We are so incredibly blessed in this day and age to be able to take pictures of anything, anytime. Almost everyone has a camera on them at all times, whether it be on their cell phone, their iPad, their video cameras or computers. Photos are snapped at school, work, on trips, in the car, at the park and in the home. Often those photos find their way onto Facebook or they are shared via Twitter and other media sites. These are priceless memories. But where do these images go after that?

Unfortunately not too many people are printing their images anymore. Instead, they are stored on computers, or maybe moved onto an External Hard Drive. Rarely are they being put lovingly into an album or finding their way onto the walls of homes. The sad thing about all this is that it leaves nothing behind for the future generations! Computers and EHD’s (External Hard Drives) cannot be completely relied on- they can fail at any given moment and your images could be lost forever! I often find it so incredibly ironic that our generation is plagued by the need to capture every.single.moment in life, whether it be with video or images. Advertising companies do a wonderful job of convincing us it is our job to capture these moments for our children. And really it is. But if we are going to be taking all of these images, we should also be responsible for preserving those memories. How can we do that? Here are a few tips:

1| Backup those images! Don’t store all of them in one place. Be sure to back them up on an EHD, use an on-line system such as Mozy or BackBlaze, and also burn the images to DVD. I store all my images on DVD at my own house as well as at another location to be sure that they are safe in case of fire.

2| Print those images! Put them up in your home so that you can enjoy them every day. There are so many wonderful ways to decorate with your prints, even on a budget. All the inspiration images below show you how to display a variety of your favorite images, and they’re easy to change out when you like.

1. Framed collage in a bedroom 2. Wallpaper with personal pictures attached inside the frames 3. 9 square prints in clear frames

4. Collage frames 5. Prints hung on wire with bulldog clips 5. Prints hung in a heart shape

3| Create albums. It’s a lot of work, I know it! I have found it’s a lot easier to do it in sections. I have created an album for each of my kids in a Costco account. Every couple of months I upload all their recent pictures and order them. One of the benefits of using Costco is that your images will ALWAYS remain stored- if you do lose your images you can always go back in and order those prints again. Also, Costco often has sales on their 4×6 prints for 10 cents each! When ordering, I always select the matte paper and turn OFF the color correct option. (note that I don’t recommend this for wall portraits! Costco is a great economical option for small prints BUT they are not a professional lab and will not print properly calibrated images) Whenever I have a spare moment, I fill in their albums. It gives me peace of mind knowing that their albums are always up to date and they LOVE looking through the albums. Their excitement in that alone makes it all worth it to me.

Another option for albums would be to completely skip the printing process altogether and create digital albums. I have used Shutterfly in the past and I was pleased with them. They have a large variety of templates for the albums (I chose a plain white template so the images would stand out).

So, won’t you join me in making the effort to get your photos off your digital devices? Do it for the future generations! I have my parents albums at my house and still love looking through them at time gone by. I hope one day my kids will enjoy their albums just as much!

p.s. I’d love if you shared how YOU preserve your memories! I am always looking for cool ideas to hang pictures around the home!