Tag: Photo Organization

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Confessions of a Paper Hoarder

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – ORGANIZING YOUR PAPER ONCE YOU HAVE IT

Being a Paper Addict Has It’s Challenges!

Costing about 79 cents to $1 per 12X12 page, your paper is a valuable asset in your scrapbooking supplies. For that reason you need to find a way to protect it once you have it. While Creative Memories has awesome storage tools, it’s not the only game in town. Buy what you want, where you want to for your supply organization or even incorporate things you already have around the house, but don’t just leave the paper sitting around unprotected. And perhaps you’ll be smarter than me and not become a paper addict, so you won’t even need all this advice.

To protect my paper, I use various CM organizers I have bought over the years, but I also use a variety of boxes, envelopes and such I’ve repurposed for my scrapbooking supplies. For this reason, my studio is pretty low rent in comparison to those of other scrapbookers. They have special shelving to hold the cardstock and it looks just like what you see in the craft stores. Then they have another kind of shelving built to hold themed papers in their original packaging. They line it all up alphabetically and chat with one another about it like they are talking about old friends, instead of packages of paper.

Do not be intimidated by these scrappers. Your scrapbooks do not come out looking better just because you have fancy storage systems. You also shouldn’t buy up more paper than you will need in a reasonable length of time, unless like me, you just like paper. You do need some kind of system, so you’ll know where your stuff is and it won’t get damaged, but that’s the only criteria. As I’ve said before, it helps you get your scrapbooking done if you can designate a space in your house as your scrapbooking corner, but even that is not a requirement. It just helps.

My System

So, I have 10X12 papers I bought in the nineties, 12X12 cardstock and printed papers I’ve bought since then, and a whole lot of everything else. Any newly opened CM paper I have sits in a CM organizer, divided into plain cardstock, shimmer cardstock and printed paper and then sorted by color. I know the CM organizers will protect the paper because they are made with the same photo safe requirements. The primary reason I segregate my CM paper is because I do, from time to time, sell something to someone. You don’t need to be so fussy.

I also have my new papers from other sources stored in CM organizers. Many vendors sell their pages in a themed book, but I take them out and sort the paper. A smaller organizer holds papers from a ginormous book which would destroy the top edge of the sheet. I keep them separated, because I know they will not fully cover a 12X12 page and they are also not strong enough to be wallpaper. These are organized primarily by color, because there are no real themes. The rest of the non-CM papers I keep in a larger CM organizer, organized by theme.

All these steps just make me organized, but the sheer volume of my stash is a little ridiculous. It’s the rest of it that makes me a hoarder, but it also makes me very practical. I keep my scraps – all of them. Sure, if you’ve merely cut a circle out of one corner of a page that cost $1.25 almost anybody would store that page until they found a way to use the rest of it, but if it’s bigger than an inch, then I’m probably going to save it, too.

The pictures above are a sampling of my organized scraps, which I file by shape, size and color. On the left are the strips. In the middle are my small odd-shaped scraps. At that point, I am not as worried about archival issues. I challenge myself to use these rather than cut into a new piece of paper. It’s sort of a game with me. Cut new paper and I lose points.

Then on the right, behind my sticker organizer is a black CM organizer where I keep those sheet-sized scraps. This is not so much to protect them archivally as it is to keep them from getting wrinkled.

Do It Your Way

I have told you how I store my paper, not because it’s the right way to do it, but to give you some of my ideas, which might help you develop your own system. You may never see a piece of paper smaller than 12X12. You may always buy CM paper or you might never buy it from them. You may only have a few packs at any given time or you could become a full blown paper addict, like me. You be you.

These are the basics of paper handling and this is where you can stop buying tools and supplies, if you’d like. It’s all you’ll ever need to make beautiful albums. However, it just scratches the surface of what’s available out there if the scrapbooking bug bites you as hard as it has me.

Next week I’ll chat with you about the steps I take to build a page, which will by necessity introduce you to some of those other tools and embellishments you don’t need, but which will beg you to buy them.

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography

An Investment in Digital Memory Keeping

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – THE BEST PLACE TO STORE YOUR IMAGES

Who is Forever and Why Have I Never Heard of Them?

I have one very important thing I need to tell you and I need you to think seriously about it. If you aren’t paying for your photo storage, then someone is and you are the product. Even if you do pay for your storage, you probably have no idea what terms you acknowledged when you signed up and as soon as you stop paying, your photos will disappear.

I can hear you out there and you aren’t happy. You want to tell me why I am wrong. That’s OK. You’re thinking:

  • “I pay a lot for my iPhone/Android and this is one of my benefits.”
  • “I pay to store everything on the Cloud.”
  • “I pay for my photo prints/digital photobooks from Snapfish/Shutterfly/Mixbook/Mpix/Etc., so it’s not free.”
  • “Me and all my friends share photos on Google Photos/Drive and we’ve never had a problem.”
  • “I have a Prime account with Amazon, so I know you are way off base.”
  • “Well, I use Dropbox, so there!”
  • “I copied and pasted one of those announcements on my feed about Facebook not being able to use my photos.”

I hear you and I used to be just like you. In fact, I have lot of photos on my Android phone. I have two Dropbox accounts. I use Google Drive in my business and have shared on Google Photos. I have photos scattered across several photo printing sites. However, I haven’t fallen for the copy and paste stuff on Facebook.

Now, I have a question for you. Did you actually read the terms of the agreement you approved when you turned your photos over to whoever has them?

  • Did you give them permission to mine your photos for marketing purposes?
  • Can they sell your photos to third parties as stock photos?
  • Did they warn you they carried no responsibility if your photos disappeared?
  • Did they tell you they could compress and/or reformat your photos?
  • Did they tell you when you died your account would no longer exist?
  • Did they tell you they had the right to delete your photos whenever they so desired?
  • Did you read the part which explains when your photos become their property?
  • Do you know what will happen to your photos if they start charging for their storage and you don’t pay?

I could go on, but I think you are beginning to understand the problem. Now you are ready to consider Forever:

https://www.forever.com/ambassador/jane-sadek/preserve-and-share

It’s simple. If you aren’t paying for your storage with money, then you are the product. If you are paying for your storage with anyone one else besides Forever, you (or someone) is going to have to pay for it month by month or year by year from now on.

Only with Forever do you pay once and own your storage space. Only with Forever are your photos safe for your life, plus 100 years, guaranteed. Only with Forever can you be sure your photos won’t lead to advertising you didn’t want. Only with Forever can you be sure your photos won’t end up being used for marketing or on some stock photo site without your knowledge and to someone else’s benefit. Only with Forever can you set up a succession plan past your own lifetime.

In simple terms, the rest of those guys have set up their companies to turn a profit for their shareholders. That’s who they are responsible to, not you. Forever is set up completely different. They use the model of an insurance company rather than like those other photo companies. When you pay for your storage with Forever, most of your money goes into a fund to provide photo storage into perpetuity, not to the bottom line to satisfy their shareholders.

Forever has a lot of other services and they are happy for you to pay them for digitizing your physical images, printing photos, coffee mugs and other products, as well as selling photo photobooks. They’ll gladly pocket the profit of these activities, but if you buy storage from them, then you’ve purchased the best digital photo storage in the world and no one will ever have to pay another penny for it.

If you hadn’t heard of Forever until you read this post, that’s because they don’t have a marketing budget like the rest of those guys. They are sold strictly by network marketing. If you’re interested, I’d love to tell you more, including all the ways to save money on Forever products.

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

An Investment in Traditional Scrapbooking

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – WHAT YOU NEED TO GET STARTED

Last week I told you that if you were going to start doing something about your mess and you wanted to do it yourself, sorting was going to be your first job. I also told you not buy up any fancy sorting equipment, to just use Ziplocks and shopping bags. Most people spend a lot of time in this phase, from a matter of hours to a matter of months. At some point, you’ll need to start your scrapbook and these are the basics.

The CM Album

As I have said before and will say often, I’m more interested in turning your mess into memories than I am in selling you products. However, I do have some strong opinions about which products are best for your scrapbooking projects.

To me, few things are more important than the album you choose for your scrapbooking. I’m not referring to what color you choose or if you’d like it to be embellished or want to add custom printing to the spine or cover. I’m talking about choosing a Creative Memories Album Cover over anything and everything else.

I’ve been scrapbooking a long time. There just isn’t anything out there any better for your project than a CM album. You might go to the craft store and find something you think is cuter. You might go online and find something less expensive. I’m telling you, if my advise means anything, you will use CM albums, and only CM albums, for your scrapbooking.

Why? Quality and durability are the main reasons. You’re going to put a lot of hard work into your album and you don’t want it falling apart in a couple of years. No one else makes albums that will do a better job for you for a longer period of time. CM also has the patented Flex-Hinge binding. This means your pages are going to lay flat and not have some kind of obstruction between the pages.

You may have started some other kind of album years ago or you might discover you can’t resist that album you saw at Hobby Lobby. I will still be your friend and I will continue to help you with your projects, but I’m not going to be very sympathetic when the other album fails and eventually, it will.

A proper CM album uses CM pages and only CM pages, which automatically include your page protectors. The pages come in a variety of formats and I will be happy to help you decide which is best for your projects, but they are designed specifically for CM albums and if you don’t use them, you are compromising the integrity of your album.

There are a world of tools and decorative items out there that have nothing to do with Creative Memories. You will never hear a peep from me about using them. Get those embellishments from Stampin’ Up. Buy your tools from the Michael’s clearance rack. Go to Hobby Lobby for your stickers and papers. I don’t care. I find myself lingering in the scrapbook aisles, too. However, I do think CM albums and pages are your best bet.

One more thing – adhesives. Creative Memories Tape Runners are the gold standard. I’ve used everything. I’ve been known to run out of Tape Runner in the middle of a project and have not waited until I could order from CM. I’ve been given stuff. I’ve picked stuff up on the clearance rack and at the dollar store. Whenever I deviated from CM adhesives, I was always sorry. Like the pages themselves, there are a number of types of adhesives, the wonderful Tape Runners and several other items for a variety of uses. All of them are great and I use them all, depending on what I am sticking down and what I am sticking it to.

When I recommend you exclusively use CM products, this is what I mean. Get your albums, pages and adhesives from CM and no one else. To begin your project, you will need a cover set, a package of pages and a Tape Runner. This will cost you less than $75 and your memories will last a lifetime.

This is where you begin. The basic building blocks of a scrapbook which will turn your mess into memories. You are the most important ingredient in your scrapbook, but you’ll be glad if you take my advice concerning these items. Happy scrapbooking. Let me know how I can help. Next week, we’ll talk tools.

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Is Memory Keeping a Craft, a Hobby or Something Else Completely?

Jane Sadek
Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – IT’S NOT A CRAFT, UNLESS YOU WANT IT TO BE

I’m Not Crafty

“Talk to the hand!” Remember Fran Dresher? While people rarely throw their hand up in my face when the subject of memory keeping comes up, they do have several stock phrases they throw at me. I’m too busy! It’s too expensive! I don’t have time.

They generally wish they had sharable memories instead of their mess, but for a variety of reasons, they’ve already made up their mind to keep it on the back burner for someday. I do understand. It’s overwhelming and the longer you put it off, the more overwhelming it gets. I bless the day my mom gave me a Kodak Instamatic camera and a large leather scrapbook. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she launched me into a passion which would enrich not only my life, but the life of many others.

One thing is for sure. I was not then and I am not now crafty, so when someone uses a lack of craftiness as an excuse for not keeping their memories, I know it’s just that – an excuse. Oh, there are crafty scrapbookers. They cut out perfect little silhouettes with just a piece of paper and a pair of scissors. They draw really cute things on their pages, freehand. Their handwriting is gorgeous. Their pages are all about design and have more layers than baklava.

That’s not me. I have a passion for memory keeping and I know how to use basic scrapbooking tools anyone in the world above the age of five could probably figure out. I do have skills which make me a better scrapbooker than some people, but none of them have anything to do with craftiness.

It Can Be a Hobby

Whether you are crafty or totally not crafty, memory keeping can be your hobby. You can enjoy being a scrapbooker or a digital memory keeper without one ounce of craftiness. The purpose of memory keeping is creating a sharable format for your photos, memorabilia and words. You’ll need to sort what you have into some kind of organizational scheme, get it into the format you want and then journal about what’s there – whether that’s as simple as a short caption or pages of journaling. Where’s the craft in that?

If your memories mean a lot to you and most of us do cherish our memories, then making memory keeping a regular activity in your life is something you might enjoy. You’ll enjoy it more if you have a place to do it, so that you’re not packing and unpacking all the time. You’ll also enjoy it more if you have the right tools and accessories.

Here’s something else, as one un-crafty person to another; you’ll be more likely to keep up to date with your photos and memorabilia if you aren’t crafty. Crafty people can spend days working on a single page. They are so full of ideas that many of them create page after page without setting down a single photo. The craftiest people I know are some of the worst memory keepers.

Let Jane Do Something Else Completely

If you’d love to have sharable memories, but you don’t want a hobby or a craft, then here I am. Turn the whole darned mess over to me and let me fix it. There’s a good chance I might even care more about your memories than you do. I don’t just want you to have something you’ll enjoy and be proud of, I’m all about doing it right. While I am not crafty, I do have other skills that help me as a memory keeper and I am happy to use them for your benefit.

For instance, I’m a compulsive organizer. I can’t help it. I will stand in a store and straighten up their displays of merchandise or their rack of clothes. I can pick up something I know nothing about and figure out an order to put it in. It might not match the way some one else would do it or be considered the “correct” way, but it will be in order and it will make sense.

I’m also a story teller. A storyteller doesn’t merely catalog what they’ve seen or heard. They carve out the very best of what’s available to tell an engaging story. You don’t want to put every single item you can find in an album. It will be boring and redundant. You want the best pictures of the best and most important events to urge the audience on to the next page and the next page.

Through years and years of scrapbooking, I have developed an eye for graphic design and have a sense of color. You don’t necessarily need these for a good album, but they make it easier for me to do what I do. I don’t spend hours and days trying to figure out a page. I trim the photos, find some complementary decoration and slap it all down. That’s why I’m faster than the average memory keeper. I’m on a mission and I want to get it done.

You Want a Craft? It’s a Craft!

If you are crafty, I want you to know there’s an entire tribe of crafty people in both the traditional scrapbooking world and the digital world of memory keeping. They have worldwide online events where they share their crafty tricks with each other. They teach classes, they attend classes, they know all the apps and the websites. They invest in equipment I only dream of. They travel all over the place to attend events and conferences. They even go on retreats.

The purpose of this post is not to discourage craftiness in memory keeping, but to make the point that craftiness is not a pre-requisite for it. We can all do it, even if we’re not crafty. Time and expense are true barriers to memory keeping, but a lack of craftiness is not. If you’re interested, then I can help you get started. Just give me a call.

Then come back next week and we’ll talk about what it takes to get started in traditional scrapbooking. Don’t worry ,if digital is more your thing, we’ll discuss that soon!

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

That’s Too Expensive!

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – THE VALUE OF MEMORY KEEPING VS THE COST OF YOUR MESS

What Are Your Memories Worth?

Let’s talk worst case scenarios. Your house has burned down. Your family and your pets are safe, but everything you had is smoke and ash. You are grateful beyond measure to be able to hug your kids, but in the days to come, it’s not the new sofa or your smart TV you’ll regret losing most. It will be that box of photos under the bed.

While there are many families who face this scenario and other tragedies every day, I’ll agree with you, you’re odds are good. You probably won’t be a victim of a worst case scenario. You’ll probably go on living with your mess for decades to come. Along the way you may toss out those slides and home movies, because you don’t even have the equipment to access them anymore. You promise yourself someday you’re going to go through the photos in the box under the bed or in your phone, someday.

The real deal is most people don’t. They kick the can down the road until they retire, until they have more time, until they have more money, until the kids move out, until they hand the mess over to their kids or until they are dead and the mess is someone else’s problem. I have a challenge for you. If these photos and memorabilia aren’t important to you and you’re never going to do anything with them anyway, why not just throw them away or delete them now. Oh, you’re still with me, huh?

I know you have the best of intentions, but the tyranny of the urgent has a way of keeping us from addressing what is important to us. And then, too often, it’s too late. Your kids are looking for a decent picture of you on their phones, because the funeral is in a couple of days and they need a photo to put in the program.

Now, let’s talk best case scenarios. There was no fire, you have no mess and your memories are totally curated, tagged, captioned and safe for generations to come. Can you actually put a dollar amount on what that would be worth to you and to your family? The price of a vacation, of a boat, of your Starbuck’s habit, of a bigger TV, newer phone? You’re probably thinking nothing is more valuable than your memories, but you might still be reluctant to do anything about your mess.

Turning your mess into safe, shareable memories isn’t something that can happen overnight, but it can happen and it can happen more quickly than you might realize. However, it’s probably going to cost more than you want it to, in both time and money. Heck, these days everything costs more than you want it to and it usually takes longer than you want. When it comes to your mess the longer you wait, the longer it will take and the more it will cost.

What’s It Going to Be – Time or Money?

If you’d like to defeat the tyranny of the urgent and start doing something about what’s important, let’s do something about your mess. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There’s a sliding scale between time and money. The faster you want it, the more money it will cost. The more of your time you’re willing to invest, the less money it will take.

If spending money is the least painful solution, I’ll curate your mess it for $15 an hour and put it in the format of your choice for as little as $500 an album (an album is 24 two-sided pages). If you’re going digital, then you’ll need to also purchase storage, but I have a permanent solution you’ll love.

If you’d rather do it yourself, just because you want to, or to save some money, then get ready to start sorting. That’s where it all starts, whether I do it or you do. Starting is free. I’ll be happy to give you lots of free advice, too. Like don’t buy fancy sorting equipment. Nothing works better than Ziplocks and shopping bags – and if you don’t have any, you can borrow some of mine.

You can spend a fortune on memory keeping tools and supplies, whether you’re going digital or you prefer more traditional solutions, but it is worth every penny. Believe me, I know. Ask my husband how much money I’ve spent creating these scrapbooks to hold all our memories. If you really want to get him going, ask him how much profit I’m making in this campaign to preserve your memories. But be warned, you might make him cry. He’s figured out I do this for love, not money. It’s my passion. In the end, all we have left are our memories or a mess. I don’t want you or your family to be stuck with a mess.

Next week, I’m going to explain help you decide whether you want your memory keeping to be a hobby, a craft or a service you buy from someone else.

DFW Metroplex, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Digital or Traditional or Both

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING 101 – WHO ARE YOU DOING IT FOR?

Finding Your Who

What you have and what you want are important considerations for anyone tackling the job of preserving memories. Your time and money budget is a huge factor, too. However, the most important thing to think about as you plan your memory keeping activities is your target audience.

None of us are alike when it comes to the motivation for our memory keeping. Some just want to capture their child’s life to share when they are older. Others are heritage hunters who are tracing their family lines to other places or other times. People who are grieving often want to capture the memories of someone they have lost. There are also those who are looking into the far future, past anyone who is alive today, to someone they will never know, who might wonder about the past. These are just a few examples. Think about what motivates you and then let’s talk about what format would be best suited to your project.

Some of the most faithful Memory Keepers are like me. We preserve our memories for ourselves. There are no kids, grandkids or great grandkids we are doing this for. We are not famous or even infamous. We just enjoy our lives and treasure those we love, the places we’ve been to and the things we’ve done. We only have to suit ourselves.

Explore the Options

Memory keeping should never be a chore, so while your eventual audience is a factor, it’s not the only thing to consider. Whatever format you choose, you should enjoy doing it or you should find someone to do it for you. The one thing you should not do is leave your mess under the bed or floating around unorganized on your phone. My job is to help you get from your mess, to wherever you want to go.

There’s a very simple reason I prefer traditional scrapbooking. My husband and I run a real estate photography business. He’s the photographer and I do everything else. A whole lot of the everything else part is shuffling photos around my computer and the internet. I’ve tried digital scrapbooking, but it’s far too much like my day job. If digital scrapbooking were my only option, I too would just have a mess rather than shelves of completed albums I dearly treasure.

Example of scrapbooking

I am of the mindset that getting it done is more important than the way you do it and I know, whichever method you use, there are conversion options. I want to see people enjoying their memories and sharing them with others. If, like me, you’d enjoy crafting traditional scrapbooks, then that’s your answer. Create beautiful albums you’ll look at frequently and share them with others. If, at the same time, you think your target audience would prefer digital, don’t feel guilty about working in a format you enjoy. Do the scrapbooks traditionally and then digitize them. I can show you how.

If all the stuff that comes with traditional scrapbooking gives you the heebie geebies and makes you want to hug a tree, then you are a digital memory keeper. There are a variety of ways to embrace paperless memory keeping. If you think digital is your way to go, then you still have a lot of decisions to make. From streamlined online-only albums without any decoration, to elaborately decorated digital pages, there are great tools out there for being a digital memory keeper. Once you’ve done your digital job, then you can easily share it all with anyone having internet access. If any of those people would prefer something they can hold in their hand, then they have options they can pursue using the work you’ve completed for them.

And remember, if you know there’s no way you’re going to have the time, energy or desire to get this job done, regardless of the format, then you still don’t have to live with the mess or the guilt. One of my favorite things to do is take your mess and turn it into whatever memory keeping format you’d like to have. I love the excitement of finishing up one of my own albums and then paging through my completed project, but that’s nothing compared to the day I deliver a completed album. It’s the greatest feeling in the world for me and I’d love to do your album.

A Final Thought About Digital

In some ways, my passion for traditional scrapbooking is out of touch with the times. It’s a craft I don’t think will ever disappear completely, but I confess the results can be burdensome. I have an entire wall of traditional scrapbooks. My husband complains about them all the time and my nieces and nephews, who will have to deal with what remains of my life when its over, will most likely throw my beloved albums away.

So, I have worked out a digital solution for the future. It will transcend any changes in technology, it will not cost a penny for future generations to maintain, it is guaranteed for generations to come and it is also guaranteed safe from those who should not have access to your information and images. It’s not any of those familiar names like Apple, Google, Amazon, Snapfish, Dropbox etc. and we should talk if that’s where your memories are stored.

In the future, I will talk more about my digital solution, but in case my post inspires you to do something online with your mess, I wanted to warn you away from uploading to these well-known sites without being aware of their lesser known consequences. Come back next week and we’ll talk about your investment in memory keeping vs. the price of your mess.

DESTINATIONS, DFW Metroplex, Photography, Rockwall

Your Memories Are My Media

Jane Sadek

KEEPING MEMORIES: JANESADEK, SCRAPBOOKING ARTIST & PHOTO ORGANIZATION COACH

I’ve spent the last few years helping my husband build a thriving real estate photography business, but even though I loved doing it, I wasn’t living my dream. Over the last few months I began to think about what it would mean to live my dream. What would that look like? For those of you who follow me on one of my social channels, you already know how I chose to pursue my dream, but it’s time to catch my blogging friends up with my latest endeavor.

Scrapbooking Is One of My Things

I love to plan trips. I love to travel. I love history. I love to write. I love to scrapbook. These are not separate things. They are deeply intertwined with one another and each is a part of the rest. Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time is not surprised by any of these declarations. They are all a part of what I share here.

However, they were no part of my career choices, because that’s not the way you did things in my day. I have worked hard most of my life. My writing skills have helped me in my marketing career, but all the things I love to do were never on my resume or in my consideration when looking for work.

Looking back over my career, there’s been lots of success and I have enjoyed many aspects of the jobs I held, but on this end of my life, it was finally time to think about what most young people consider the most important part of their career search: What do I want to be when I grew up?

As I sat in my scrapbooking studio creating my scrapbook for 2019 I came up with an idea that sounded good. I wanted to create albums for other people. I knew people who built scrapbooking careers by teaching classes, selling supplies, holding events or even opening a scrapbooking store, but that wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I wanted to create albums for people who didn’t have the time, talent or interest in doing so themselves, not just sell them stuff.

I chewed on that for awhile, did some research and tried to figure out what a career in scrapbooking would look like. How many people were out there who would hire someone to create an album for them? Were there enough to keep me busy? What would people be willing to pay for the service? Would they want traditional albums or digital ones? How many albums could I actually do in a month? In a year? Could I build a profitable business out of that?

And what about people who did want to make their own albums, but they needed training or encouragement or just some tools and supplies. Then there were the people who really needed help saving their memories, but they didn’t want albums at all. Could I help them?

A Business Is Born

As I talked to myself, I thought, “I want to help people get their photos and memorabilia from wherever they are to whatever solutions the people want, traditional or digital, and I don’t care whether they want me to do it for them or they just want me to help them do it. I just want to help people get their memories organized and into a format where they can share them with others, now and in the future.”

It just so happens that our real estate photography company is called Spot On Images. Instead of inventing a whole new entity for the scrapbooking and photo organization, I decided Spot On Images would work. I just had to do it.

I decided to get my ducks in a row and introduce my new business venture on February 15th. Perhaps you already know that was the day the big ice storm hit the DFW area. So, if I was looking for omens, I might have quit that day. However, the official kickoff might have been February 15th, but I’d already been talking to people. One lady had already hired me to do an album for her. Others were ready to be my customers for scrapbooking supplies and events. I even had people interested in digital solutions to their photo dilemmas. So, I wasn’t looking for omens, I was already in business.

Since Bill and I already have a thriving business that we want to keep going, I’ve been rolling things out in phases. I knew back in February, I still had a few more posts on my blog to catch everyone up to date in my travels and adventures, so I put off this phase of my introduction. Consider yourself up to date and this your invitation to look into my new venture.

If you wonder exactly what a scrapbooking artist and photo organization coach could do for you, then you should follow this link: Why Do I Need Jane? If you’re interested specifically in scrapbooking, you should look at this page: SCRAPBOOKING. If you’re wondering what kind of digital solutions I offer, then this is your link: PHOTO ORGANIZATION.

Next week I will be kicking off National Scrapbooking Day with a 3-Day Celebration and Workshop in the amenity center of my neighborhood. If you are in the DFW area, I’d love for you to join us. We’ll be memory making in traditional and digital formats while having a whole lot of fun. Just give me a call or text at 972-971-5263 or email me at janesadek@gmail.com.

If you really don’t care and just want to read about my next adventure, then come back next week. I’ll tell you about it!