I'm relatively new to digi scrapping but I seem to be accumulating a LOT of kits as I go! Can I ask how you organise yours on your computer? I don't mind mixing kits and I know I have a ton of cool embellishments but it's getting harder to find what I'm looking for! All help greatly appreciated
I'm moving to theme folders, because I've noticed I tend to buy kits, stamps, elements etc that have a theme in common, like "coffee" or "camping" or "Thanksgiving". I like to have them together because otherwise I'll forget I have them, or can't remember where they are, and I don't want to search through dozens of designer folders. The kits and other stuff that don't fit into definite themes, I leave in the designer folders. If I don't have much stuff from a particular designer and/or store, I'll make a store folder. What I don't do is use any fancy extra program to organize. They inevitably fail, or the company that makes it goes out of business or changes the program, or it's a proprietary system etcetcetc. I'm on a PC with Windows 7.
I am a Lily Pad lover, and came here long ago, knowing this was were I wanted to play and stay. So I made a LILY pad folder and a folder for each designer like this: in that folder I have a download (since renamed to need to use) this is where all my new things go
The most important thing is to organize based on the way YOU look for things. Sometimes I see other people's methods, and they obviously work for the people who use them, but you couldn't pay me to do the same! We all think differently. So before you start moving files around and creating new folders, make sure you have thought about what will actually help you. You can spend months tagging every file with what colors it has or whatever, but if you never actually go "I need to find a blue button right now" then you wasted your time. If you *do* have that thought a lot, it may be months well spent. If you just want to find a button, most designers name the files things like designerlady_awesomekit_button2.png so you just need to go to a parent folder where all the kits are and search for "button" anywhere within. So you might just need to organize your folders better, which is pretty easy. But if you want more complicated things like "where is a pink and yellow paisley paper?" then you will need to tag files. It is absolutely possible to tag without doing anything proprietary or tied to specific software. If tagging is what you want to do, let us know more about what you want and we can figure out what will work best.
Thanks for your thoughts ladies! I'm thinking I should maybe make better use of my computer's search within function! I currently have everything organised by designer but am considering creating some folders for elements I use a lot like flair or paint where I could put copies of files for easier locating. I just get distracted when I'm looking for something and come across something I forgot I had and want to use and then I'm all "oh let's find a photo to go with that" and then that's me off on a tangent for the next hour!!
Lorry's tips about thinking about your work flow are really good ones. I seriously wouldn't make copies of things to store on your computer as you are going to have thousands of them and duplicates eat up space. If you need copies for your workflow then I would recommend an organization program that allows you to tag. I have a PC so I use ACDSee. But there are bunches out there.
yes to this- all the way- I'm in LOTS (lots) of CTs...so I organize kits by year and inside the year's folder I have my CT's each one folder, all the rest of the kits I buy in the year's folder. When I need to find stuff, I generally do a search with the designer's name... I'm on Mac, not sure how it works on Windows but it works great to me most of the time...but as Lorry said, this is what works for me... you need to think about the way you scrap....
