My mother is now a grandmother of 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. Over the years, she has amassed quite a collection of photos–portraits, school photos, candid shots. She has organized many into photo albums, but she also had lots of framed photos lining her long L-shaped hallway. After decades of adding to the photos, the clutter finally got to her and she came up with a very creative and functional way to display all the photos of her kids and grandkids…
Instead of hundreds of frames, she went and purchased a framed bulletin-board for each family–my kids, my brother’s kids, our own family of origin (when we were young), my sister’s family, and my mother’s own brothers’ families each got a bulletin board too. She then arranged a collection of photos and memorabilia from years past on each bulletin board and mounted them along the hallway. She was very creative in the way she intermingled and arranged the photos, post cards, even some children’s drawings and such in there so each bulletin board provides an endearing portrait of the “branch” of the family.
When we were all gathered for Easter this year, those bulletin boards of photos were a real draw and people could be found grouped around them “remembering when” throughout the entire day. The rest of the photos she filed away in photo albums (and she has definitely got thousands of family photos) to be looked through at a more leisurely pace. And without all those frames to purchase, manage and dust, my mother can change and add to her bulletin-board masterpieces as she gets more and different photos. While you might think that bulleting board would look “school-ish,“ the fact that she purchased all new, identical ones and arranged things creatively (like a collage) and the way she spaced and lined up the collages on a fresh white wall was very visually and aesthetically appealing.
See Also: Professional Photos or Candid Snapshots?
Sorting and Organizing Family Photos
What to do With All Your Holiday Digital Photos?