MIddleground Organising

me too. I file it under the TLP designer. I don't organize by store, just by designer since I don't have much "outside" TLP. If I was concerned about that, I would probably have a store folder, then designer. If you have lots of these collars, you might take a copy of the preview and place it in the other designer's folder

 

I do this bare minimum approach -- ideally I would go back and categorize the previews. Having alpha previews is one of my most helpful tags. I also tag each template with 1-photo, 2-photo, 3 & 4+, also pocket template. Sometimes I will just search all templates because they can usually be easily altered, but sometimes I just want to narrow my focus and this helps. (I don't tag the template previews)

 

This is what I do. But then I don't buy from a lot of different designers. And, I probably found it because of a designer I follow. If it is a huge all store collab, then it goes into a folder called TLP Collabs.

 

I struggle to delete things.
Like I know that I would have had stuff by Gina Miller when she was at TLP last, have no idea where that is now, migt well have deleted that and now could kick myself.

 

Have you considered a temp directory for kits that you are not sure about? If you use a kit out of it, move it to into your working stash, but if you don't go back to it, you can delete it. No pressure to delete right now, plus the ability to go back and save it if you change your mind. You can delete it, or individual kits inside it, when you're confident that you don't need /want it.

I am overwhelmed by choices, so I have an "active working" directory with whatever kits I'm using, with an "past archive" directory that I move kits in and out of depending on my likelihood of reusing it. I have an EHD with old kits that I am sure I won't ever go back to, but save them to it anyway. I move into that one based on date acquired; many of those stores are closed and their designers retired a decade ago. LOL

Good luck with whatever you decide. Whatever you do, don't fret if you can't do it all at once. You need to also actively use your new system to make sure it works for you. That's how I found out tagging doesn't work for me, trying it out after spending weeks setting it up. However, I noted what I was doing instead of using the tags and adjusted my organizing for that.

 

Ditto! I will say though that in the past year I have needed a couple of those kits on that EHD. I found pictures that went with a layout that had been done years ago and since I still had the kit I could do another layout that would coordinate with the original.

All my zip files are on that EHD as well and believe it or not, I have used some of them as well. I had bits and pieces in my current files from a store collab from Scrap Orchard. The bits and pieces were in the designer folders instead of a collab folder. I found the zip files for the rest of the collab so now I have it all together in one folder. Happens to be one that I have used several times this past year.

 

For styles, I tag the preview as style preview -- I do tend to keep all the styles in a style folder instead of by designer.
For brushes, I try to tag the preview as brush, but I keep it with designer as often they go to a kit. Unfortunately, I've used my "brush preview" tag for a lot of paint previews too. On my organizing to-do list to separate out paint previews from brush previews.

 

Can you move it to an EHD before doing any deleting? I would have for you to delete then find you want something later on. Because I know how much you love Jaimee's stuff!

 

Sometimes designers styles and my styles change enough that I do delete old stuff. Especially over 5 years. Not everything, but some of the stuff I bought and definitely some of the freebies from 2013 when I started digi scrapping. I didn't understand quality at first, and yeah, there's a difference!

This is my current process (It's changed over the years):
I open the kit and look at the preview. I ask myself:
1) Why did I buy it? (Often, I don't know/remember). If it's a specific thing, and I've scrapped it or have a different kit I like better, then I delete it.

2) If I don't know/remember, then I say "Name 3 layouts you would create with this kit". If I can think of three events/photos/memories that I want to do, I keep it. I also make a note in Excel that I have this kit for this page. If I think of 2, then I might keep, might toss. If I only think of 1, I ask if another kit might be better? Usually, unless it's super specific theme (in which case I do the Excel above), I delete it. Like Christmas kits - I love them, and get new ones yearly, so unless there's something super unique or themed about it, I toss it.

3) If I think i should delete it, but don't want to let go yet, then I 'box it'. I stick it in a folder (called Waiting) and set a date on my calendar to go in and check that folder. Often, I open the folder and just delete what's in there. Sometimes I will pull a kit out, and I'll make a note of why I want to keep it.

I had to tell myself that just because it's digital doesn't mean I can't delete it. I remind myself that I used to use up paper kits, and while I don't use up digital the same way, I can still be done with it.

 

I guess I'm just extra cautious about this stuff especially now.

This last year I have done a lot of scrapping of older photos for several projects. In scrapping those photos I found that I might have done a layout for CT work for just 1 or 2 photos from an event. But now I want to scrap the rest of the event (all family stuff). I like cohesiveness in my event layouts. Luckily I still had the original kits so I could scrap the additional layouts so all for the event matched. The CT layouts were done 8 to 10 years ago. And, I'll be honest my regular style has not changed that much. I might add a cluster when I didn't back then but the pages actually look like they were all done at the same time. And, my spreadsheet I started back in 2008 came in real handy to figure out the kit used.

However, there were some photos of a cousin's son in his Navy uniform that I had never scrapped. But I had done the same type of photos for his cousin. I wanted the layouts to match but I could not find the kit anywhere because I had deleted it. I had printed Adam's layout so didn't want to redo it to match Nathan's. However, I still had the layered file for Adam's original layout. So I pulled it up and saved it as another name then started swapping out photos. Since this happened, I am even more diligent about keeping the layered file of the layout, even after printing.

So I'm all for just moving the stuff to an EHD (or 2) and keeping it around because you never know...

 

First off, yay for getting BYOC previews tagged! As for how much DS product you have and where to start next: don't worry about the amount itself. Instead, think about one kit at a time. That's what's so nice about working on only the kits you use--you're automatically breaking down the project into a small, manageable amount.

Think of when you go to a buffet to eat (which I haven't done in over a year and a half but whatever LOL). Maybe you're like me and you look at each and every item and think, "I must eat everything right now!" But you don't actually do that. You you start by focusing on what you want to eat first. That's what you're doing with organizing your supplies: first focus on what you want to scrap with and don't worry about anything else. This has the added benefit of helping you realize that you may not want to keep something anymore because you look at it and realize it isn't your style or it's bad quality etc. Instead of tagging it, you could either delete it or move it to a "to trash" folder, like Courtney does.

Every kit you tag gets you one step closer to being finished. That's what matters.

 

@littlekiwi If I can't read the circle, I:
1) Right click on the item, choose properties. I check the created date, which is usually pretty close to the BYOC date. This one shows April 5, 2018 - so it's probably April 2018 BYOC.

Then I go to TLP, and open the BYOC for that month - April 2018. I can see from the first page of products that it's the same color icon as the preview I have, and similar colors. If I want to really check, then I scroll through looking for the product. But, usually I just go by the icon and the color scheme.

 

That shouldn't matter. Your laptop will show properties. You just have to check the right spot. I actually might have highlighted the wrong spot. I think it might be modified? not created that you want to check. Try it on something and see.

I know it's not Accessed, cuz that always says today. Modified may be the same for multiple files. I know it is for some of mine because it's when I moved them.