beesy06
Shy Member
Posts: 18 
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Post by beesy06 on Mar 9, 2015 0:27:46 GMT
Hi all, I have a bunch of random photos of me from my childhood/early adulthood that I want to scrap. Thing is, I have no idea of dates or even years. Some of them are even photos of me in front of a birthday cake and I have no clue how old I am (can't count the candles either).
Do you still scrap them, and if you do, what do you say on the journaling? I don't want to let that stop me from putting them on a layout.
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Chinagirl828
Drama Llama
Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 6,688
Jun 28, 2014 6:28:53 GMT
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Post by Chinagirl828 on Mar 9, 2015 2:26:01 GMT
I have. The first thing I did was try to put them into a rough chronological order. You might have trouble identifying how old you were in a photo when you look at it individually but if you lined up all those birthday shots you could probably make a reasonable guess about the order they were taken in and may be able to narrow down an approximate age by using surrounding photos as a guide.
I don't necessarily tell a story about the specific photo in my childhood albums but sometimes something in the photo will spark a memory. I have a random photo of me standing in front of the stereo in our lounge room at home. I have no idea what the events surrounding the photo were but the photo can still give me multiple layouts: how my grandmother used to make a lot of my clothes, the songs I used to listen to, how one Christmas when I was sick Dad got a new stereo which he set up on Christmas Eve so my siblings thought Santa had brought it (I probably ruined Dad's plan to have us all think that by being up most of the night), and how I used to ride the purple toy dog that can be seen in the corner of the photo.
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Post by mikklynn on Mar 9, 2015 3:44:33 GMT
I mostly want to identify people in the photos and as much information as I can find or remember. I often make a guess at the year. I'll say "circa 1965" or maybe say "1995 or 1996". I imagine as I get to older photos of relatives, if I do, I might say "mid 1950's" or something similar.
I would not let a missing date stop me from scrapbooking the photo.
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beesy06
Shy Member
Posts: 18
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Post by beesy06 on Mar 9, 2015 10:33:29 GMT
Thanks ladies, I love the ideas you gave me. Really appreciate your responses.
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Post by myboysnme on Mar 9, 2015 13:29:51 GMT
I am currently working on my teen years, and having so much fun doing so, even though it was a painful time in my growing up. Like Chinagirl, sometimes I journal a story that might have nothing to do with the photo - just something I remember. If it is a photo of my birthday and I'm not sure which one, I journal how we celebrated birthdays in my family, my favorite cake, a memory of a party I once had. If it is just a photo I might comment on the furniture I remember, or the fashion at the time.
I also use lots of theme elements. I've been collecting '70s related papers and such for years, and it is fun to bring my pictures, often really bad photos, to life with my paper choices and embellishments.
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Post by Dictionary on Mar 9, 2015 16:08:21 GMT
I am with the above poster, do your best to put them in chronological order, it really doesn't matter if you are off here or there. I would journal feelings about the photo or any happy memories you have around that time, doesn't have to be specific to a birthday party per se. Maybe it's your favorite flavor of cake or how you enjoyed getting together with family and friends to celebrate or best present you ever got, really anything works..you are just journaling your history down so others who come after you will get to know who you were, etc.
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Post by stefdesign on Mar 9, 2015 16:09:01 GMT
You might also ask other family members if they have any other information or memories of those photos. They might not remember any better than you, but on the other hand, might give you details about background items, family history, etc that you might not know or remember due to your young age. For example, if there are others in the photo, a sibling or cousin or other family member might have details that will help identify it, like "Janie is in that photo, it must be 1972 or 73 because her family moved away in 1973." I also use hairstyles, fashions, color combinations, etc to help identify the time frame of photos. For example, I know I stopped wearing a ponytail in the 6th grade. Therefore, that photo of me with the pixie haircut must have been taken in the 7th grade. One photo of my older sisters I was able to identify by scanning it, blowing it up, and checking online for the age of a Saturday Evening Post magazine I could see in the photo. It wasn't clear enough to see the date, but I could see enough of the basic design that I could identify it from an online gallery of Post covers. It's fun to be a detective! You can read more about it here! |
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beesy06
Shy Member
Posts: 18
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Post by beesy06 on Mar 10, 2015 11:42:58 GMT
You ladies are so inspiring! I now have renewed vigour for scrapping those undated photos from childhood. And I have some lovely Crate Paper collections like Random and StoryTeller that are just perfect to compliment the photos. Winning!
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Mar 10, 2015 12:46:06 GMT
I mostly want to identify people in the photos and as much information as I can find or remember. I often make a guess at the year. I'll say "circa 1965" or maybe say "1995 or 1996". I imagine as I get to older photos of relatives, if I do, I might say "mid 1950's" or something similar. I would not let a missing date stop me from scrapbooking the photo. Exactly! If I don't know a date, I hazard a guess at a decade. I write down any info I do know in journaling bullets. I'll write if I know who is in the photo, where the photo was taken, what we were doing, why we were together. But even if I didn't have any of that info, I'd scrap it and write why I wanted to scrap it. Why it was important to me. |
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Post by Kate * on Mar 20, 2015 2:06:14 GMT
How lucky you are to have those precious photos even if you don't know all the details surrounding them. It could be fun to go back and fill in what you can remember, maybe fill in with product photos from that era. Lots of great help here, it's inspiring me too (I have a gazillion years of photos to work on).
good luck and enjoy the process ...
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Post by cmpeter on Mar 20, 2015 3:39:15 GMT
Great thread! Love all the ideas here.
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Post by Linda on Mar 20, 2015 13:16:07 GMT
sometimes when I'm at a loss for journalling, I try and think about what I would say to someone else if they were looking at that photo...for instance a birthday cake photo of me..."I'm not sure which birthday this was, but I was probably 7 or 8, maybe 9 as this was when we lived in Cyprus. Mum always made our cakes, there were these two little square booklets of cakes she had and we always pored through them in the weeks before our birthday trying to decide which cake to ask for...this one is a carousel and was one of my favourites. I'm pretty sure she made my dress also - she often sewed my clothes."
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Post by woodysbetty on Mar 20, 2015 16:34:32 GMT
I did a page of my DH 's childhood photos and called it through the years started with his birth date and ended with a recent photo.....I just put the photos in order as best I could...he loved it...
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Post by txdancermom on Mar 22, 2015 2:05:37 GMT
I would, just to put them somewhere together
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beesy06
Shy Member
Posts: 18
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Post by beesy06 on Mar 23, 2015 0:50:24 GMT
Hi ladies, just wanted to let you know that my Dad sneaked me some of Mum's old photo albums yesterday. I'm scanning in ALL the photos today as they are really getting discoloured and going yellow. There is no dates/years on most photos, just the rare photo with a year or a place. I'm so excited as I'm going to do mum a scrap album for her 70th this year.
AND if I scan all these photos, i'll have ones of me from a young age to scrap for my own albums. LOVE IT!
Thanks so much for all the advice on how to do it. I really appreciate it!
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