What to do with too many photos?

Ok... I love photographs. I'm an addict to photographs. Problem is I have tons of them, and I can't ever get myself to get rid of any. I want to scale them down so that if I had to run from a tornado and wanted to save my entire photo collection, it wouldn't be so hard to get it all.

I just keep thinking that if I get rid of a picture, I'm going to regret it later. I thought about MAKING myself get rid of stuff that is too similiar to other pics. I may be able to do that.

I also thought about just cutting around the important stuff in the picture, and making a collage... except I want to keep the backgrounds on a lot of them, and how would I make collages fit into a photo book?

I'm not into the whole scrapbooking thing. I just want a way to store and display my memories without them taking up so much space!

So I would appreciate anyone's ideas about what to do with a zillion pictures. I'm at a total loss here.

 

you may not want to do this because i'm not sure if it ruins the actual photo or not but you can get this stuff that looks like school glue and you paint it on the pic and then put it on a white tee shirt and the image will transfer. if you are just worried about not having the pics down the road why don't you hunt down the negatives and keep them in a box near a door or something?

 

collect up the ones you really cant part with, and have your photo album/collection. collect the rest in several boxes and keep them somewhere that will stay dry.

or
you can glue them back to back then you'll only have half as many.

 

Scan them onto your harddrive. Then pitch the actual photos. You can always re-print them later, if you really want them...

 

decoupage. some ideas:

turn the furniture in your room into a functional photo album. decoupage cropped pictures of your friends and family on your dresser, headboard, bedside table, desk, bookcase, lamp, etc. it would make it hard to carry it all away in a tornado, though.

make several small collages, and put them in wide wood picture frames decuopaged with more pictures.

make a hope chest, and cover it with images of your loved ones. make matching smaller boxes to put inside.

get one of those unfinished wooden photo albums from a scrapbooking store. put the pictures on the outside, and have your friends sign the pages on the inside.

christmas/yule/winter holiday ornaments.

this one doesn't involve decoupage, but it's a fun idea i've done with my son: get some clear contact paper. make several collage, and seal them between 2 sheets of contact paper. placemats! you can make smaller coasters the same way.

hope these provide some ideas to get you started.

 

Decoupage everything.Fans, lights, all wood, modems, anything.

Have fun.

 

What is "Decoupage"?

 

I Have absolutely no Idea..but!..i still may just have a helpfull idea...Gather up your essential's..the one's you feel you need ,you may need to be strong about this!...and gather up the non essential's and perhap's distribute them to Friend's and Family?..the close one's i mean.I'm sure they'd appreciate some photo's and most likely they'll be kept safe and would still be accessible in some way!..just an idea.

 

I was about to suggest scrapbooking... I wasn't into it in the beginning, but it actually looks rather cool when you have the whole thing put together, it's a beautiful way to keep your pictures... and it's pretty awesome for others to look through them. You don't have to spend tons of money either, a lot of my scrapbook stuff are cutouts from old magazines and books.

You can also frame your pics... get some cheap frames from a dollar store or IKEA or something... cover a whole wall of your favourite pics! That'd look rather awesome too!