enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

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I am excited to announce that I will be partnering with Kolo a few times over the next few months to share different projects using their beautiful photo albums! The first project I worked on was a big one – I went through all the photos and old albums my parents had and transferred the photos into brand new Kolo Hudson 3up photo albums.

Before
After

 

using kolo hudson 3ups. from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The above seven minute video details my process and what I did to sort through the thousands of photos. And below are a few more in progress and after shots.

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It was a giant project but well worth it. I gave my parents the albums this past weekend and was thrilled to see how happy the new albums made them. My mom must have thanked me 15 times & my dad said he felt like he was seeing some of the photos for the first time. He also said he had to look at them in bits and pieces because they were making him tear up.

I'm so glad the memories are now out of that storage cupboard and on display.

p.s. my next Kolo project will be documenting my week in the life.

disclaimer : albums for this project were provided free of charge by Kolo. Content idea and expressed opinions are all my own.

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28 responses to “the great album re-vamp project.”

  1. Sarah Avatar

    This is a fantastic project! My parents have a giant bin of pictures. Maybe it would make a nice gift to go through all those and put them in to albums… Thanks for sharing, Elise. I love it!

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  2. jennie Avatar

    LOVE! makes me want to do the same for my parents.

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  3. Erica Avatar

    What a sweet gift for your parents!!

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  4. Kelly Kautz Avatar

    Ooh, this is awesome. I’m not a big scrapbooker but I’ve been looking for a crafty way to organize my old family photos, and you always provide such great inspiration. Plus I love the quality of Kolo albums. What a nice partnership 🙂

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  5. Molly Avatar
    Molly

    what a cool opportunity. congrats!

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  6. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I’m really impressed! Digging through old photos and albums is SUCH a huge task. My parents would LOVE it if someone would do it for them. 🙂 Not that I’m offering… i need to deal with my own mess of old photos first.

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  7. Michele H. Avatar

    I saw this on the Kolo blog a few days back:) How exciting! I just love Kolo albums too!
    Looking forward to seeing your WITL.

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  8. ihilani Avatar

    I need to do this for my parents. My baby album is literally falling apart. Since I’m the oldest, I have the most pics and the OLDEST photo album

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  9. Chemekimmi Avatar

    So curious – which album are you using for Week in the Life?? I’m so stuck on the how to document part of that project right now!

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  10. Dominique.- Avatar

    Oh transfer old photos to new photo albums was in my ‘winter holidays to-do list’ (it’s winter here) but i never did it :/ but noooow i feel inspired, it looks so clean and beautiful

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  11. Skye Avatar

    oooh! There’s nothing more satisfying than organizing old photos. I can’t wait to watch (I’m at work now and can’t watch video)… my best friend has a bunch of old family photos in weird sizes and I’m hoping you have tips on dealing with those 🙂

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  12. elise blaha Avatar

    Still figuring it out! Ill be sharing in September. 🙂

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  13. emily Avatar
    emily

    Elise, are the album sleeves easy to load – and are the sleeves prone to splitting? i have encountered that in other albums like this.
    Also, my parents have A LOT of 3.5×5 – is there a rec for this size photo?
    Sorry if you addressed this in the video – i have a sleeping infant in my arms and will watch later

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  14. elise blaha Avatar

    Very easy to load and not prone to splitting. I had trouble with small size photos too – they do slip around a bit in the 4×6 slots. Im not sure what the solution would be or if it would be worth it to go back and use acid free double sided tape to keep them in place. 🙂

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  15. dcamerican Avatar
    dcamerican

    $45 for one album!!?! that’s pretty steep in my opinion.

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  16. elise blaha Avatar

    They really are amazing quality, but I know they might not work for everyone. Hopefully the rest of the post was helpful to you if you are interested in redoing old photo albums.

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  17. Elaine Avatar

    did you put the photos in chronological order in the albums? Or just kind of group them together as best you could? Just curious how they ended up being organized. They look FANTASTIC and I can only imagine how thrilled your mom was. PLUS: think of that cabinet space you freed up! haha

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  18. elise blaha Avatar

    hi Elaine, I did the best I could. 🙂 The albums I pulled them from were VERY out of order so I tried to group them in chronological order as much as possible. They are far from perfect though …

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  19. Samantha Avatar

    I LOVE these!! What a great find, thanks for the share 🙂

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  20. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    Oh, how awesome for you 🙂 Love KOLO and have been eyeballing some new albums for myself actually 🙂 Can’t wait to see what you’ve got coming…

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  21. Donna Avatar

    This looks good and is exactly what I need to do for my parents!

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  22. Kuhn Construction Avatar

    this is seriously the most brilliant idea ever! totally surprising my parents for christmas!

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  23. jodie Avatar

    sorry! that comment above was from me, i was just signed in under my parent’s company I guess! sorry!

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  24. Duckienz Avatar
    Duckienz

    Darn, I guess they might know what they’re getting now then 😛

    Like

  25. Donna C Avatar
    Donna C

    Great project, great albums to put them in. Will have to check them out at my local store.

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  26. Michelle Avatar

    Hi Elise! This was a super interesting entry to me. As a librarian and digital archivist, this kind of project is right up my alley! I have recently started a business (I have GOT to get my website up so I can link it, but I have to learn Drupal or WordPress and webhosting and all that and it is a challenge – I have the domain name and webhosting but no site yet)…
    anyway my business is called Paladigital.com and the tagline is: Have scanner, will travel! My service involves showing up at your home and digitizing all these old family photos(or at least the most important ones) at archival and preservation quality (or slap dash, get ‘er done level, if preferred!). So the images can be stored, reprinted, shared online, etc.
    I had my first client last week and what I discovered is that it really breaks my heart to see all the pictures sitting in these terrible sticky backed albums that have turned yellow, and then have to put the pics back in there bc there is no other plan for them. 😦
    At some point, I can forsee myself sharing a link to this post on my job-blog bc it is so informative and helpful.
    Though I’m so obsessed I probably would have worked on this non stop to get it done. Fun times.

    Like

  27. Biri.mizrahi@gmail.com Avatar
    Biri.mizrahi@gmail.com

    Hi Elise,
    You have me really hooked on my project and determined to finish the can of worms I opened about a month ago. Like you I have 40+ years of photos that I’m trying really hard to finish. It has become extremely hard to finish since every single website that carries kolo is out of stock of the things I need or discontine. I’m getting turned off by it. So far I got three scrapbooks, eight 3 up albums and a Havana box.
    In order for me to finish my project I need one more large Havana platinum box, 2 Lucino black leather presentation albums and really important too are two black TRIVINO envelopes with the red string.
    I have been turned down by your retailers too much now due to lack of stock.
    I’m just taking a shot here wishing you can help me with this rather inconvenience.
    My kids want to eat in our dining table again lol!!!!
    Thank you for your awesome blog!!!!!!!

    Like

  28. Jackie Kuhn Avatar
    Jackie Kuhn

    I’m redoing my photo albums and making cards from the garden and scenery pictures I don’t want. I bought the blank cards at this huge art supply store in packages of 50. It’s useful to do this because it simply reduces the volume of pictures you are dealing with. Also, I’m having fun ripping up pictures of old romantic flames that never led to anything!

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