How Do you store all your Scrap?!

[lithyloo]

Im just curious as to how everyone else actually stores their files... Is is easier to file by kit... or by particular.. eg.. frames, flowers, papers, overlays... Im finding it really difficult to remember what is what. I try and keep everything according to kit, but then I will remember seeing something that I want to use, but I cant remember the name or designer.. and then I go the other way and just store all papers together, but then again.. I remember a paper that I want, but I have to go through 4000 til I find it... PLEASE help... Going a little nuts!

[audscraps]

i'll use a kit once while it's still in it's entirety but after that, i separate the kit into papers, flowers, frames, staples, hearts, stars, words, trim, glitter, alphas... so on and so forth! and then i have a folder of "random goodies" for things that dont really fit into a category. lol

i never change the name of a file though. for example, i have a ton of staples all in their own "staple folder", but because i never change the file name all i have to do is hover my mouse over the file (hope that makes sense!) and get the name of the kit it's from.

however, 98% of the stuff i use is miss mint, so i guess that makes it easier. but really i just do the same if i get something from another designer. i put it in the folder that "matches" without changing the name of the actual file. that way i can still give credit.

geeze, hope my rambling made sense!

[MissPotts]

I have my kits seperated by designer or stores. This makes it easier for me to complete challenges for a site. I typically use items from only one designer or site on my pages. If I only have a few kits from a designer or site then it goes into my kits folder. If I start accumulating alot of someones stuff I create a spot for them in my designer folder.


I also seperate my fave photos at the end of every month and keep them in my Best of year folder catergorized by month. This helps me find pics faster. In addition I journal at the end of every month so journaling is readily available as well.

[Tay]

LOL! We all have the same problem!

I have simplified my life, or really, my life has simplified me. I om on 2 CT's so I have one folder called 'Miss Mint' and one called 'Jen Wilson' where I unzip corresponding products. I spend less than $5 a month on other scrap sites and really, I hardly use the stuff I buy. (I'm anal and tend to scrap exclusively with one designer's products for every layout because most of the time I am creating something to showcase a designer's work.) The rest of it is stashed on my external hard drive and I don't poke through it very often.

I keep everything in kits. When I was a newbie (read:freeloader) I would separate the papers & elements but I ended up with a mess. Even when I re-organized with more categories (Stamps & Brushes, Metal Elements, Tags & Paper Elements, Ribbons, etc.) I found it more difficult to create good pages. Keeping things together in kits seems to help me use everything and layer creatively. I don't have difficulty recalling what kit the items I want are in but frequently I will open a kit and think "OH! What a cool stamp! Why have I not used this before?" I will admit that, like my embellishment stash, my collection of scrap supplies is gluttonous and excessive! LOL!

[mturnidge]

I have a folder for each designer I CT for and then other folders for stores I frequent. Within these designer/store folders I have folders for alphas (purchased separately from kits), Kits, Templates, etc.... There's no way I could keep track of who made what and what kit it came from if I separated everything out. Just like Tay, I did that at the beginning and my HD was a MESS!!!

In my PSE organizer though, that's where I tag things and put them into those categories (alphas, buttons and brads, embellishments, fasteners.... etc.). This way I can find little pieces from various kits and I don't have to mess up my folders on my HD. The PSE Organizer is a little slow, so I would like to get ACDSee sometime... I hear it's awesome for organizing and tagging. :)

[marylee]

Pretty much all of my files are stored by season. For example, I have a spring, summertime, autumn and winter file. Within those files are sub-categories such as: in the autumn file I have Halloween, School, Fall etc, files. In the summer I have: beach, camping, 4th of July, etc. Then I pretty much keep everything in kits inside of those sub folders. I do not change the names of anything either so that I can easily give credit where credit is due. I also have a few other files for things that do not fit into a season, such as: baby, masculine, boy, girl, etc.

On my Mac I can open a "finder" window and when I want to find some kind of paper or embellishment that I think will go with my project but not from the kit I'm using, I type a keyword into my finder (such as "tag" for example) and it will pull up everything where "tag" is in the file name. I can use it directly from that window or at the bottom it shows me where to find it.

This works very well for me, but I do like hearing some of these other ideas because there's always more room for improvement, right?

[caridura]

I store all my kits by designers. I have a folder for every designer and everything goes on my external hard drive under 'scrap stuff'. lol

[ValeriGail]

I keep mine together by kit, if I have more than one from a particuliar store I will create a file with that store's name, and then have the kit files in there... Other than that, they are broken up into alphebetical folders (the kits are not broken up, but I place the kits alphebetically in folders... so kits starting with an A through C are in one folder and so on..) I could never find anything if I broke up kits... I remember more the "feel" of a kit than a particuliar item in it. one of these days I will try to organize through PSE, but just haven't had the quiet time to do so.

Sometimes my method goes against me... I'll remember a name of a kit and can't find it only to finally realize that its been alpabetically placed under the designer name LOL. I hardly ever remember the name of the designer, but do remember the store. Except for MissMint's that is ;) She has her own folder!

[lithyloo]

Thankyou ladies.... So many options.. Getting some great ideas! ::yipee::

[LeeAndra]

All my photos are stored chronologically: Photos --> Year --> Month (# and not name so it sorts chron) --> Event/Holiday (if applicable) or just sorted by photo #

All my scrap stuff is stored in three huge folders: Kits, Elements, & Collections. I do NOT break up my kits into different folders because of ACDSee (see below). Kits are divided by designer name. Elements are loosely sorted into the following subfolders: Alphas, Bling (anything sparkly and/or absolutely no purpose except to pretty up page), Fasteners, Flowers, Frames (to include anything that holds a photo like photo prongs & photo corners), Overlays (also wordart & brushes), Papers, and Tags. Collections are pretty self-explanatory. I do not organize by store since designers move so often between places and/or sell at multiple stores simultaneously.

ACDSee is my saving grace. The above organization is pretty irrelevant if I'm scrapping with ACDSee open as everything can be tagged as many times and with as many categories as I want and need.

My ACDSee looks like this:

DESIGNERS
individual designers' names & a few store names if I have their store collabs

TYPES
Alphas
Arrows
Bling (things that are sparkly with no purpose i.e. gems)
Borders & Edges
Brackets
Brushes, Doodles, & Stamps
Calendars & Albums
Fasteners
Favorites (encompasses my fave/most used in each category for handy access)
Flowers & Nature
Frames
Hardware
Hearts
Mattes
Music
Overlays
Papers
Real Objects
Ribbons
Staples
Stars
Stationery & Office Supplies
Stitching
Swirls
Tags
Tape
Templates, LOs
Templates, Masks
Wordart

KINDS
Acrylic
Bling (those things with purpose that are sparkly i.e. swirls, overlays, etc)
Cardboard
Cardstock
Chipboard
Corduroy
Dates
Denim
Distressing
Fabric
Felt
Flourished
Metal
Painted
Paper
Plastic & Glass
Stamped
Stenciled
Stitched
Tied & Knotted
Torn
Vellum & Lace
Wood
Words

THEMES
Activities & Sports
Animals
Christian
Christmas
Holidays (incl birthday-themed stuff)
Love
School
Seasonal
Travel

Everything is tagged from the first two cats above. If I have more time on my hands, I will tag using whatever is applicable from the third cat. I don't buy themed kits often, so the fourth cat is not used regularly unless, of course, it is a couple weeks before a holiday, etc.

As you can see, the beauty of ACDSee is that you can personalize it to your own workflow. You might have noticed that I don't tag anything by color. Many other scrappers do, but for me, the color of something is usually the last thing I look for or notice, so why waste my time tagging everything by color? Conversely, I use staples and/or stitching on almost every page, so I made them their own category even though they are encompassed and tagged within the more general Fasteners cat.

When I get a new CT kit or buy something, it gets dled to my computer HD. I try to go through once a month (but I have been lax lately) and tag everything properly before moving it WITHIN ACDSEE (important --- moving it outside ACDSee/without ACDSee open will make you lose all your tags!) to the appropriate EHD(s). That way, I know what still needs to be tagged and it bothers me enough to see all that 'extra' on my computer HD to goad me into doing it semi-regularly.

HTH! As you might have guessed, I love to make lists and organize things. :)

[KirstieGai]

I keep mine by designer and kit and I'm just glad I have a really good memory. I also go through it all each month and have a clean up of stuff I know I just won't use ever!

[ingridfasquelle]

Ditto Kirstie ! I do the same and i save my scrap stuff on my external HD.

[~Julie~]

I have 2 folders one that it Newest Scrap Stuff (which is just the newest stuff I have downloaded (CT stuff, purchases)

Then I have a folder which is Sorted Scrap Stuff thrn inside of there I have folders such as Alphas, Brads, Buttons, Flowers, Tape and Staples etc. I have many many folders. I do break kits down once I have worked with them a few times.

What I do need to work on is actually sorting more stuff because I spend too much time scrapping and not enough time organizing. LOL

[shades of bliss]

I just download into store folders (or sometimes just a CT designer folder) and then load it into my organizer. In my organizer I have tags for each designer and then tags for what they are. Then I can cross reference say buttons with a specific designer. HTH

[AquaRuby]

I tend to keep my kits together, but I also have folders for embellishments too. When I am working in Photoshop, I use my browse function and it pulls up thumbnails of the items in each folder and that really helps me to use all my products too. I've been learning a lot -- thanks for all the great tips.

[barb_scraps]

I keep mine by kits. I have them, mostly, filed by store-designer-kit.

I have a couple of folders that are just by designer, not store. I think, as I get more and more kits and stuff, that I will start organizing them by designer instead of store.

[lithyloo]

Wow, LeeAndra.... That is some organisational skills you have there. Very impressive.. When can you come and sort my folders out?!lol2 Thanks for the ideas. Very much appreciated everybody.

[Mellykat]

I have five main folders. Three for the CTs I am or was on and of course a Peppermint Creative folder. Then everything else goes into a Miscellaneous Designers folder. Once I have purchased enough of a specific designer's stuff or if I go to it all the time, it gets its own folder outside miscellaneous.

I save everything by kit and if I'm looking for a specific element I do a folder search by ribbon or staple or whatever.

[Scrappie Irene]

I have a Scrapbooking folder in My Documents and on my external drive.
In that folder I have shop folders and in the shop folders are designer folders with kit folders. I don't split the kits.
There's over 20 gig in these folders, but I still know where to find what I'm looking for, lol.
I also have a Scrapbooking layouts folder in My Documents and on my external drive.
In that folder I have seperate folders for the webfiles (all small sizes) and for the fullsize layouts.