Labels for LifeLabels for Life will give tips for organizing your life, home and office.

There are those who collect their photos in shoe boxes (time to start labeling) and albums and those who go totally digital. They use digital cameras, store and share their photos electronically. Of course, if you’ve been collecting for over 30 years or inherited some family collections, you might have a combination of photographs in albums, photo boxes and some photographs stored digitally.

Another excellent alternative to traditional albums is scrapbooks. Scrapbooking as a hobby has become the craze for women of all ages, in all walks of life, with varying levels of skills and abilities. For those not very artistically inclined, there are various how-to sites that have easy step-by-step instructions that can walk one through this seemingly monumental task and come up with very fancy scrapbooks to make for oneself or to give away as gifts. Whatever the final outcome one desires, organization of those photos is a must. Storage could be temporary or permanent, depending on the final objective in mind.

If your photographs are tucked away in envelopes and those in turn, stacked together in shoe boxes, you may want to sort them according to your preference, either by date or events. You may have, for instance, a large number of photographs of Cousin May’s wedding, or Grandma’s 80^th birthday which was in fact a family reunion of sorts and so on. These would be wonderful choices for an album or scrapbooking project.

Go through them, envelope by envelope. Weed through them, toss out photos out of focus or overexposed. Toss out those you don’t really care for and don’t serve any other purpose either. This will pare down the amount of organizing and labeling you will eventually need to do. Store these in suitable envelopes marked according to year or event.

Depending on your current level of organization you might need to get albums, photoboxes, scrapbooking material, acid-free and PVC free envelopes, acid-free photo-safe pencil or pen (available at photo processors and art-supply stores) etc.

Albums: Choose a style of album that goes with the kind of photos you would like to put in them and that go with your décor. Then get a number of them. Albums lined up six or seven of a color or style look much better than a bunch of assorted albums stashed together. Older photographs that you’ve collected or inherited should be safely stored in acid-free, archival quality environments. Albums should be stored preferably upright on shelves away from direct sunlight or humidity. The ideal temperature for albums is 65^o to 70^o F with a 50% relative humidity level.

Photo boxes: For temporary or permanent storage, choose good looking matched boxes that can be stacked on your shelves and add to your décor. Remove the photographs from their old envelopes, separate the negatives for separate storage. Put photographs in archival quality envelopes, label them according to year or event. Label the negatives appropriately and set aside. Once you have matched stacks of photographs and negatives, the photographs can go in photo boxes and the negatives can be stored in a fire-safe box. Even if you lose all your photographs, albums etc. your precious negatives will be safe.

Fall’s here.  It’s the ideal time to take a good look at your closet.  Is it bursting at the seams?  Could it do with a makeover?  Let’s take a page from the experts.

All essentially spring clothes can be stored away to make room for the heavier sweaters of fall.  This is a good time to inspect all your clothes.  Do you need to pare them down?

Anything that doesn’t fit right, needs severe repair, doesn’t do much for you or your figure could summarily be dismissed to the Discard pile.  Good clothes that will be used through fall can be assigned to the Keep pile.  Closet makeover experts, Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo of Visual Therapy recommend an Archive pile.  This could be your storage pile plus any outfits of merely sentimental value.  You may never wear them but can’t bring yourself to throw.  These may include things like baby clothes, your wedding dress, your grandma’s gorgeous skirts from the home country.  The Archive pile has no place in your closet.  It needs to be relegated with other stored stuff to a little used room, a cool dry place in your basement or attic.

Jesse’s philosophy is we must “learn how to let things go back out into the universe. It’s the circle of life.”  Once the piles are made come the hard decisions.  From the Discard pile is there something someone else can use, should they be donated to the needy or tossed in the nearest garbage bag.  The archival pile and how they should be stored will be discussed in a later blog.  Now we need to deal with the Keep pile.

Double rods double up space for your clothes.  If you’re not very handy with a power drill or don’t know someone who is, you can opt for inexpensive hanging rods that hook onto the existing rods in your closet.

Now for the shelves above your rods:  Hopefully you have one or two of those.  This is where you can store three handy tools to corral your favorite slips, lingerie, trinkets, handbags, wallets etc.

Clear shoe boxes are excellent for storing rolled up slips, camisoles etc.  This keeps them from taking up hanging space and slipping off the hangers as they are wont to.  Square wicker or rush baskets or trays provide great storage for handbags, clutches, your gloves, wallets etc.  Keep your dressers clear and store your trinkets and baubles in small boxes housed in a large box clearly labeled according to your preference.

Line them up on your shelves as shown and stack your favorite cashmeres in between.

Storage Boxes

Once your closet has had its makeover, it becomes very easy to keep it lean, mean and a functioning machine for you.  All the pretty corralling tools with matching hangers for your clothes will have transformed your closet.  You will want to be keep it uncluttered and ship-shape.  The closet in its new avatar will itself be the motivating factor that will make you keep it in order.