If your phone, hard drive, and cloud storage are bursting at the seams, you’re not alone. Most of us are swimming in photos — birthdays, vacations, everyday moments, screenshots, duplicates, blurry shots… all mixed in digital chaos. And if you go back a few more years, before the digital era, you might have boxes of photos or inherited family albums lurking in a closet somewhere, too.
The good news? There are lots of ways to share those memories and have fun making something meaningful. With a few simple shifts, you can move from just hoarding photos to actually using them to tell stories, preserve memories, and create lasting keepsakes that can be seen and shared.
Step 1: Stop Trying to Do It All at Once
Here’s the truth nobody tells you: you don’t need to use every photo.
Start small:
- Pick one photo
- Choose one event
- Select for a week or a month at a time
- Organize your photos in folders and work through them one at a time.
Small wins build momentum. Choose progress over perfection every time.
Step 2: Change The Way You Think About Your Photos
We take and acquire photos for lots of reasons: Some are for our own quiet enjoyment, to quite literally freeze a moment and capture an experience in time, while others celebrate life’s greatest milestones and smallest, mundane parts of our everyday lives. Some photos are ours with the utmost importance, while others are inherited and cherished even if they have no meaning at all.
The mistake we make is attaching meaning to every photo we have.
Do something with the sentimental ones that bring you joy and let the others stay where they are (or let them go!)
Learn how to take more intentional, meaningful photos.
Step 3: Establish Simple Organization Habits
You don’t need a complicated system. Start with something easy and sustainable:
Try this:
- Organize by year and month
- Use event-based folders (Vacation, Holidays, Family)
- Rename folders clearly
- Keep one “current year” working folder
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s finding your photos when you want them.
Want more guidance? Digital Organization 101: A Stepped Approach
Step 4: Have More Fun With Your Photos
Photos weren’t meant to live forever on a hard drive or in a box. Each snapshot holds a memory or a story of a lost moment, event, or feeling worth sharing.
You can, of course, print them and place them in a traditional photo album or try your hand at something a little more creative.
1. Create Digital Scrapbook Pages
Digital scrapbook pages are creative memory-keeping layouts assembled using computer software rather than the traditional ‘paper and glue’ approach. A simple drag-and-drop approach combines photos, words, and artful elements on a digital canvas to tell stories and celebrate moments. Photos show what happened. Words tell why it mattered. And the art supplies are just plain old good fun!
Once finished, single pages can be printed as single pages and placed in albums or uploaded as collections and transformed into a photobook for sharing with family and friends.
Digital scrapbooking is the most creative and enjoyable way to revisit memories and preserve your family and travel memories for decades to come. Think of it as a form of visual storytelling and photo artistry where stories really come alive — not just what happened, but how it felt.
2. Make Photo Book Projects
Create or curate a collection of 20 or more digital photo pages or scrapbook layouts around an event or theme, and print in a professionally bound book format.
You essentially design each page on your computer using photos, typing your memories and stories (journaling) with artistic embellishment, then arrange the pages tell a larger story — such as a vacation, a year in review, or a family celebration.
Once you have finished making your pages, you upload them to an online printing service and choose your book size and cover style. The printer produces a high-quality book and ships it to your home. This is an easy and rewarding way, especially for beginners, to move from digital files to a tangible keepsake that can live on a coffee table where it can be seen and enjoyed for years to come.
Try this:
- Monthly recap pages
- Travel highlights
- Family yearbooks
- Heritage and ancestry books
- All about me projects
- Recipe Keepsakes
Smaller 20-page projects are approachable and deeply satisfying.
Learn the steps for creating a photo book from start to finish.
3. Go Digital With Art Journaling
Digital art journaling is a creative practice where you combine images, textures, colors, and words on a digital canvas to express thoughts, feelings, or moments from your life. Again, instead of using paint and paper, you work on a computer or tablet using simple design tools to layer photos, backgrounds, digital stamps, and text.
You can create freely without worrying about making mistakes because everything is editable and undoable. Many people use digital art journaling as a form of reflection, creativity, or self-expression rather than focusing on perfect layouts. It’s also a playful way to experiment and hone your skills with colors, digital effects, and techniques.
Finished pages can be saved digitally for personal enjoyment, printed, or added to your memory-keeping projects.
See this FREE Beginners Guide to Art Journaling
4. Digital Collage
Digital collage is a virtual way to creatively assemble a variety of images, such as photos, artwork, textures, and design elements, to create a piece of art. Instead of cutting and gluing paper, you use computer software and digital tools to layer, resize, blend, and arrange extracted images, elements, textures, and artistry on a blank canvas.
Digital collage can be a mix of scrapbooking and art journaling approaches. Personal photos may be combined with found imagery and digital art elements to create meaningful abstract or story-driven artistry. It can be purely artistic, cathartic, and deeply personal, often used to explore ideas, emotions, or memories.
Finished collages can be shared online, printed and framed, or incorporated into memory-keeping projects.
A photo book project plus a free collage pack
5. Greeting Cards
Your skills translate beautifully into creating personalized greeting cards.
Using the same tools and techniques—layering photos, adding text, choosing colors, and working with digital embellishments—you can design custom cards for birthdays, holidays, thank-you notes, or special occasions.
Work on a smaller canvas to create a folded card that can be printed, then mailed, or gifted. It’s a thoughtful way to use your creativity to connect with others while giving your digital projects a practical, heartfelt purpose.
Step 5: Build a Rhythm
Consistency beats intensity.
Do a little every day, week, or in a way that works for you.
- Develop a 15-minute weekly sorting habit
- Make 2 digital layouts a month and print as a book at the end of the year
- Commit to a monthly recap
- Create something for the sheer joy of creating
Memory keeping works best when it fits into your real life — and it is fun!
Remember: You’re Not Behind
There is the right way to tell your story.
- Start small
- Experiment to find what you enjoy
- Be consistent and patient — your photos are worth the wait.
You don’t need to catch up. You need to begin.
