Back before the days of digital cameras you had your negatives and your pictures.  Some people saved their negatives (me), some people did not.  How you organized your photos was up to you but most people had them in photo albums.

Now with digital cameras- how can you store all of your pictures?  I always save them on my computer.  Then I make back up copies on CD’s.  You just never know what could happen to your computer.  I then go through my pictures and pick my favorite ones to have printed.  I save those onto a CD as well.  When a good sale comes along I get all of my digital pictures printed.  I always put my photos into photo albums in order of date.  It works well for me.

How about you?  How do you organize your photos?

Need to save some money? With the rising costs all around us most of us are looking for ways to save some extra cash. Here are a few things you can do this summer to reduce your electric bill.

1. Set your air conditioner to 78° while you are at home.
2. Run a portable fan which will make the room about 4° cooler.
3. Only run your dishwasher when it is full.
4. Stop your dishwasher before the dry cycle and let the dishes air dry.
5. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water (not hot) and use cold water for your rinse cycle.
6. Hang your clothes outside to dry instead of using the dryer. (Unless you have allergies, like me, then you do not want to do that.)
7. If you use your dryer- make sure you run it full, use the moisture sensing setting so that it doesn’t run longer than necessary and clean your lint filter.
8. Turn off or unplug your electronic items when you are not using them. If you can’t turn your computer off, at least turn the monitor off when not in use.
9. Replace your old incandescent light bulbs.
10. Keep your refrigerator or freezer full.

In my last post I was talking about using your own pictures for your Christmas Cards. Which got me thinking about taking pictures. I love taking pictures and I love that I can take hundreds of pictures with my digital camera without worrying about the cost of printing unnecessary pictures.

I was looking at the Kodak website and they offer 10 tips for taking great pictures. They are pretty simple tips, so I thought I would share them with you. If you visit the link about you can get more in depth information about each of the tips, but for this I am just going to give you the general information.

1. Get down on their level.
2. Use a plain background.
3. Use flash outdoors.
4. Move in close.
5. Take some vertical pictures.
6. Lock the focus.
7. Move it from the middle.
8. Know your flash’s range.
9. Watch the light.
10. Be a picture director.