ORGANIZATION!!! I suck at it.

I'm following as I 'm in the same boat as you.

 

I used to be good at it, but have fallen behind

 

Kiss for Bart

 

I recently decided to organize by "theme" of kit so I have birthday, park, swimming, winter etc folders. It is hard that way if I want to find a kit by a specific designer but I am liking the theme more since it helps if I am looking for a pool/swim kit to know where they are instead of having to search through each designer's folder.

 

Mine is kind of like a tree structure. At top level, I have a folder for each of my favorite designers, then I also have a folder that holds all my other TLP designers (kind of a catch all). In a designer's folder, I have a folder for each kit (named as the kit name). In the TLP folder, I name the folder for each kit with the designer's initials and the kit name. This allows me to group them together. See example below.

I also like my alpha sets in a separate folder, but I name them "Alpha - name of kit" so I know which kit they came with. They live with the kit folder in the designer's folder (or larger TLP folder).

I use tags for individual items, i.e. smile, travel, dad, dream, hope, glitter, paint, animals-flying, frame, ... I will also tag the kit preview if it has an overall theme.

For ex:
TLP - KAagard
Alpha - Kit 1
Kit 1
Kit 2
TLP - Lynn Grieveson
Kit 1
Kit 2
TLP - M3
Aug 2016
Paula - kit 1
LM - kit 2
The Lilly Pad
AP - kit 1
BellaG - kit 1
Coll - kit 1 (for blog hops & collaborate kits)
SG - kit 1

p.s. I move things around all the time. As you can guess, I started out with one TLP folder and it grew from there!

 

Well... I have about 250 folders to fix/sort/organize after this weekend (literally, I went a bit crazy). My workflow is something like this:
*Unzip everything into my scrapbooking downloads folder on my computer hard drive.
*consolidate kit/collection folders
*delete TOUs, extra file info, and folders within folders, within folders
*tag jpg papers with "justpapers"
*tag jpg journal cards with "journalcards"
*tag jpg previews with "justpreviews" "colortagme" and "themetagme"... then also collection tags (byoc, m3, or MPM for example), year, month... type (paper, elements, cards, alpha, etc)
*Copy the folder to appropriate designer folder on my Back up EHD
*Move the folder to my main scrapping EHD
*import into PSE Organizer
(Where I stack alphas and extra journal card variations)

This process seems lengthy, but really doesn't take too long, now that I have the tags recognized in windows file explorer.

I do it in this process flow because of different "failsafes" basically. I can search in my downloads folder by tags, the tags are saved into the back up EHD, and then on the main as well. The process of importing into Organizer is something I do in batches, like once a month.

As I have time, in Organizer I go through and do theme tagging, and remove "themetagme", or colors and remove "colortagme". Any time I do any tagging in Organizer, I write the data to the files. Periodically (like quarterly) I go back and update the back up to match the new tagged files on the main.

At any given time, I'd like the option to be searching through windows folders and be able to use tags, or in Organizer. This process works for me, for now.

 

My files are kept in a designer folder, by kit. Only a few stores actually have store folders first
TLP -
>Designer folder
>>Kit
>>Kit
>>Kit
>Designer folder
>Designer folder

 

I open my Lily Pad folder and if I need paint...I use the search over on the right...
and there they show up!! I can then right click and open in file location.
I organize by designer
EXCEPT
collabs,
M3
and
BYOC
I put an X- in front of past designers that puts them at the bottom of the alpha list.
see the 000-need to use (that is my download folder) I file from there every week or two.
the 00s section, byoc, subscriptions and I used to use it for my CT designer. and for DYD

those are by date and collection.

 

I'm visual and super simple.

I keep everything in folders named with the designer and kit/pack title (all items combined that go together into one folder).

Each folder is "labeled" with it's preview... I just scroll. If I need to search for something, I try to use the search bar.

 

That search bar is super handy... I'll type staple in and usually find 15 that will work,

 

It was one of these great threads that got me using the search bar too ... wonderful! Quite a few designers name their elements really well so if I want a red button I can find one pretty easily.

I follow what a lot of people here do
Store-Designer-Kit

I tend to scrap with a kit, then when I feel the need to search for additional bits and pieces first of all I do the search within the designer folder, if that fails, then level up to the store folder and if that fails level right up to all digi supplies.

I will also do an initial search on folder.jpg to get an overview of kits that will work together.

 

I kissed the frog!

 

I organize in pretty much the same way that Anne does.

I have folders for BYOC, MPM, Storyteller, and M3, and then folders for each month inside of those. Inside the months are folders for Elements, Alphas, Papers, and Journaling Cards, then each individual folder that I unzip from a designer gets put into those. I mostly scrap from these larger collabs because I have a seriously hard time scrapping from a single kit! So this works well for me.

Sometimes I do pick up individual kits from a designer, and I have a folder for each designer that these are put into. I also have a whole separate folder for templates, with designer folders under that. When I look for a template I am generally looking for a certain style of page, and since each designer has their own unique template style, this makes it easy to find one that will work.

Oh, and I found a link to one of the previous organization threads if it helps at all! https://the-lilypad.com/forum/threads/how-do-you-organize-your-stash.41500/

 

Melissa if I'm reading you right, after you do the...say BYOC 16 09 folder and make your 1609 type folders (Alpha, JCs etc) you break up kits and put all the Alphas from the different designers in that 1609 Alpha folder? etc etc

I have such a hard time with BYOC and MPM that maybe this is what I need to do. I have tagged them in LR so I can do a search for 1609, BYOC, alpha and they will all come up but sometimes it's easier not to have to open LR if you know what I mean...