see other post "need encouragement" for ideas...

this is my most recent project, so I feel the need to respond.

For the most part I keep my pics in albums: I have one set for me & DH, then I keep one per year for each kid (only two kids!). However, with both of us working (until very recently!) I have gotten sort of backlogged. Finally this weekend I decided to bite the bullet and dive into organizing the cumulation of mountains of pics.

I now have three photo storage boxes: one for our albums, one for son and one for daughter. Within each box, I have tabs (to et me caught up, I have Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter for the last two years, plus a Vacation one, an Old PIcs one, and an Extras one. Seems to me that you always end up with photos that really don't rate for albums, but you don't want to throw out. This way I can easily pull for albums, then keep whatever others for later use (graduation stuff, wedding showers, etc) With the tabs it makes "filing" quick and easy.

I also have a box with tabs for "To Be Mailed" and "To Be Framed". Whe you mail out notes, makes it much easier to know if you have enough copies of a pic for mailing.

These boxes don't take up much space, and for me make organizing pics pretty straightforward. So I still have albums and extra pics, but I just can't bear to part with ALL my photos that don't make the album "cut", KWIM?

Our photos are in scrapbooks. Vacations and holidays are in a "family" book, then the boys have separate albums of their own (we have tons of sports pictures). Each boy has a separate Scouting album.

Extra photos that don't go in scrapbooks are kept in a photo storage box. It is common practice here to make the large 3-panel display boards for kids for "life events", so I've used those leftover pictures for confirmations, an Eagle Scout reception, high school graduation.