Restoring Old Photo Albums into Pocket Page Scrapbooks (Part Two)

If you missed part one of this series you can find it HERE.

Initially I thought I would be able to do this project on my own in my free-time. 

Well, because I got the albums in November and they were still sitting in the same spot, untouched in May I decided to call in reinforcements. 

My mom, my sister, my sister-in-law, and my cousin came to my rescue. We planned a day when we could all get together and get this project done (or so we thought we could get it done. It turns out we'd need more than one day).

When we all get together it's a house full of kiddos. Between us we have 10 kids. I knew that this day would take a lot of effort and planning on my part to make sure we could be as productive as possible. I got all the supplies ready and spread out across my kitchen table. 

I got snacks ready for everyone. 

 Snacks for the kids

and snacks for the moms. Although I made a terrible mistake here and there was clearly not enough chocolate for the moms. I won't make that mistake again, I promise!

The first task was to get the photos out of the albums. Some of them came right off, some of them...didn't. This is where the dental floss and band-aids came into play. We used the dental floss to remove the photos from the sticky background by placing the dental floss under the corner of the photo and gently working the photo away from the backing. 

*tip: put band-aids on your fingers before you do start this process. Otherwise you'll cut your fingers from having the dental floss wrapped around your fingers, pulling against all the nasty adhesive and then you'll need band-aids so you don't get blood on the photos. You can thank me later. 

I did some research on how to remove the photos before I started this process and I chose the dental floss method. A couple of other recommendations were to use heat to soften the glue and then remove the photos. One article recommended putting the pages in the microwave. I was scared that I would scorch the photos or just my luck, they'd start on fire. Another article recommended using a hair dryer. Honestly, I just didn't want to risk heating the photos and having them get warped or scorched. The dental floss was a pain but it worked well. I only had one photo that tore and it was only a very small tear on the side of one of the photos.

After we had all the photos out of an album we scanned each one onto a memory card. As I said in my previous post, I used this Photo, Slide, and Negative Scanner. It worked amazingly well! It was so easy, all you have to do is feed the photo through the scanner! Really, that's it. You feed the photo into the front of the scanner and it comes out the back. When the memory card is full you replace it with a new one. Easy peasy! My only complaint is that it wasn't big enough to scan anything bigger than a 4x6 photo. I knew that when I bought it, so I really can't complain. It wasn't a huge deal because I only had a handful of bigger photos and I was able to scan them using my flat bed scanner. 

Pretty soon we had a stack of photos ready to be put into the new pocket page protectors and albums.

Make sure you stop by next week for Part 3 of Restoring Old Photo Albums into Pocket Page Scrapbooks where I'll have the final product ready to show you, as well as my grandparents reaction.

Here's another look at what supplies I used to complete this project.

Here's a list of supplies that I gathered for this project:
We R Memory Keepers Albums  
We R Memory Keepers Photo Sleeves
Photo, Slide, and Negative Scanner

Waxed Dental Floss 
Project Life Journaling Pens

We R Memory Keepers Journaling Cards 

Self Adhesive Photo Corners
band-aids

 

Restoring Old Photo Albums into Pocket Page Scrapbooks (Part One)

The day after Thanksgiving my family and I made the trek to visit my grandparents. They live about an hour away from our home, unfortunately we don't get to see them as often as I would like to. This particular day we ate, visited, watch some old home videos and then later in the afternoon we helped Grandma put her Christmas decorations up. As I was in the back of her closet getting Christmas decorations out I came across these: (which is why I'm telling you about what happened last Thanksgiving ;) 

SNAP Conference Review & Elle's Studio May Kit Reveal

 

When I boarded the shuttle to attend the SNAP blogging conference I was so nervous. I had never attended a conference let alone traveled by myself.  I had no idea what an inspiring event I was going to be a part of. It was nothing short of an amazing, life changing experience. Putting my experience into words hasn't been easy and I'm still digesting all the information and rereading my notes. Not only did I learn so much but I was able to spend some time with some wonderful, successful women. I was able to make some new friends and reacquainted myself with some friends I hadn't seen in a while.

I spent some of my time volunteering and some of my time attending classes. I sat in each class and at meals in awe of the successful women that were surrounding me and wondering what each of their stories were and how each of them had evolved into bloggers and professional women. 

I learned so much from them and also learned so much about myself. I've already started implementing what I learned and I can't wait to use all of the ideas that came from the conference.

One thing that I loved about the conference was how excited and willing everyone was to share their tips, techniques, successes and even their list of "what not to do." I shared a room with 3 bloggers who were so kind and willing to answer my questions. They all have amazing blogs. (Creative Green Living, Busy Mom's Helper, Elise's Pieces)

There was so much to focus on I've chosen 5 things that I am going to work on:

1. Follow-up: There were so many people I connected with I want to make sure to keep those connections by following up. 
2. Continue to review notes: I took almost 20 pages of notes throughout the conference. This is where most of my to-do list is coming from. I keep rereading notes and visiting websites of the class contributors. 
3. Say Thank You!: I have written a few but I still need to write a couple more thank you notes.  
4. Prioritize and Scheduling as in; working ahead, scheduling my time with family, blogging, scrapbooking commitments, and house work. 
5. Writing and Storytelling. Simply telling my story.

In true scrapbooking style, I created a mini album documenting a few memories from the SNAP conference with the Elle's Studio May's kit. I created small tag album (about 3x4). This kit has lots of fun bits and pieces.

The statement on this page of the album sums up the entire event. I can do this! ....and I think it goes without saying that I'm already making plans to attend the SNAP Conference next year
 
Thanks for stopping by today! Come back tomorrow for Let's Talk Tuesday.