How To Declutter and Organize Photos and Keepsakes

If you’re having a hard time decluttering photos and keepsakes you are not alone! It’s one of the hardest to organize because we feel like it’s terrible to get rid of sentimental items. While it’s true holding on to special items is a good thing, it’s not worth filling a closet with papers and items never to be seen again! Check out six ways I stay on top of photo organization!

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Growing up, we moved often. This made for a lot of decluttering and throwing away. I most likely learned my desire for a clutter free home this way! Although I despise clutter, I have always had a passion for keeping track of keepsakes and photos/videos (without clutter). I love sentimental items and I love looking back at old journals, photos and letters. I went through and transferred all of our home videos from VHS to DVD as soon as this converter device came out. In order to keep track of all our older photos I scanned them onto my laptop in college.

Once becoming a mom, the pressure of keeping track of photos, videos and keepsakes had only intensified. I felt such a sense of urgency to figure out a method and make sure I was keeping track of all of the right things without keeping clutter never to be seen or appreciated again.

Recently I put some solid guidelines in place so I know what I want to keep and how. As our family grows, these “guidelines” may change and evolve, but for now this is what has been working for us. These are the ways I am keeping photos, videos, memories and keepsakes organized and I hope you can use some of these ideas as well! With spring cleaning in full swing, it’s a great time to start decluttering and organizing.

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ALSO if you want to dig deeper into decluttering your home you can grab my free room by room guide to decluttering below!

1) PHOTO ORGANIZATION

I have never had such a difficult time keeping track of photos until having my son. The amount of pictures we have taken is crazy. There are not as many pictures of me from my entire childhood as I have of my son in the first month! While I love looking back on these adorable photos I also don’t want to be overwhelmed and don’t think it’s necessary to have a picture from every day of his life!

So as I take these photos I always make sure to favorite pictures I want to keep. Periodically, I will go through and delete photos and videos I don’t need. Then I keep yearly photo albums on my iPhoto that will go into a photo book, printable, or video folder. 

The more you keep up with this (even if it’s every couple of months) the easier it is. Another thing I do to stay up on this is when I think of it I type in the day it is and all of the pictures on that day pop up and I go through those pics. If you do this daily or as often as you can it will really help you keep up with your backlog (and its fun to see the memories:)

A big key here is to try to declutter and know that you don’t need every second of their lives, when you have kept quality over quantity you are more likely to revisit them in the future. You are also more likely to actually do something with them!

2) BABY’S FIRST YEAR BOOK

I actually bought one or two baby books that I did not like, before spending the extra money on a baby book that I loved! There are so many out there and you don’t have to spend a ton of money to keep a sweet memory of your little one ( I am just a bit picky when it comes to this kind of thing!).

I’ve seen other people use these and I thought they were so adorable!

Lucy Darlings Little Camper Baby Book

Lucy Darling Celestial Skies Theme Luxury Baby Memory Book

As You Grow: A Modern Memory Book for Baby

I did decide I wanted to spend a little extra because I do LOVE a physical photo album and it’s something I wanted to display. So I finally decided to get the Artifact Uprising album and was so happy with it! It is such a beautiful product that has lots of great features. 

It comes with a beautiful pen, little photo stickers, and extra pages you can purchase (which I highly suggest). I love that it is a binder so you can add the pages easily and the cover is a hardcover linen, which is just beautiful. It took me a long time to actually dive into creating this album, which I regret. For my second child I plan to be a little more on top of it so I can write in it as we go.

However, I was able to look back at photos, journals and planner notes to remember fun tidbits to add. My son is now 15 months and I am very close to finishing this book. I printed all of my photos with either the Artifact Uprising app or one of my other favorites is Print Studio.

If you want a little cheaper photos, Mpix is another great option. Since I have already created the yearly album within my mac iPhotos, I can find several photos from each month and easily print them to add to the books. It was hard to limit it down to pictures that would fit in this book, but I liked the push to do so. These will be displayed in their rooms for awhile and will be so fun to look back at regularly. 

There is also a large envelope in it that I keep hospital bracelets, hand/foot prints, etc. I love that all the first year memories are in one place!

3) PHOTO ALBUMS: YEAR IN REVIEW

Aside from creating photo albums for your baby’s first year , you can also create “yearbooks”. Again, because you have done the work in separating photos from each year that are favorites, it is easy to create these physical albums. I love photobooks with the linen covers and they match the baby book linen covers from Artifact Uprising as well. The other hardcover photo books also look great on a shelf though and can be displayed well.  If they are not out on display, what is the point right? 

When I went to create the first year in review book, I looked at so many different websites. The Artifact Uprising has stunning albums but again were a bit pricey. Mpix offers a much lower price (especially if you wait for them to put out their 40% off photobooks sale!). Both are great options for photo books and I love that they are both thicker pages and that the albums lay flat. Shutterfly is another option but I wasn’t crazy about the quality of the pages. 

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4) PRINTS

Now that you have your photos and videos decluttered and in digital albums and photo books created or set to be you can also decide which photos you want to display in your home!

My favorite apps to print all of my photos, like I mentioned before, are social print studio, mpix, or artifact uprising. I love printing the 4X4 pics from social print studio or artifact uprising because they are an amazing thick quality. I then buy these magnet sheets and cut them out (they easily stick right on) to create a cute magnet. They will all look uniform on the fridge rather than clutter. It’s a way to keep up to date pictures in the house and I can alternate them often. They are also great gifts! 

Which ever way you choose to display your photos it is easiest when you have an album created for all printable photos on your computer or phone. I often go through and add pictures that have a printable quality to a separate printable album on iPhoto so when I need to create gifts or décor around the house I can grab from there. Prints are a such a fun gift for any occasion.

Even if you just print out a 4X4 and write on the back as a card. By decluttering and organizing pictures you will be able to do all of this and treasure your photos rather than being overwhelmed.

Any physical prints you have laying around you should either scan, toss or put in ONE box labeled photos. That way they’re not scattered, never to be seen or possibly ruined.

5) KEEPSAKES

Okay so photos and pictures can be overwhelming but if its all on your phone it can be out of sight out of mind. Keepsakes are a whole other issue. It can be SO hard deciding what to keep and what to throw away. If you are someone who says I don’t care about the clutter or scattered items because you just want to make sure you keep EVERYthing, than that is totally fine.

If not, read on.

I try and live by we can’t take it with us when we go when trying to declutter. Mostly because  mess, clutter or not knowing where something is gives me so much anxiety. It’s probably more than most! So, keeping every little thing our kids make, birthday cards, tickets or whatever it may be – is not going to help you feel better.

IF you want to keep an organized home but also have a hard time tossing things I would suggest taking a picture of it and creating another album on your computer called keepsakes. Or you might have keepsakes under each member of your family’s name. That way the memory is there but it’s not lost in a bin. Obviously there are things to keep. For me it’s handprints, letters from my brother when he was deployed, vows from my husband he wrote out on paper.  

As of right now I have small boxes set aside for keepsakes for each person. My husband and I have a box and each child will have their own.  My rule is that we have to limit everything to one box so we are not hoarding. So far, for my son, I have kept only the super special ‘firsts”; such as his handprints, first crayon picture (just his first and not going to keep all of his little drawings), hospital tags, first haircut certificate, special cards, etc. I want these boxes and albums to be special and not filled with too many things. When that happens it just becomes clutter that never gets seen.

I do have one small filing box with important paperwork which is where I am keeping birth certificates and other important documents. 

Find what works for you but have a system so you know where things are going.

6) KIDS ART WORK

I know I touched a little bit on this in keepsakes but I am adding this step awhile after originally posting this because I now have a one and three year old! The latest addition of keepsakes (and possible clutter!) has been art work. There are so many great options for how to keep either art work, school work or projects from your kids.

First I have two corkboards up in our playroom for each child ( I got this from Emily Ley’s book A Simplified Life, which is one of the authors mentioned in my favorite books for moms post here. This is where any current art work they do will go, its usually seasonal. If there is anything super special it goes into the keepsake boxes I have for each child.  All other things get raved over but then thrown out OR I will take pictures and add them to my album “kids work” to which I can get ideas for the next child or look back when I want:)

If you don’t have systems and boundaries in place you will just keep everything and be overwhelmed. We can also become too materialistic and worshiping items instead of enjoying life as it comes. A good balance helps to keep valuable possessions, that are fun to look back on but not overloading to a point of worship. I hope these ideas helped some of you and I would love to hear some of the ways you keep your treasures!