What to Do With All Those Photos

“Mama, I want to look at pictures on your phone.”

This is a common refrain from my three year old, not only because she loves technology, but also because she loves seeing herself in photos, and I haven’t kept up with printing.

While I rue the fact that she can navigate my phone better than I can sometimes, I also want her to be able to see herself in photos without needing to take my comfort device phone from me.

We need a system, a way to print the best ones, put them in places where she can see them as she bounces around the house, and allows her to hold them in her hand when she wants to, too. As an added bonus, make it a renewable system that doesn’t leave us drowning in paper. I have a couple of ideas; feel free to steal these for yourself:

Loose prints on photo paper

I print a few 4x6’s from my phone every couple of months for her to hang on her wall in her room. I use Richmond Camera because it’s local, the colors are true to life, and the quality is consistent. We use painter’s tape to hang anything in the house because the kids are obsessed with hanging their art and photos on the walls and I don’t want to repaint, like, ever. Painter’s tape does the least damage to our walls, and tends to come off the back of photos and paper more easily too, without leaving a residue.

In her room, she gets to hang the things on the wall, so they’re often crooked and low to the floor.

Framed small prints

I like to frame some photos from our annual professional family photo session (yes, I hire someone too) and keep those on her dresser in her room so she can see them at night and first thing in the morning. She actually remarked last night that she liked to look at those. I like to swap those out annually, when we get new photos done, so we don’t overpower the dresser with frames. This doesn’t include the big prints I get made for our family gallery out in our main living space.

Patel family photos by Kate Thompson

Square prints

I also print a few fun square photos to hang in the kitchen on the fridge, and on our back door, which is metal and magnetic. I like Parabo Press for these. They print on stiff textured paper that is less bendable than regular photo paper, which means I can hang them at kid-level with magnets, the kids can knock them off over and over (and they do) and the pictures don’t get beat up. I don’t have to worry about them getting damaged and the price tag is such that even if they do get damaged, it’s not a big deal.

Flexible albums

My handheld option is where we go with the old-school slip-in albums. I like this option from Amazon. It comes in a pack of three, so you could do one book for each kid, or better yet, put one in the car and one in her room for her to look through at bedtime, and one in her toys to come across as she’s playing. They each hold 48 photos, and I highly recommend not filling them at the beginning. Put in 20 to start, from birth until now, and then every couple of months add a few. I’d also do different photos in each book, even if you keep all of the books for the same kid, so that she stays interested. Also, you could rotate the photos between the books, swapping a few here and there so that the order changes and keeps her attention.

Here’s the genius bit: you can take photos from the walls and add them to the books, so you’re only printing a few photos for the wall. The photos on the walls get changed out more regularly and the books get filled a little bit at a time without you needing to print for both the wall and the album. (You’re welcome.)

And then just jump right in!

Next up is choosing the photos for all of these options. For now, here’s your action step: take 10 minutes to go through your phone and favorite photos you like. Then, come back and click this link for the next post in our series.