One of the things that can interfere with scrapbooking is choosing which photos to print. If you are like me, you’ve got hundreds (or thousands! yes thousands!) of digital photos to sort through before you can even get to scrapbooking.

I can see you getting overwhelmed just thinking about it. 😉

Take a deep breath, and let’s keep this simple. Pick a set amount of time to work on your photos. Fifteen minutes. Half an hour. Last night, I decided to listen to a podcast while choosing photos to print. (Among other things. My ability to stay on task lately has been abysmal!) Then narrow down what you are going to look through. I chose to narrow my field to photos taken the first quarter of last year, when I realized I hadn’t archived most of the photos from last year. Then I started flagging the particular photos I wanted to upload so I can print or archive them. Here, let me show you:

Did that give you an idea on how to go about choosing photos to print?

I focus on choosing photos that

a: tell at least one story. more is better

b: show personality

c: make my heart go pitter-patter

I do NOT print every photo I take. Did you notice that I have 888 photos in just that quarter alone? I will never ever scrapbook all those photos. Never. And I am okay with that.

I don’t even print every photo I upload. Some of the photos I upload will not make the cut as far as printing, but because Shutterfly has free, unlimited storage, I use them as an additional place to archive the photos I love.

There are lots of other photo printing places out there. Choose one you love, and USE it. You’ll never get any scrapbooking done if you don’t have photos to use!

Don’t give me any excuses. You CAN do this.