It's Here!

My copy of the book Photo Freedom by Stacy Julian arrived today! I have been doing research on this topic for the last week and have learned so much already that I can't wait to actually read the book! My goal for the summer is to totally declutter our home and get better organized! Now, if my best friend Jane is reading this I can see her laughing and asking what clutter! Rick and I have become minimalists. At first glance our home may look neat and organized but hiding in closests and storage totes are years and years of accumulated items! One of the things I am truly overwhelmed with lately are my photos! They are everwhere: photo albums, boxes, piles on my desk and floor, and even my hard drive. When I get in a creative mood I can not find the pics I want or need. I have started the organization process several times by sorting my pictures chronologically and storing in photo boxes. However, because they were not in albums I had a tendency to pull them out to look at them. I would leave them on my desk with the intention of scrapping them but unfortunately many times this didn't happen and in desperation of cleaning my space for company those once sorted pics would get swept into another box to be dealt with later!

I truly believe Stacy's book is going to revolutionize the way I scrap! I am so excited! She states in her book, "When you have a master plan for sorting, storing, and tracking all of the photos, memorabilia, and stories that are meaningful to you , you can keep your energy focused on preserving memories." She has three essential components to her Library of Memories system, the foundation of her guilt-free approach. Her essentials are: three-ring binders that allow you store years' worth of printed photos in chronological order; four category drawers to help you find photos of specific people, places, and things; and finally the library albums that will house the completed layouts. I will definitely keep you posted throughout this process. This weekend I have purchased a couple of three-ring photo albums and have begun sorting all my printed pics into chronological order. I'm hoping to get all of my printed pics from 2003 to the present in photo albums this weekend. That is quite an ambitious goal so I better sign off now and get started!