My December resolution is to take more pictures. Parents have the subjects to photograph but not the time (or the third hand to hold the camera! )

Once upon a time, I took tons of pictures. As the kids grew, I snapped less and less.

Usually my hands were full. Try as I might, I couldn’t juggle the babies and the camera. As they moved into toddlerhood, I couldn’t keep them away from the camera long enough to snap the pictures.

Now, I just plain forget to take the camera.

With the holidays upon us, I am making an early resolution to take tons of pictures during the month of December.

And while we are on the subject, does anyone have any good tips for keeping their digital photo libraries organized?

I don’t get much time to scrapbook.

Many of my friends have created beautiful albums. One for each kid, for grandma, for each year…. Yes, these ladies should teach courses on how they manage it all.

I have abandoned several approaches. I started by year, then tried by kid. And now I have a lot of half done albums. I don’t know if I will ever truly catch up.

A few years ago I came across a site called Digital Scrapbook Place. Every time I visit this site I get a shot of inspiration. Not only do they showcase people’s work, but they offer tutorials, articles and classes on creating scrapbook pages on the computer.

Once you complete the free registration, you can download what they call “freebies”. These are backgrounds (the digital version of fancy paper), frames, embellishments, word art and more. This is a great resource for the starting out. There is also a store with lots of good graphics for purchase.

The best part about a digital album is that, once created, it can be given to or shared with as many people as you like.

Before the age of digital photography we all used - film, remember that? Once the kids came along and I became a parent, the stacks of pictures floating around my house turned into mountains.Over the years I have tried so many methods of organizing these mountains of photographs. No matter what I try I still come across an occasional pack of pictures in the original envelope along with negatives (whatever should I do with those?) My filing system was as prehistoric as the film: cardboard photo boxes overflowing with memorabilia.

Recently I came across this wonderful photo box that I just wanted to share. Use the following link to get one of your own:
Cropper Hopper Photo Supply Case 4”x6” Prints.

It is made of plastic and includes 12 individual plastic 4×6 photo protectors (Think paper photo envelopes in plastic form) These protectors each hold about 70 pictures which means that the box holds about 800 photos. Also, there is space to slide negatives into the front of each protector. There are labels included for the top of each protector - I have labeled each packet by year (i.e. 2000 vol.1, 2000 vol. 2 etc.) This makes it easy to add “found” pictures somewhere in the middle by just adding another protector that year’s set.

Anyway, I have tackled my photo mountains! And, hopefully, I have given you some ideas on tackling yours.