Ways to Organize Memorabilia

We all have memorabilia of some sort; These are collections or objects that remind us of important people or events in our lives.

Does This Item Spark Joy? 

1. Lay all your items or like you did with other collections.
2. Look at each item and ask if it sparks joy or makes you happy. Does it remind you of a certain event or person? Does it give you happy memories?
3. If there are items you no longer want, see if you can hand these down to someone else. If it is from a collection, put them on eBay or trade them so you get a return on their worth.
4. Keep track of items you have if you want to stay on top of your collection. I like using a spreadsheet to write all items in a collecting. Using a tool like Airtable is a good idea. For photos, keep backups of old photos by scanning them digitally.
5. Display your items. Memorabilia can be great to display. Photos can be put in scrapbooks. Collections can be displayed creatively.

What Collections Do You Keep? 

One collection that is important to me is a glass frog collection from my grandmother. I like to display it on a shelf, but I could find a better way to display it. The glass frogs were originally in a glass case which is a nice way to keep them protected. Right now, the glass frogs sit on a glass lily pad. I am not sure if the glass lily pad was my grandmother’s, but it works perfectly for the glass frogs and helps give the collection a story.

Some other things I collect include autographed items and ticket stubs. I will do a longer blog post with my collections.

How do you store your memorabilia? 

Ways to Organize Clothing

What are some ways to organize clothing? It is essential to keep your clothing organized. Just by cleaning out your closet, you can help figure out your personal style and what you love.

Get rid of the unnessecary.

Outdated clothes? Clothes that have holes? Jeans that don’t fit? Toss them out! I recommend emptying your closet and making piles of clothes you no longer want, clothes you want to keep and clothes you aren’t sure of.

Use the handy infographic above I found on Pinterest to decide what to keep and what to toss.

Take care of what you love.

The capsule wardrobe theory recommends keeping 37 items you love. This doesn’t always mean keeping expensive items, but you should choose clothes that are high quality and you wear every day.

Take care of clothing you have so it lasts longer. I like this laundry chart above. Make sure to read instructions for washing clothes so they don’t wear out quickly. If you have items that have imperfections or missing pieces, fix them.

Give the items you keep a home.

Now, it is time to put all your clothing back. It can be a lot of fun to arrange your closet and clothing. Try color coordinating hangers by assigning different types of clothing a different color or arranging by season. I like to arrange my clothes by color in my closet or arrange items from light to dark.

In the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the author recommends folding clothes and storing them vertically. You don’t have to do this, but I find some items benefit from folding while others work on a hanger. I keep clothes I wear for working out or sleeping in folded in a drawer while clothes I wear go in my closet on a hanger.

Accessories can be arranged using creative methods. Shoes can be arranged in shoe boxes with a photo of the shoe on the outside. Boots can be kept in shape by putting rolled up magazines inside them when not in use. If you have multiple scarves, hang them on a hanger.

In the next entry, I will talk about how I am personally trying to organize my clothing.

What are your tips for organizing clothes? Let me know in the comments or even use hashtag #mythreadofthought with photos.

How to Edit Old Photos

How do you organize your old photos? If you have old photos laying around, this tutorial will show you how to scan and edit old photos on your computer or phone to make them look new. Let’s get started editing!

Supplies:

• Old Photos: Start with one photo to test it out. I am using an example of a photo from my childhood.

• Scanner: A scanner is the best way to upload film photos on to a computer. I have also used a camera and phone camera to take photos of old pictures and they turned out fine. The quality might not be as good though

• Compressed Air: This is used to remove dirt and dust from photos without touching them.

• Photo Editing Program: You will need scanning software that comes with your scanner to scan your photo. You will also need a photo editing program. My favorite photo editor is l Adobe Photoshop on the computer.I also used A Color Story and A Beautiful was for this tutorial since I did the editing on my phone. You can really use any photo editing program once you have scanned your photo and converted it to a JPG.

Instructions:

1. First, clean your photo before scanning it. Get rid of any dust or dirt using compressed air. Also clean your scanner by wiping the scanner bed with a dry or slightly damp cloth.

2. Use your scanner or camera to scan photos. Scan in color when you can. According to PC Mag, you should save at 600dpi in TIFF format and then save a copy in lower resolution or JPG format later or if you want to post it on the web.

3. Save your photo in a folder on your computer. Keep your photos organized by date or topic. I like Adobe Bridge to keep photos organized. Open up a copy of your photo in a photo editing program like Adobe Photoshop. Resize your photo. I like to resize mine to about 1000 pixels on the largest side, but you can do what works for you. Rotate the photo so it is upright and crop it so you get rid of unnecessary white space from scanning it. You can always crop it more later to make the photo look better. You can save this copy as a JPG.

4. Now comes the fun editing. I switched over to the A Color Story on my phone to do most of my editing. The first thing I like to do is crop the photo more and adjust brightness and contrast. You can also play with curves and levels to get the look you want. You need see I am adjusting the curves here. Also, sharpen the photo if it is too blurry.

5. At this point, I like to add fun stuff like filters and color. I love the bright filters in A Color Story, but since this photo was already bright, I used a darker color filter called Magic Hour.

Here is how it came out. The color isnt’t perfect, but I like how I edited the photo make it clearer and ready for future projects.

6. As a finishing touch, you can add fun details like text and embellishments. I did this in the A Beautiful Mess app. These are good for scrapbooking.

Just for fun, I also edited another copy of the photo in black and white. Let me know which one you like better.

How do you edit old photographs?