When Did You Last Look at Your Photos from 2013?

Posted on October 23, 2014 by pixologie

family album with DVD

Remember 2013? Hmm. . . if someone asked me straight out what was great about last year, I truly don’t know what I would say. Life is so busy, I can’t remember last week much less over a year ago.

This is a shame, because my family has amazingly fun memories to share and celebrate together. So I tried out something new – making a digital photo album with just my 2013 photos in it. See the photo above.

I’m holding the photobook open to our 2013 Hartmann Family Reunion pictures. Look at Alex holding that basketball – he’d won it in our famous brown bag auction and wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from him!

Check out a few more pages . . . I really have to say, my eyes tear up when I think about all the blessings my family has had. Below are photos from New Year’s Eve at my dear friend Tammy’s house – was so much fun. My husband was a nurse at the time and had to work the night shift – so my kids and I had an absolute blast with Tammy, friends, neighbors and a whole houseful of kids.

Oh my goodness, 2013 was the year we drove to Yellowstone National Park – oh the sites we saw. My book has four pages and 24 photos that capture the best of the best moments from that trip. And my kids had such an adventure. We highly recommend Yellowstone for your next summer vacation!

Then there’s the holidays. . . I have about four pages of holiday photos, just enough to capture the essence of celebrating Christmas with the family. This is the first page of December memories with me and the kids making Christmas cookies and photos of snow – and our crazy dog Tillie jumping to catch snow flung at her!

I love that my family has a physical book to look through and see how much fun and adventure we have together.

How would you feel showing a book like this to show your children, family and friends with your best moments of 2013?

You can experience it yourself – with the Pixologie Digital Family Photo Album with DVD. After showing this concept to people, overwhelmingly, the consensus was that we should continue making these books for others who want to celebrate and share the best stories of their lives!

Click here to learn more – http://www.pixologieinc.com.

To order a Digital Family Photo Album with DVD – http://www.shop.pixologieinc.com

Fantastic Vacation Photos? Don’t bet on your phone or Facebook being the place to store those memories!

Posted on July 16, 2014 by pixologie

Capturing City Center at Dusk in Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas! I just finished an amazing trip out to Nevada’s hottest spot (literally!) where the day offers beautiful scenic day trips and the nightlife is loud, eye-popping and colorful. Truly a great girls trip to celebrate one turning 40, we took nearly 500 photos!

Some of our best moments . . .

Checking out the Fremont Street Experience
Trekking around Charleston Mountain
Conquering the Strip
Traveling through the Valley of Fire
Sweating it out at Hoover Dam

As a professional photo organizer, I loved all the opportunities to take pictures of these spots with my traditional digital camera. My girlfriends, by comparison, spent some of their photographic time composing selfies with their smartphones.

Such an interesting contrast of how we wanted to capture our vacation. And I learned a lot about how my friends manage their photos. Here’s what I found fascinating as I know many other people have similar habits:

Smartphones are their photo home. One of my friends actually pulled up a photo on her phone from her last Vegas trip which was several years ago.
Facebook is another home of their photos. My other friend was hoping I could upload my photos so they posted on her timeline. As hard as I tried to get my album up so that it would be on her timeline, I couldn’t figure it out. In order to make it work, she took screen shots of my Facebook album to make her own album to post.
Each of them have an iPhone with a PhotoStream to make the sharing process much easier – but they (as many do) found it confusing to access and navigate.

I know that we are bombarded with photo apps and social media opportunities to share our fun memories. And in the short term, this is great. We loved for our friends and family to track what we experienced on our trip.

For the long term, I wouldn’t want to bet on smartphones and social media to be the place where I go to find my photos and enjoy the memories.

Here’s my few suggestions on how to manage your photos once so that the sharing, celebrating and remembering is accomplished all at once!

Take your wonderful photos (all of them – both on smartphone and camera) Delete the ones you don’t want.
Download the photos to your computer – save in a consistent place (Mac – iPhoto; PC – Windows Explorer)
Review again and delete unneeded photos
Then share to your social media, order prints, etc. and enjoy.

I would love to help you with your photo questions. Feel free to email me at mollieb@pixologieinc.com and let’s get your memories in a better place!

In the meantime, enjoy this final selfie of the three of us – it’s my favorite from the whole trip!

6 Benefits to Organizing Your Photos

Posted on April 10, 2014 by pixologie

Pixologie welcomes this guest blog from Certified Organizer Coach Tiffany Lynn Lepp!

“Organize my photos.”

There it was.

For the fifth consecutive year, “organize my photos”, made it to the top of my New Year’s resolution.

Year five was the year I did actually organize my photos.

It was also the year I achieved my coaching certification.

The fact that I organized my photos and achieved my coaching certification in the same year are not a coincidence.

My coaching instructor said, “in order to be a great coach you have to know who you are, how you show up, what’s important to you, and why!”

So, for the first part of the program all we did was figure out these questions for ourselves.

It’s because I finally knew my WHY that I was able to complete my photo organization project.

BEFORE, I wanted to organize my photos because:

I felt like I should.
I wanted to have them in pretty containers.
I wanted to find them easier.
I wanted the extra space in my home.

These are all very good reasons, but they weren’t good enough for me to put in the work.

Once I spent a significant about of time studying myself and creating my values I could finally come up with reasons as to why organizing my photos were important:

Photos are an expression of love.
Photos evoke self-reflection
Photos remind us to be grateful.
Photos celebrate life.
Photos make history.
Photos give hope.

Photos are an Expression of Love. My wedding scrapbook. The photo book I made for my uncle. The birthday video for my mom. These are all an expression of my love for others. Before my photos were organized I would resent these projects because of the work involved. But, now that they are organized I look forward to creating these “love works.” My uncle tells me that he looks at the photo book every morning and smiles. No other gift could have made an impact that like the photo book. That is love.

Photos Evoke Self-Reflection. We can learn a lot about ourselves when we pause and consider our upbringing. Looking at photos creates that pause. When we know why we are the way we are and why we do the things we do it makes changing what we don’t like about ourselves easier. Most of us are so busy running from one thing to the next that we told give ourselves permission to stop and become aware. Photos create awareness.

Photos Remind us to be Grateful. Life is messy. Most of us can’t forget the hard times, but can’t remember the blessings in our lives. Chances are we have boxes and boxes of memories to be grateful for. When we are feeling depressed, worthless, or ungrateful look at your photos and praise God for the many blessings we have been given.

Photos Celebrate Life and Comfort Us. Photo help us celebrate special occasions. They also help us remember and celebrate the live’s of those who have passed away from this earth. Sometimes, there is no greater comfort than a photo of someone we love. This is why so many soldiers in the field have photos with them.

Photos Make History. Going through my photos there were many faces I didn’t recognize. I am blessed that I still have parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles to turn to for help in identifying those pictured. But, I know this will not always be the case. Pull out the photos you might need help with first and get other family members involved before too much time passes.

Photos give hope. There are times in our life when we question what we are doing on this earth. We question our purpose. We question our accomplishments, achievements, and choices. When you feel in despair, pull out your photos. I recall a time in my life when I was feeling purposelessness. I felt like I hadn’t achieved what I wanted to by a certain age. As I was going through my photos it brought me hope to know that I didn’t waste my time, but was going in the right direction even though there were a few detours.

If you have disorganized photos, reframe your thinking. Don’t see them as “just another thing to do.” Instead see them as: love, self-discovery, gratitude, celebration, history, and hope. With this way of thinking, you will surely get excited about organizing your photos.

Now it’s your turn. How can you get excited about organizing your photos?

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Tiffany Lynn Lepp is a Christian Organizer Coach, Certified Organizer Coach®, and Certified Professional Organizer®. She coaches women on how to live a less cluttered and more Christ centered life. She does this through her one-on-one and group Simplification Coaching Programs. Visit her online at www.TiffanyLynnLepp.com

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Your Photos Are Calling You . . .

Posted on February 9, 2014 by pixologie

. . . And they want to remind you of so many things!

Truly, in our stacks of printed photos and countless stashes of digital photos, special things are happening:

The road trip to Florida back in 1962, hanging out at the beach!
A daughter’s six birthday where she got her ears pierced for the first time (YES, that’s a milestone!)
The seventh annual family reunion where cousin Mike spent $30 on a white elephant auction for an old raggedy ann doll (Okay, we need to know that story!!!)
A 1918 photo of your great grandfather sitting on his vintage (well, it wasn’t vintage back then) Harley Davidson
The annual trip to California with the kids to visit grandparents (Wow, look at how the kids grew in between trips!)
Family members who have passed away – are smiling and enjoying life

We hear so often from our clients and people we talk with about how they want to work on organizing their photos, get them printed and in albums to enjoy. The common denominator is. . . “I just don’t have the time.”

The truth is this . . . there will never be enough time to spend time with photos and memories. . . unless we DECIDE to DEDICATE the time. By dedicating, we mean “I will work on my photos and nothing will interrupt me, not the kids, not the phone, not the laundry.”

That is where Pixologie comes in . . . with weekend retreats where all you will have is DEDICATED time to put your photos in order, make albums and preserve memories! No matter what format you use to do this, Pixologie will be there throughout the weekend helping, cheering and working with you on these projects!

Retreat to Phantom Ranch, Mukwonago, WI – Friday, March 14, 2014, 4 pm through Sunday, March 16, 2014, 11 am

Pixologie is pleased to invite all gals who need some downtime away from the family to get their photo and video projects done in a beautiful location. While there is no cooking, no cleaning, no children clamoring for attention, this is a RUSTIC getaway with accommodations in cabins complete with bunkbeds and newly renovated bathrooms.

Join us for the weekend where you can work on your projects all night; enjoy beautiful outdoor walks, go for a horseback ride, get a massage, share and get ideas from other women working on their projects and much, much more. This is a great getaway for working on organization, scanning, digital books, scrapbooks and more.

$150 includes lodging, five home cooked meals and Pixologie’s co-founders, Mollie and Ann to help you on your projects when needed. We have a fun bunch of gals who have joined us for the last five years and we promise a great time! Click here to register.

A Memory Crisis . . . Avert Yours in Advance!

Posted on January 22, 2014 by pixologie

It happened on December 1, last year . . . nearly two months ago. I lost my iPhone and, even today, I have the sinking feeling of sadness and dread over this. It is not because of the money I paid for the phone, or the frustration of having to figure out how to get a replacement, or the time invested into apps that I may or not even get again.

I miss my family photos on it.

We had a very unique and special Thanksgiving weekend (just five days before I lost the darn thing.) I was heartsick that I hadn’t uploaded the photos anywhere – including the memories of our family celebrating Thanksgiving in a new place with very special family, spending time together at a Christmas tree farm where my 12 year old daughter was able to take the reins of a four horse wagon ride, the special times working on crafts with family friends and so much more.

I just knew I was going to remember some other photo that I lost . . . and this past weekend it hit me. I had the MOST awesome video of my seven year old son dancing his heart out at a birthday party we attended earlier in November. He was this crazy, wild, full of life dancer doing moves I never expected and would never even do myself! The video is gone as well and, for the first time, I had actual tears over losing my phone.

While I cope with this loss (and, I well understand, there are so many things worse that can happen in life), what really bugs me is . . . I should have known better. Smart phones, these days, have so many ways for a person to back up their photos. (iCloud, upload to my computer, Facebook would even have saved me here!)

At Pixologie, we don’t want anyone to ever go through this situation; avert the crisis in advance! Make a plan on how your photos on your phone will be recovered if you should ever lose the phone or severely damage it where you can’t access your photos/videos.

Message us if you need help with this. . . and in the meantime, I’ll keep reliving those moments in my heart.

Brrr. . . It’s Cold Outside, Let Memories Warm You Up!

Posted on January 4, 2014 by pixologie

This is a photo I took a couple of days ago – it was 7 degrees out and my seven year old, Alex, wanted to go sledding and tubing really bad. However, he took one ride down too many. As he left the hill, he placed the inner tube on the pile and began walking away, but then looked back for me.

I gave him my hot chocolate and took this photo. He said to me in a shaking, shivering voice, “I am not real stable,” and he hobbled inside. His feet were very, very cold – but it was his expression here that made my heart melt. Alex is a rough and tumble, talking back, trouble making boy normally – but in this moment, he was my baby again!

Without this photo, I absolutely know I would not remember this moment years from now. Can you think of moments you have gotten a snapshot of – that warms your heart? While the weather stays extremely chilly out these next few days – pull out your photo albums and enjoy smiling and laughing at some of your best moments, and maybe even some of the not so good ones!

If you need help figuring out a place to start with getting some of your more recent photos in an album, let us know at Pixologie. We have a great “Pixguide to Getting Organized” flyer to share with you. Email us at contact@pixologieinc.com.

And stay warm!

Two Men and A Plane

Posted on November 12, 2013 by pixologie

Yesterday, we celebrated Veteran’s Day . . . a special honoring of those American soldiers who served and serve our country to defend our freedom and way of life. We saw many photos posted on Facebook, shared on Twitter and other social media. We are awed by the sacrifices made throughout the years by so many and express our appreciation for those who have chosen service in the United States military.

My dad served in the Vietnam War . . . and we have a few photos from his time with the Navy. These pictures are special to us . . . because he doesn’t like to talk about those years of his life. He has explained to us how he voluntarily enlisted with the Navy as many of his friends and he expected the draft to kick in – and then they’d not have as much of a choice of where they would go. I have another family member who loves telling the stories of his time with the Army and he has many, many photos taken with his service friends. It is fun when he brings out the box and we go through those memories.

This photo above was found online searching for photos of WWII – we don’t know the story of the two men and their plane. . . but imagine they saw life in a completely different way then our current generation ever will. Sure, photos can tell a story – but do we have the right story?

What stories do you or your family members have about serving our country? We’d love to hear about them. We hope that you are preserving these stories, photos and memories safely – and that they’ll be around for generations to come. If you need help, contact us – we can get you a place to start.

God’s blessings to all our veterans!

Is it Time For The Concept Of “Photo Albums” To Die?

Posted on October 11, 2013 by pixologie

We think photo albums are needed now more than ever!

Horror of horrors . . . this is a headline that hit the internet over the summer and we are really saddened by what the words might show about the direction society is taken. The author gleefully talks about all of the wonders of an updated app that can do lots of amazing things with photos taken on a smartphone. Indeed, there is a HUGE industry out there looking to help people have instant ability to publish photos online and through social media connections.

At Pixologie, we welcome technology and believe the ability to capture moments is so much easier now. However, there are drawbacks to the instant gratification we get to posting a photo to the world, ten seconds after it was taken. (And believe me, I have posted lots of photos this way, don’t get me wrong!)

Let me ask you . . . what happens to that photo after you shared it? For sure, some apps have abilities to go back and review the photos – but what will happen in ten years when that technology is obsolete? Consider what the Association of Personal Photo Organizers lists as current consumer photo challenges:

A computer full of digital photos & videos
Multiple memory cards
No backup plan in place
A phone full of images
A limited understanding of computers
Little time to manage their photos
Boxes and bags of unorganized printed photos
A lifetime of children’s art work, letters, report cards, etc
Boxes of inherited photos, slides & home movies from aging parent

How will the newest coolest app help with all of this?

Okay – time for a poll!

If you need help with any of these challenges, check out http://www.pixologieinc.com!

Reference:

It’s Time For The Concept Of “Photo Albums” To Die. Everpix Debuts What Comes Next

Welcome to Pixologie’s Blog!

Posted on September 30, 2013 by pixologie

Albums like this are so much fun to look at. Where are your photos now?

Your stories matter . . . and nothing tells a story like a photo from your life! At Pixologie, we aim to help you get started wherever you are at with organizing your photos, whether shuffled in boxes in a closet, lost on your computer or spread around the internet through various social media sites.

Pixologie offers photo solutions including organization, conversion of media and creation of photo related gifts. We can show you, do it with you or do it for you – whichever works the best for your photo dilemmas!

We currently are operating in Southeastern Wisconsin but plan to reach out to cities around the country where people need help with their photos. Does any of this sound familiar?

– 75% of US households own a digital camera
– 86% of all digital images never leave the camera
– 30.4 billion images are saved a year, only 16 billion are printed
– 750 million photos were upload to Facebook on New Year’s Day 2011
– Photos are vulnerable to hard drive crashes and technical obsolescence
– Time is destroying home movies and video tapes such as VHS and Super 81

Are you worried about where your memories are saved and preserved for future generations. Email us today at contact@pixologieinc.com and we will help you get started!

If you know of an entrepreneur who’d want to join us on this journey of helping stories be told, let us know!

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Category Archives: Photo Organization