How do you organize all of you scrapping supplies?

I'm sure this has already been asked a million times. (sorry!)

I have so much stuff, but have no idea how to organize it so that I can see what I have. Right now everything is organized by store/designer/kit. That's fine, but I can't see what I have! Aside from printing out the previews of each kit and making a binder - what can I do?

(I use a Mac - if that makes a difference)

I have a separate folder for elements, kits, paper packs, templates and just put new stuff in the appropriate folder. It's hard to organize by store because designers move around so often.

I use a program called ACDsee.
Here are my categories.
http://southernmamamisplaced.typepad.com/blog/acdsee-categories/

I have folders for each season and holidays and birthday, then I have folders for type of product and elements like clipping masks, stitches, templates, paper that isn't part of a full kit, misc elements, flowers, frames and word art... then I have a folder for full kits that don't fit into any of those categories and inside that folder I have folders sorted by storename/designer. I also have an unused kits folder and CT folders for new stuff before they get used and then sorted into their various folders. Oh and in the templates folder I have folders to sort them by number of photos.

I copy items I think I'll use again into the appropriate folder (frames, stitching, etc) in addition to keeping it with its kit. That makes it easy to find a specific item to add to a LO. Here are my categories.



Within the kits and papers folder, each kit gets a folder labeled designer_kit_storeabbreviation. That way I can see previews of every kit at a glance. Here's an example of what a bit of it looks like. Just make sure the preview of each kit is labeled folder.jpg (if you're using Vista) so it will show up like this.

I'm a kit scrapper, so everything stays together. Since I shop at SSD almost exclusively, that's my main organization. So I have a big SSD folder, then brokendown by designer. Within a designer folder it's separated as kits and etc. I recently broke out all my templates, all single alpha packs, and alpha's that I love from various kits.

So right now I have:
SSD:
>Collabs (for 2 scoops, triple dips, and the petit fours from this month - perfect pairs go into the SSD designer store folder)
>Alpha's
>Templates
>QP's (all "extra's" from various kits and collections - Quick Pages, Brag Books, etc)
> Designer
~>Kits (all kits by a certain designer)
~>Etc (any non-kit, non-template, non-alpha from a designer, such as Traci's Bad Sewing Machine Stitches, a frame pack, a flower pack, etc. Basically element packs.)

I have three folders:

• Basics (stitching, alphas, basic paper packs, date stamps, etc.)
• Templates
• Kits

I spent a lot of time tagging everything in Bridge, but found that it took too much time and I wasn't utilizing it to find things. It took a while to load because of having all the papers tagged.

If you love to scrap from multiple kits, then I would suggest going the tagging route. If you are a kit-scrapper for the most part, I'm not sure it's totally necessary.

If I had to start over, I would only tag these things:

• templates
• kit previews
• the letter "b" in an alpha (cap and lower)
• little bits I love (staples, stitching, tiny tags, date stamps)

If you like your organization (keeping everything together) but are struggling to "see" everything, you might try copying the preview from the kit/element pack/template set into a preview folder. Then you can browse that folder, see what inspires you, and find it in it's proper place.

for those of you that have a main KIT folder -- do you organize within that folder?

Rachel - for example in your screenshot of your kits --- do you organize more within that folder?

I have ACDSee and haven't used it in forever. I go back and forth between organizing just on my EHD or using the tagging method.

mnm_y2 said:

for those of you that have a main KIT folder -- do you organize within that folder?

Click to expand...

I have folders within the full kit folder sorted by designer and store

mainly I just remember what each kit looks like. I have them broke down by designer and then by kit in that folder. I tag them in Windows Photo Gallery which works pretty well. I am mostly a kit scrapper though. Ive tried mixing it up before but it doesnt really work for me. But if I need something...say a red flower...I can type red flower into search and it will pull up all my red flowers and I can see what I have and find what I need that way

I use Picassa to tag with..but only tag one of the previews. I make sure I include the store and designer in the tagging for when I want to narrow down by designer name.
I organize by store since I only shop a couple of them.
Within that store I organize my folders by type of kit like Birthday, boy_little, boy_teen, boy_all ages...vintage, neutral, Summer Fun etc...just whatever I think the main theme of the kit might be.
I have folders for stitching, photo masks, templates (which I am slowly tagging them per picture count), alpha's, clipping masks, word art....
you get the idea =)

I use ACDSee, but before I did this is how I organized. I still "store" my stuff this way just because I'm so use to it!!!

mnm_y2 said:

for those of you that have a main KIT folder -- do you organize within that folder?

Rachel - for example in your screenshot of your kits --- do you organize more within that folder?

Click to expand...

I organize only by the folder name (designer_kit_store). That keeps designers together, but also lets me browse easily. If I had subfolders I wouldn't be able to see everything at once. I'm a "need to see it" kind of person. If things aren't in plain sight, I forget about them.

Also, I forgot to mention above that I sometimes copy kit previews into the element folders. So if a given kit has 10 great ribbons, I'd copy the preview into my ribbon folder instead of all 10 ribbons.

Within my template folder (my 2nd largest) I have a subfolder for each designer. Then I have previews for every template set in the main template folder for easy browsing. That way I can easily see larger previews than the folder.jpg allows me without clicking into a folder.

My actual folders are kind of a mess but now if it is from a store other than I CT for, it is Store Name and then a folder with the date of purchase. For my CTs, It is a folder labled "CT-TEam Name-Month" and then in it is a folder for each item downloaded. I use Picasa to organize. Taking a cue from another thread here. I tagged all my SSD previews as SSD and preview so that I can scroll through them and star what I might want to use (which is working great for me). The other stuff tagged right now is my two CTs and some other stores.

My wish: To get all previews tagged by store, designer, and preview; All Holidays tagged; all Themes tagged; alphas tagged; dates tagged; wordart tagged; other specific elements tagged. But that will take time.

I am also on a Mac, and I use iPhoto to organize both my photos and my scrap stash. I have two separate libraries in iPhoto and switch between the two of them using iPhoto Library Manager. They have a free version of this software as well as a paid version that has a few extra options. I also use Keyword Manager to tag my scrap supplies and keep them organized. They also have a free version and a more robust paid version. Of course, hubby messed up my scrapping library a few weeks ago and I had to rebuild it from scratch, and I lost all my keywords. So, I'm starting over on those.

This may be more simplistic than you are wanting....but, I tried using the organizer in Photoshop as well as Picasa to tag my digital supplies and kept reverting to my original system.
I am CDO (this is what people who really have OCD call it...it's alphabetical )
I have master folders on my portable hard drive that house each topic. I have not yet started to break down kits by type/season/theme because I like looking at all my previews as I decide which kit I want.
Here is what the beginning of what my folder list looks like:

When I start to plan a page, I go to my ALL KITS file and enlarge the view or open in my photo viewer so I can peruse all the previews of my kits:

Say I decide on a Dani Mogstad kit....I can then go back to my general DigiScrap files and find the Dani Mogstad folder, open it and go to the kit:

I do the same routine for alphas. Here is a peek at my alpha preview folder:

Also for my templates (this is my favorite!) Here is my template preview folder:

Then once I find the preview of the template I want I use the name to go back out and get it from that designer's folder:


Hope that is helpful and not just a bunch of craziness to you!! I would love to have everything tagged...down to my last red button! But, I find I spend more time organizing than scrapping when I try to tag

Thank you so much everyone! I'm going to be busy today!

Wait, so we are suppose to organize stuff? Isn't that like cleaning. That's one of the reason I don't really paper scrap. Too much mess.
I'm mostly a kit girl, so just store, then designer folders for me. Good luck tagging I tried that and gave up after two days and not making a dent.

I like the idea of having all the previews in one place! I can feel some organizing time needs to be found @ my house! These are great ideas

I liked the idea of having the previews in one place, thank you for the inspiration.

I like having all my kits in one big folder so that I can see the general colors, etc, but I needed a way to keep track of where things came from (especially for the monthly portfolio), so today I created an All Kits Preview folder, and seperated the previews by store.

apphotos said:

I liked the idea of having the previews in one place, thank you for the inspiration.

I like having all my kits in one big folder so that I can see the general colors, etc, but I needed a way to keep track of where things came from (especially for the monthly portfolio), so today I created an All Kits Preview folder, and seperated the previews by store.

Click to expand...

Awesome! I've thought of printing my kit previews, template previews, and alpha previews off to put in a binder but just never get around to doing it! Would be great to have it in my hot little hands when I sit down to do a page. Great idea to separate by store in the binder!