Again, I am probably the last person on earth to discover this, but I thought I would share just incase ONE person is as clueless as I have been.

I love old photos. I am the keeper of all the family archive photos and documents.

When it comes to my immediate family photos, I have always developed and printed every roll of film, printed every single digital picture (phones and cameras,) labeled the back of every picture and put each into photo albums for each kiddo.

When I bought my first digital camera in 2004, I would print EVERY picture I took, label them and put them in each kid’s individual album. Then I would make a back up copy onto a CD, and in recent years, a jump drive. All labeled by year and stored in my fireproof safe….

Even now, every year I print every picture on my phone, label them and store them. Then I copy the entire year onto a jump drive.

From birth to adulthood (when I had to snatch pictures off their social media), I have them all…THOUSANDS.

Unfortunately,I have never been able to find a good way to wrangle the boxes and envelopes of negatives…THOUSANDS!!!

Granted, all the pictures have been printed and stored, but I could never bring myself to dispose of the actual negatives….you know, those flimsy brown strips (for you youngins who don’t know what a negative is). I mean, what if the house burns down and the albums go up in flames. Keep in mind the negatives have been stored in a cedar trunk in the guest room so not sure what I would do if the entire house went up, but that is another issue.

One day last year I stumble on this nifty little gadget….

I found it here on Amazon.

It really works exactly like it says it does…you run each negative through the machine, punch a button and it sends the photo to a SM card that can then been transferred to your computer, then stored to a jump drive.

There may be one out there that lets you save it directly to a jump drive but I couldn’t find one at the time.

The photos are top notch quality…and even better when you consider that the machine allows you to make minor edits to the photo before you save it. It works on 135, 110, 126mm negatives.

It took a few days of sitting and scanning but it was worth every minute. By the time I was finished I had every “pre-digital” photo stored onto a jump drive.

I gave each of the kids a jump drive of their photos….great stocking stuffers! While they have all these pictures in their albums, most kids (anyone under the age of 40) will probably never sit down and go through a picture album…but they will pop a jump drive into their computer and look at old baby pictures.

Which is exactly what my youngest daughter did…”How did you get anything done the first 6 years of my life…I was so cute, oh my god!”

Yep…she was.

I had almost forgotten how incredibly precious they all were…until I got to spend a few days looking at, and preserving, all their old pictures.

Now my next big archival chore. Transferring all the photos on CDs onto jump drives…because evidently, in spite of what they told us, those too can degrade over time…so now I am transferring thousands of photos on CDs to my computer so I can put them onto jump drives.

We have 4 computers and three ipads in this house and not one has a CD drive…that should tell you something!

While my garage is packed with projects I should be working on, the heat and humidity are just too much. This past week I worked on a few little projects inside!

The first is a "not so little project" but one I have been putting off for a loooong time! I shared the new living room chair I reupholstered here. I also had a little MCM chair and fabric ready to go but I could not bring myself to start the project. Upholstery is one of those things I do ONLY because I like the final results.

I was hoping duck egg blue and mauve would miraculously come back into vogue so I wouldn't have to mess with it, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon! (Those who remember the 80s will understand this!)

A teal club chair was one element of my den makeover plan I shared over a year ago. As I mentioned in the reveal post, not all elements of a makeover happen overnight...some may take years. Case in point!

Anywho, this wasn't technically a "little" project. I pretty much had to deconstruct the entire chair, strip and reoil the wood (beautiful!) and then reupholster.

Once it was done....BIG impact.

But I really did accomplish two relatively "little" projects that have been on my "to do" list and that made a big impact.

The first was changing this little "gallery" wall....one of my "Things I Love" features. Family photos.

Honestly, these have not changed in 16 years but I want to change it up in my quest to "lighten and brighten" elements in my house. Since I am transitioning from the "warm" blacks and burnt reds to "cooler" reds, off-whites and teals, I decided these frames would be easy little elements to update with a little paint and new mats. Still love the pictures...just not how they are displayed

Here I shared the changes to the pictures on my dining room wall....

Just painting the frames and adding new mats made a HUGE difference in this space and cost very little.

I removed all the matting, photos and glass from the frames (good time to REALLY clean the glass!) I had mounted these pictures ON TOP of the matting so all I had to do was cut new teal matting using the old mats as a template and then reattach the photos using double sided tape. Frames are super easy to paint...a little primer and a little spray paint (Valspar Riviera Dune...my favorite off white spray paint)

Perfect! (Um...yeah...I need to do something about the nasty looking thermostat!)

The other little project was super easy as well. I have wanted "modern" type house numbers for some time. I even painted some on my front door several years ago.

The actual house numbers that can easily been seen from the street are in the gable above the garage door...just cheapo, boring black numbers. Right now they are covered up with the "ivy" that is creeping all over the front of the house and at Christmas they are covered with a huge wreath (that warranted a visit from the code enforcer one year!)

In my defense, this stuff usually doesn't get THIS out of control. Brian usually pulls it down every year when he puts up the Christmas lights. But last year we used one of those "star shower" thingies and didn't put any lights on the house...so...well...it is out of control!

I have a plain "ho-hum" brick column on my tiny front porch that I thought might be perfect for a number display!

I ordered the "modern" style 4.5" numbers from Amazon.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a plank of walnut. I've kind of been hoarding it for the last few years waiting for the perfect project and this was it.

I laid out the numbers on the board, measured and then cut the board the length I needed. Not sure how well tung oil finish will hold up outdoors, but that is what I used to seal the wood (3 coats).

Then I measured and marked where each number was going to go, drilled holes, secured the numbers using hardware screws, and then mounted it all on the brick column.

I used masonry screws to attach the board to the column. Since I didn't want the screws to show, I drilled a hole 1/4" deep with a 1" paddle bit, then pre-drilled in the middle of that hole for the masonry screws and then covered it all with hardwood plugs.

Dabbed a little tung oil finish on the plugs....cute as a bugs ear!

Doesn't look like the heat is going to let up any time soon so I have hauled several pieces into to the dining room to chalk paint! Maybe I can get a little bit of projecting done and get some room to breath in my garage! Maybe....

Preserving pictures from old negatives...

Little projects that can make a big impact!

Archives

SEARCH THE SITE!

Beckwith's Treasures