Sorting my digistuff

[newfiemountiewife]

I have finally gotten around to it, and got my stuff sorted by designer. But I have a problem. I just cannot get myself to break up my SSD folder LOL!

[ditzyscrap]

LOL!

I think that I started sorting by site when I first started (almost 4 years ago), but as there were more designers and more sites, and designers started moving around...I quickly switched to sorting by designer!

I still have "site" folders for collabs and stuff...but yeah, almost all my folders are for designers.

[MikkelPaige]

Ditto what Bree said. That's exactly how I did it (by designer) when I started but as people moved it just didn't make sense anymore. And it got too confusing to find certain elements, sort through it all to find paper, etc.

I hear ACDSee is great for that but I a) don't want to spend money on yet another computer program (I'd rather save for a camera!) and b) I don't feel like devoting time to organizing it all again.

[newfiemountiewife]

I have ACDSee and definitely not using it to it's capabilities. I'm going to try to force myself to start tagging 5 kits a day or something or other, keeping in mind I have to stop buying so much stuff so I can catch up. I've deleted a bunch of stuff too.

I'm backing it up to DH's EHD and I want it semi-organized before I do it.

What do you do with collabs?

[ditzyscrap]

You mean between 2 designers, and not necessarily a store collab?

Store collabs go under the store name, but for 2-designer collabs, I choose a name to put the folder under...usually whichever designer that I have more kits from. IE...there was a SP/Christina Renee collab - I don't have any CRD stuff, so I put it in my SP folder (cause I have all her stuff from her VERY first freebie, lol). But then, when I was tagging in ACDSee, which I realize now was a bit complicated...but it worked at the time (I got lazy about tagging stuff though - I have SO much):

I tagged each item to the designer that created it, but I also listed the kits under each designer name (in the tag side) and would put ALL of it in that tag for each designer...

LMAO, that makes no sense...here's an example...say I tagged Lullabee with Robin & Manda...

It's in Robin's folder on my computer
In my tags in ACDSee...it would look like this:

Robin Carlton (her items from the collab are tagged with her name tag)
--Lullabee (ALL items in the collab are tagged here)

MandaBean (her items are tagged with her name tag)
--Lullabee (ALL items are tagged here)

That way, if I found a flower from Lullabee when looking at "flowers" in my tags, I could find the rest of the kit, not just Manda's items, easily.

Can anyone figure out WHY I stopped tagging? I'm way to anal...lmao...every thing had like 15 tags on them cause I didn't know where to stop myself...hahaha.

[Traci Reed]

LOL I just have a big old Collabs folder, like all my designer folders. In ACDSee I tag everything with the designer name in the "author" field and just tag everything by what it is. I figure all my designer stuff is already in one folder and all the stuff in one kit is in one folder already so I don't need to make my database even bigger by adding those extra tags. ALSO, if you find a paper you like in ACDSee, you can right click on the thumbnail and kit "go to file" and it will take you to the folder the paper's in (i.e. the kit folder)

HTH!

[newfiemountiewife]

Thank you ladies! I'm all done by designer, and it's almost all backed up to my EHD. That's a start anyway...hopefully I'll be able to start tagging or something, because I have over 70 GB of stuff, and I hardly ever scrap LOL

[BrattyMeg]

I'm like traci. I have a big (and i mean big lol) ole collabs folder

[Magik]

I'm glad I poked my nose in on this -- initially I found some things a few months ago and didn't pay attention to where I got them. Now that I have a clue and have been buying items along with other freebies I'd broken it all down to sites. I'll have to take your advice and head down the designer path before it becomes a bear to change later on. Thanks!

[Stacey42]

I have stuff sorted by by category rather than designer. It works better for my browsing style & I am not on any CTs so I'm rarely looking for things based on designer. I have folders for doodles, ribbons, frames, flowers, stamps, kits (which I don't break up) alphas, stitching, etc. If I don't feel like opening ACDSee, which is often, I just click on the ribbons folder & there are all my ribbon packs.

I tag everything in ACDSee with the Designer name & the category, so if I don't like any of the ribbons I see when I click on the folder I can open ACDSee, have it search for ribbons & see everything that is also in kits. Or if I am doing a designer specific challenge I can say I want a ribbon wrapped frame by Traci Reed and they will all pop up.

Because my habit is to browse folders rather than use ACDSee I prefer to go right to a stitches folder, rather than try & remember which designer had the cross stitches I am thinking of & have to click on several folders.

[SaraAmarie]

I sort similar to Stacey, by category. I don't think I would ever find anything if I just sorted by designer! I have even thought of breaking up kits because I find my self going to the different seperates folders to find stuff instead of looking through kit folders but I haven't yet.

[ditzyscrap]

I sort my files by designer, but I tag them by category. Well...I did when I actually tagged stuff, lol!

[newfiemountiewife]

I intend to tag by category whenever it is that I happen to get 6 months where I have nothing to do LOL. It is my goal to organize that way, but this is a small step forward. Just the fact that I split up my store folders gave me the heebie jeebies LOL.

I just have a folder now titled "Sweet Shoppe Two Scoops and Collabs" because I have so many LOL

[Paula]

LOL I so know what you mean there.

[kscwgirl]

I'm sorted by designer too, and I have a seperate folder just for collabs. I need to tag in ACDSee but I keep putting it off.

[ColleenSwerb]

I still sort by store. I'm thinking of getting ACDSee just because I KNOW I have a lot of stuff that I don't use because I just don't remember I have it. I have broken out seperate designers that I have a lot of stuff from though.

Thinking about tagging some 40 gigs of stuff scares the beejeesus out of me, lol.

[Sheana]

I just have this giant folder called "scrapbooking stuff" and everything is in it.. in the folders they unzipped to. It's a gigantic mess and I only use stuff that I've recently purchased or received from a CT because I hate going back and looking through stuff. I have ACDSee and started tagging stuff in there much like Bree was, but.. it was monotonous so I stopped. I need to do something, but tagging 70 gigs of stuff just doesn't sound like much fun.

[cheltzey]

I store my kits by category (or store, depending on where it's from) and then tag in ACDSee by category. I love being able to click on the "overlay" catergory, find a great overlay, and then click "go to file" to see if there are any other awesome elements in that kit that match. There's no way I'd remember what I have if I didn't use ACDSee.

[Stacey42]

I started out tagging about 50 gigs of stuff, but by the time I was done I had less than 30 gigs of stuff. Once I began looking through folders in ACDSee I quickly discovered I had a lot of stuff I had never used & would never use. I'd ask myself "is this stuff worth taking the time to tag?" if the answer was nope, I hit the delete button & moved on. If it was iffy, I tagged it, moved it into the 'not likely' folder, and if it was still unused in a few months, it was deleted.

It was overwhelming when I started but after about an hour of making myslef get in there & do it I found a method & the rest of went very smoothly

[ZaCola3]

Sheana,
This system makes my head ache...LMBO!
Where do you live? Do you want me to come and help you organize? LMBO!
You are a riot woman...Really, I will come visit...

I sort by store and inside that designer. It doesn't bug me much to move entire folders to new stores. I just moved Jacque Larsen over to TLP this morning.

Originally Posted by Sheana

I just have this giant folder called "scrapbooking stuff" and everything is in it.. in the folders they unzipped to. It's a gigantic mess and I only use stuff that I've recently purchased or received from a CT because I hate going back and looking through stuff. I have ACDSee and started tagging stuff in there much like Bree was, but.. it was monotonous so I stopped. I need to do something, but tagging 70 gigs of stuff just doesn't sound like much fun.

[ZaCola3]

Ohhh and I am a BIG deleter(ASK MEG), If I don't use in three months then it is gone, buuuubye!

[MamaK]

I sort by designer but I've also got a separate folder titled "SSD Thumbs" where I put copies of all the awesome SSD product previews labeled with designer and product name so it's easy to reference. When I want to scrap with some SSD product, I browse the previews to find what I want and then open it up from the designer listing. (yes, sometimes I like just browing the SSD previews to bask in all the pretty stuffs )

[d2vasquez]

I sort by designer but the categories are getting really large so I went back to ACDsee to see if I could get this thing situated after spending hours looking for a particular element. I have to admit I am like Stacey - I am looking at stuff and thinking "will I use this ever?" and if not, I am deleting it....so my tagging is definitely getting smaller! LOL!

[newfiemountiewife]

I think when I start tagging, I'll be doing a lot of deleting, because thinking about 70 GB of tagging makes my stomach hurt LOL!

I do have a lot of kits that I bought before I knew what I liked, and I did manage to make myself delete some of it, I knew I would never use. I have at least 7 kits I bought TWICE, because I didn't know I had them LOL!

[ZaCola3]

BAD Girl Jamie!!
Knock on Wood, I haven't done this yet...LOL

Originally Posted by newfiemountiewife

I think when I start tagging, I'll be doing a lot of deleting, because thinking about 70 GB of tagging makes my stomach hurt LOL!

I do have a lot of kits that I bought before I knew what I liked, and I did manage to make myself delete some of it, I knew I would never use. I have at least 7 kits I bought TWICE, because I didn't know I had them LOL!

[newfiemountiewife]

I know, all I can think about is the 7 kits I COULD have bought, if I hadn't been so dumb to buy the same ones over LOL

[twentytinytoes]

All of my stuff is by designer & I also have a collab folder & a coupon folder. When i get coupons I throw them in there and usually check it before I go shopping although its pretty empty right now LOL I lost all my tags when my ehd crashed on me so i am working on that now. I am tagging all my ct stuff first so that if i want a flower i get a pick from all there stuff cause we all like to sport our ct stuff the most!