7 Cool Ways of Recycling Old Photo Prints and Negatives

Framing pictures or utilizing the photo prints in cards and collages is passé. There have to be better ways of using or reusing old photographs and their negatives, which take up a lot of storage space. Recycling old prints is a good idea once you have digitized them. And here are some out-of-the-box ideas which will blow your mind away-

• Negatives can be used to make tiny candle holding lamps. It is the simplest DIY project which you can take up which will make you look extremely talented and creative – even if you are not! Just get a transparent glass jar (an old jam bottle would also do) and wrap the negative roll around it to measure it. Cut where the slides meet and paste the ends so that the negatives wrap themselves up cozily to the jar. Now all you need is a tea candle inside the jar, which will illuminate the negatives.
• You can make Photo tags of the prints which you no longer need. Before you start on this one, make sure the prints have been scanned and digitized. You don’t want to scream in agony on finding that you’ve destroyed an old photo forever. So photo tags are generally photo prints shaped as gift tags, which you can use on gift-wrapped boxes during holidays and birthdays.
• Paste old photographs on cardboard or thick paper leaving an outer border to make it look like a Polaroid. Once that is done, use clothes clips – yes the ones you use to fasten clothes to a rope while hanging it to dry – and fasten these pictures to a series of led lights. This can become a great decorative item combined with creative lighting for your next family gathering.
• Get pictures printed on ceramic tiles to immortalize them – at least till you break it. These can make as perfect gifting items for your cousins or relatives, whose childhood photographs you have, but no longer wish to keep the prints. You are, in a creative way, handing the photo over to its owner.
• Paper lamps never go out of fashion. It is one ideal way of utilizing photo prints. You simply have to take a print out on transparencies, butter paper or simple plain paper. Now wrap this paper around the wooden or metal skeleton of the lamp you have. This one is a keeper, especially if you are organizing a theme party.
• Get the photo prints on to some nice white t-shirts, and sport your best clicks around town. Doesn’t get simpler than this, does it.
• We came across this uber cool  idea on Pinterest, which allows you to use photo prints in the most creative way – a table runner! Those black and white pictures which are simply eating up space in your closet, get them out and start pasting them together at weird angles. Keep pasting keeping in mind the length and breadth of the table runner you need. Polaroids work even better for this project. If you want to increase the life of this special table runner, get it laminated.

Quick Tip to ensure your Photos never go missing
Photos are precious memories and all of us never want to ever lose them to hard disk crashes or missing drives. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your photos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. Simply download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your photos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all photos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.