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Scrapbooking is more than a hobby. It’s a time-consuming, big-hearted passion and nearly infinite outlet for creativity. These works of art visualize people’s stories. 

The thing is, scrapbooks, just like photo albums, also take up space and collect dust. They feature people no longer in our lives. They can raise more questions than answers with the items they feature. And then, the physical reality – they fall apart. Read on for more on scrapbooking dilemmas and possible solutions.

Scrapbooking Dilemmas

They decay. The glue and tape decay and quite often that very same glue and tape damages permanently whatever it was holding in place. And then these damaged items slip out of place, and you may never again be very sure what went where, particularly if it’s not your scrapbook to begin with.

They are singular, unique. That means whether moving boxes get lost, your home has a fire or flood, or you simply lose track of them, they are easy to lose and irreplaceable. You can’t exactly go online and order another copy! (By the way, that can hold true for photobooks you create, too! Co-founder Ellen Goodwin was frustrated to discover she couldn’t reorder hers from a particular popular online photobook site because the specific formats are no longer supported. So sad.)

They are singular, unique. (Yes, we repeated that on purpose!) You can’t share a scrapbook. One person is the keeper. Who’s it going to be? You could offer visitation rights, we suppose. Or take turns? Just keep in mind that it is not the ownership of the physical scrapbook that matters but the connection it offers to the memories captured within.

They tend to be highly visual, with little story. Scrapbooks are often designed to have the stories told/shared by the person who created it as you page through it together. At best you typically get a description of only a line or two. The rest is just a visual walk through some aspect of a person’s life. So then if you inherit a scrapbook, so much history is truly lost. You are left to guess. The photos and items within cannot talk.

They are usually 2D. You don’t have audio or video options, unless you include a thumb drive, or similar, to support it.

How Can You Preserve Scrapbooks?

We went to four sources for advice on what to do with scrapbooks that are falling apart and/or have run their useful purpose: A parent of young children, a 70-year-old woman who is downsizing, a professional archivist, and the National Archives. We hope their tips will help you. 
 
THE PARENT.

I can’t help you! I gave up on scrapbooks after my first kid. It’s just too much guilt.

I keep some mementos in a fire-safe box for each kid, and the rest is in digital photo storage and the occasional photobook for holidays.

And, in full disclosure, I know one of the founders of Artifcts, so I adopted it early on. Artifcts is my go-to source for almost everything now, even the stuff that goes into the memento box I Artifct first. It’s too easy to forget what is what and which of my kids even made it. I write in pencil on the back of some things, but not everything. Artifcts is more reliable and fun, and they can take the Artifcts I create for them to college without embarrassment.

THE DOWNSIZERS.

“Scrapbooks were more time consuming than figuring out what to do with the entirety of my sewing room!” she told us. Here’s the downsizer’s version of events:

First, I had to find them. I knew I had two somewhere.

Then, I asked my two kids if either of them wanted the scrapbooks. That was like opening Pandora’s Box! I had never actually talked them through the scrapbooks, and they wanted to know more about what was in each. I had the mini-golf tally card from our first date. I even had music albums glued in. I couldn't tackle that time commitment right then because my kids do not even live near me.

I took the albums to a local camera store that has a special scanner and they digitized each page and gave it to me as a collection of photos on a thumb drive and they sent me a second version I could download from the cloud.

I decided to keep the scrapbooks for now. I want to record more of the stories that are in the pictures. I will give them to my eldest daughter when I’m done because she’s more curious about the family history and her daughter liked to page through them when I briefly kept them on my coffee table. Tell people: Do NOT keep them on the coffee table. It was a mistake. They are a mess!

A PROFESSIONAL ARCHIVIST.

Monocurate’s motto is “archives for all” and that’s how they work one-on-one with their clients. Professionals can help stabilize your scrapbooks so you can keep them for longer to share with the next generation. Guidelines from an archivist:

1. 1. Digitize them as-is.
   2. Carefully remove important items. Don't force it! Did you know … Sometimes people would repurpose books, like old phone books, to scrapbook. Upcycling is great, but may make for a bit more fragile scrapbook!
   3. Interleave the scrapbook pages with acid-free paper or tissue.
   4. Most importantly, stop scrapbooking.

It pains archivists to know the future of items consigned to scrapbooks and what the glues, metals, tapes and more will do to their contents.

THE US NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

The position of the Archives is clearest in this statement: “[Scrapbooks are] unique gatherings of material that are best preserved as a unit.” Much like archivists who work with individuals and families, the US National Archives suggests:

• • Store scrapbooks in cool, dry, dark places.
  • House them flat and in archival quality boxes.

• • If you "must" handle them, be careful! Put back anything that falls out, keep your hands clean, and obviously keep food and water away.
  • Do not attempt to repair scrapbooks you wish to pass on to future generations. Seek professional help or you risk further damaging what remains.
  • Avoid stressing the binding and contents by using copy machines. Use a hand-held camera or a face-up copier or scanner. Or, again, seek out a professional for digitization services.

OUR THOUGHTS ON SCRAPBOOKS

While you will not hear Artifcts say, “Stop scrapbooking!” we do strongly encourage you to think about why you scrapbook, what you hope to do with the product of your work one day, and how you can ensure that the stories woven into the contents are not lost.

We don't want your scrapbook and its memories in a trashcan someday, a casualty of too much stuff, too little space, too little interest in figuring out the stories and secrets it holds!

If you are taking the time to create the scrapbook, maybe take time to create an additional Artifct or two to go with the scrapbook, even if the Artifct is of the scrapbook itself, and is your story of why you created it, what it means to you, etc. Bonus, you can include audio and video and bring your scrapbook to life for the next generation.  

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© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Well, we kind of already gave you our top tips for how to Artifct photos to save the stories and the memories, not just the pictures.

But we’ve had so much interest in photos and are working with so many professional photo managers, we wanted to share with you our very latest advice, fresh off the proverbial presses! Our co-founder Heather Nickerson will be presenting a keynote speech on privacy on Saturday at The Photo Managers  conference in Orlando, Florida, so we thought we’d share some of her tips for protecting your and your loved one's privacy when it comes to photo sharing. 

At Artifcts we’re the complimentary force for good that will wrap a positive experience around your photos to ensure your key life moments will never be forgotten, are instantly organized, and are easily shareable, too.

Professional photo managers have told us that while working with clients there are always, always, always a small subset of photos, rarely more than 100 in a collection of 1000s that are people’s top hits. The ones that make them smile, bring them back to critical life milestones, fill them with warmth as they remember those people have passed through their lives. That’s what we’re about. 

Heather’s Photos + Privacy Top Tip

On that note, we give you Heather’s micro mini-crash course on photos + stories and memories + privacy. 

The guiding principle is simple: balance details with privacy. Consider leaving out details to protect your (or your clients’) privacy to keep bad actors at bay, especially if sharing publicly. Avoid: 

• Addresses. Let’s not help the stalkers out there! 
• Full names. Use your discretion, others might prefer privacy. Did you know ... when you mention someone in an Artifct using @, it shows their screen name only? Privacy!
• Account/ID numbers. Best shared privately via a digital vault, like Keylu, one of our Allies in 'Stuff.'
• Specific dates. Yes, they’re public record, but you don’t have to make it easy to find birth dates, anniversary dates, and similar all in one place.  

Want to See How It Works? 

Check out these Artifcted photos in @Heather’s personal collection, each balancing details and privacy:  

• A baby photo worth sharing.
• A surfing story and the photos to prove it.
• Photo of a favorite moment, missing some details. 

Share your own photo Artifcting experiences with us! Post a video on Instagram (tag @theartilife) or Facebook (tag @Artifcts) or write to us at Editor@Artifcts.com. Maybe we’ll feature your story.

Happy Artifcting! 

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While we’re on the photos theme, check out these related ARTIcles by Artifcts:

A Virtual Impossibility: Keeping Up with All My Digital Photos 

Let’s Talk Photo Negatives and VHS Tapes 

Rescue Mission: That’s More than a Photo! Artifct That! 

The Importance of Digitizing Your Old Photographs, Documents, and Other Photographs 

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© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It was Always the Sentiment that Counted

It’s probably the rare person that sends of a card, note, or letter thinking, “He better keep this forever!” Instead, we simply want people to know we’re thinking of them. It’s that simple. But we tend to hold on to these items, rereading, framing, and storing, like a security blanket. That person, those thoughts and memories, are always there waiting for us to return to them. 

And yet we know how imperfect our memories are at any age. We know, too, that life can be messy. Whether through moves, mother nature, or otherwise, these documents that might be only sentimental — or could contain bits of your personal, family, or even world history — are vulnerable to decay and loss.  

Artifcters have shown us many ways to capture these notes and cards, and the memories behind them, and we hope they can inspire you:  

• Photo of a particularly special letter from grandma + PDF of all the scanned letters + an audio of you or her reading the letter.  
• Your farewell card signed by colleagues + individual notes a few people emailed you + details about that job and where you were off to next! 
• Photo of the card your husband gave you + a picture of the flowers that accompanied the card + the story of that first Valentines together.  

 It's something about evidence of the everyday that means even more when our loved ones are no longer with us.

Don't Forget! 

Letters tend to uniquely capture what seems like the everyday but becomes so much more meaningful and revealing with age! If you were the only one that wrote letters with your grandpa, consider privately sharing those Artifcted letters from your grandpa with your family. 

Consider Artifcting cards as groups – holidays 2022, birthday 1995, Mother's Day cards through the years, etc. It’s an efficient way to Artifct and it's fun to see them together and how they change over time! 

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Have another tip or approach for cards & letters? 

Share on social media or write to us at Editor@Artifcts.com.  

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© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Allure of “a Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words” has Tricked Us! 

One month from now, you’ll remember the outlines of the day when you took that photo because it rained hard, you and the kids got lost, and you packed only one of the camp chairs. One year from now it might become a generic, “We went camping at Eagle’s Nest last year.” And a decade from now it could be, “We used to camp a lot.” Which story do you want to hear? Which tells you more about the moment, the people, and the colorful, painful, humorous facts of life? 

Digitization has made keeping all those moments simpler than ever, but making sense of them in our lifetimes, never mind a generation from now feels hopeless sometimes. That’s where the easy act of creating an Artifct comes in.  

• Old photo of mom in a tennis dress + mom’s voice telling you about it 
• Three jokester guys sitting on a fence + names and dates on the back of the photo + who they are to you, where that fence is, and why they were there together 
• A picture of a random skyscraper + you on its top floor smiling at the camera + the story of your first visit to the UN in NYC and how it inspired your career 
• A photo of your family living room + special items within the room + story about your childhood home 

Don’t Forget 

Work on digital photos bit by bit, but certainly start with the newest before you forget the details. Trim your massive collection by removing duplicates, generic landscapes, and pictures of people you don’t know or don’t like. And, yes, it’s okay to throw away pictures of your former in-laws that you haven’t spoken to in 20 years. 

Are we talking old photos, as in generations before you? Consider Artifcting the collection – you can take a new picture with several old ones captured in it – and sharing to a family invite-only circle on Artifcts, giving members edit access to the Artifct to add details they know about the old photos. 

Before you digitize old photos, negatives, and the like, read our story on ARTIcles by Artifcts. And if you need help, consider hiring a Professional Photo Manager.  

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Have another tip or approach for photos?  

Share on social media or write to us at Editor@Artifcts.com.  

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© 2023 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When was the last time you pulled out that box of photo negatives, or rifled through your family’s vintage home video collection? If you’re anything like me, the answer could even be never. Yet, I haven't had the heart to toss any of them out.

Over the last 20 years, I have carted around from state to state, house to house, a plastic bin full of film negatives and VHS tapes with family home videos my parents took with the original giant camcorders that you propped on your shoulder. I realized some of them were testing their lifespans. Tapes degrade, first getting dark, then with the color shifting and bleeding. If you were lucky and chose high-end tapes, you might have bought yourself a bit of time but don't count on it. The audio may be the best of what remains on those tapes. Negatives are the same story, especially when stored in their original packaging.

(Above) A few home videos lost in the mix of old VHS tapes where no one has a hope of viewing them.

Enough was finally enough. I wanted to reclaim every last bit of space in my limited closets, protect my negatives and tapes from complete loss, and share the results easily with friends and family. Decision made, I dropped off my collection at the offices of preservation and digitization specialist Monocurate. (Yes, I'm lucky, no shipping required!)

Why are you choosing to digitize?

Actually, back up. Before I dropped off the negatives and VHS tapes, I casually looked through the negatives. Glad I did! A quick review helped me come to terms with what I wanted out of this digitization work. Why bother with digitization?

Cost. At between $0.40 and $1 per negative (usually according to volume) for basic digitization, it can cost a small fortune to digitize an entire collection! Just think, I only had a 3.5 x 12.5 bin of negatives, organized inside the original envelopes the processor returned them to me in. What if my parents wanted to digitize their boxes, boxes, and still more boxes of negatives?

Relevance. Then there’s the fact that somewhere in the mix was old boyfriends. I did not want to pay to digitize every part of my history. Some history is better left to faded memory. I tried to quickly hold up the negatives to the light and remove those from the collection.

Quality. To top it all off, many photos frankly weren't even very good, because they were blurry, too dark, etc.

Well, I already told you, I brought the negatives to Monocurate anyway. I simply decided that the investment was worth the couple dozen or so digitized photos buried in the collection that would be worth their weight in sentimental gold. Within two days I had an itemized estimate. It detailed my options for digitized formats along with all the other lovely details about what to expect. I was shocked by how many negatives were in my very small bin once Monocurate itemized them. I confirmed I was ready to digitize the negatives and home videos, signed the digital contract, and let the wait begin.

The Results

Before I even looked through the photos, I jumped directly into the videos. I knew that 30+ years was too long to expect much.

The results were still exciting. Seeing yourself as a kid. Seeing your siblings and parents from your now adult perspective. Seeing family members who are no longer with you and hearing their familiar voices. Or learning, "So, that's when I got that special doll!" Or, "Ha! The truth about what I thought of my first day of kindergarten." I don't even have that on video for my own daughter. And that was actually the key for me. It was really interesting to see which moments my parents each chose to videotape, from the ordinary of hauling wood, painting the house, feeding the sheep, and playing with our outdoor cats and dogs to the special, like when family would visit from Illinois, there was enough snow for cross-country skiing in the yard and sledding in town, and Christmas holidays.

Then, the photos. With the videos I was ready for the feeling that technology has changed. The photos took me by surprise. I wasn't thinking about how much less crisp and life like they would be compared to modern digital-native photos. My hopes for a few worth their weight in sentimental gold, however, was met. Kodak moments from ages 16 to 26, digitized.

Beyond the obvious rewards of having these videos and photos digitized as I'd hoped, I learned a lot in this process about understanding my motivations, as already described above and the ins and outs of selecting the right company to bring my media to for digitization. Here's my parting gift to you all in the form of a few quick tips if you are considering digitization.

QUICK TIPS

Before you Digitize

Avoid disappointment when digitizing negatives and tapes by getting clarity on each of the following four points before you hand over this sentimental gold.

1. Find out the digitized formats and resolutions your files will be provided in. Avoid proprietary formats. Guidelines from Monocurate:

Photo negatives. Look for .JPG or .JPG2 files at 72-300 DPI resolution (depending on the use case). If you want .TIFF format (at 600+ DPI) for any reason, who knows, maybe you're putting up a billboard, make sure you ask!

VHS tapes. The goal here is avoiding a result that is squished, stretched, or fuzzy, coloring that is not calibrated to look like the original, and has audio missing or not synced. (Many companies will not even digitize sound on film and may not warn you in advance!) So, look for high resolution, high bitrate, no/minimal compression, with audio sync. Your new VHS files should be around 352x480 resolution; S-VHS will be around 704x480 resolution (same as hi8). You can't really convert VHS to HD, much less 4k, with current technology, so watch out for claims in that regard.

It's worth repeating: Know that you may be too late and the video image quality will be so deteriorated that the sound quality is the best of what remains. Is it still worthwhile to digitize? Only you can make that judgement call.

2. Do you want the originals returned?

Be sure to confirm they will be returned if you want them and the cost, if any, to you for shipping or local delivery.

3. Where will the work be done and by whom?

Is digitization performed onsite or shipped out (with some additional risk of loss)? Are the personal devices of employees and visitors to the facility kept outside the work area? No one wants their private videos or photos leaked.

4. Do you want basic digitization of your media "as is," or do you need organization and touch up, too?

If the negatives are jumbled mess, do you need them organized and an index created? Do you want to first have dust build-up, grime, etc. removed to capture a clean copy? Archival indices and preservation are not typically the work of big box digitizers. If you think your collection needs some love, look for preservation and archival specialists who offer digitization services, like Monocurate, who is a member of the Artifcts partner network. 

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Consumer warning: By going through the process to digitize personal negatives and VHS videos, we were disappointed repeatedly by the fine print and general lack of detailed information of some popular, mainstream online digitization services companies. Read the fine print. Check reviews and FAQs. Know what is important to you and make sure the services match your expectations. If you have any doubt, write and ask questions before you send off your materials for digitization.

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© 2022 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In August, my daughter and I visited Cape Cod. A first for each of us! It is the childhood home of Artifcts co-founder Heather Nickerson, and she and her daughter were the perfect hostesses for this quick getaway. My vacation photo collection included:

• • • Whale sightings (94 pictures) 
    • Our daughters playing on the beach and posing at the lifeguard station (16) 
    • Sunset on the harbor (12) 
    • Ptown art alley (18) 
    • Marshlands (11) 
    • Random things that made me smile, like a brass King Neptune figure with sign “Mermaids welcome” and the quintessential lobster lunch (22) 

You get the idea.

Three days and 202 photos later, we were departing Cape Cod on our return journey home to Austin. 

Where was I supposed to start with all those photos? On the plane, I did two things: culled and refined. I culled the near duplicates as well as the less than stellar and the “Why did I take that?” images. 

Clearly I did not want to miss my chance to photograph the whales.

After scrubbing as many photos as I could, I color and size adjusted several photos that I particularly liked and marked them as favorites to further distinguish them.    

Now what? What do you do with all the digital photos that are so very easy to accumulate?  

Do you post albums to social media and then move on to some new post once the commentary dies down? Or push them into whatever cloud or other storage device you prefer, and look back through them only for the occasional calendar, enlargement, or holiday card? Perhaps send a few to lucky friends and family through one of those digital picture frames? 

I’m choosing to follow the model of Rainer Jenss, who used Artifcts earlier this summer to chronicle his trip through southern Africa day-by-day and creating composite Artifcts to represent the three days we spent on Cape Cod. Each Artifct captures something special, memorable, or otherwise, “Let’s do that again soon!” endorphin-rush worthy. 

I’ve shared these Artifcts with family, with our hosts so they know how special it was, my daughter (so she’ll always remember), and a few close friends who asked me for travel tips for their upcoming visits to the Cape. Bonus! These Artifcts will also make it easier to retrace our steps the next time we visit. One set of Artifcts, so many possibilities.  

Check out my public Cape Cod Artifcts as you consider how you want to easily and meaningfully manage your growing digital photo collection, even if it's one trip at a time! 

Happy Artifcting! 

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© 2022 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.