My eyes are getting dizzy!!! What do you do??

emscraps

emscraps

New member
Sooo, I'm about to start a page and I go through all the kits. Right now I have them organized by
Events-- subfolders: Birthdays, Sports, Weddings, Summer, etc....
Buffet-- For each month
Store Collab-- subfolders: Free w/purchase, Challenge prize, Monthly Mix
then all the individual designers

But my problem is...since I have the Buffet folder, I end up missing some Buffet pieces when I look through individual designers. Am I making sense??

Sometimes I just want to put everything with the designers, but sometimes I want to see what kits were made for specific Buffets.

Should I just have a copy of the kit in both Buffet and individual designers? That will take up lots of space??

ACK.... this is the stuff that keeps me up at night, haha!!
 
This may be way out in left field, but it's how I personally organize some things I want/need in two separate locations.

I wouldn't keep multiple copies of the kit, as that could take up a lot of extra, wasted space. However, I completely understand wanting them organized by designer AND by buffet month, etc. So, how about saving them in one folder and then creating a shortcut to that folder in the second location you would like them organized in.

So, you could put all of the June Buffet items in one folder for June Buffet pieces. But, then have a shortcut to my kit that you save in your Blue Heart Scraps designer folder. It will take up MUCH less space on your hard drive, but if you are looking only at my designer folder, having the shortcut would allow you to note "oh yeah, I have this buffet kit by her, too!"
 
I agree with Joylynn. If you don't know how to do shortcuts, maybe you could just copy the preview image only and put that in the designer folder, and keep the buffet stuff together. So if you see the preview in the designer folder, it will trigger a memory to go hunting for the kit in your buffet section.
 
I guess I could have explained shortcuts, sorry. In Windows, you should only have to right click on the folder you want in duplicate places and select Create Shortcut. Then cut/paste that shortcut into the second location you want the product saved. If you double click on the shortcut, it should automatically take you to the original file folder. Easy peasy :)
 
I only keep the current couple of months of buffet together and then I split them up by designers. I find that I use it more that way.
 
JoyLynn, that's a great idea, never thought of that!! I'll try that tomorrow.
Meagan, I have thought about that, but then I always end up going to older buffets looking for specific kits.
 
I tag my previews with anything and everything that pertains to them! Animals, boy, Easter, spring, GS buffet...

If I happen to purchase kits that match (that aren't buffet or from another store), I will even put the other kits name and designer with that preview. Then when I am making a layout, I know what other kits match it.

Then I have all my previews kept with the kit. I also have another folder with all my kit previews in it. Then I can just do a search in my kit preview folder for a certain "theme." Then it brings up every kit preview I have tagged for that theme.

It has worked great for finding things and keeping things organized for me.

I even label my templates with the number of photos in it. For example: 09_DFD_KitName. I know that this template has 9 photos spots in it. It makes it really easy to go through my templates! :)
 
Colleen is my sister from another mister, LOL. I'm a big tagger too. It's weirdly fun and relaxing for me :)
 
I always love hearing how other people organize things.....how exactly do you all 'tag' your previews? Are you using a certain program to do this? Just curious.
 
I have a Mac, so this is what I can do for tagging. I can pull up the information in the file by clicking on Get Info. A box pulls up, and I can write in the comments section.

To be honest, that is usually too much work for me, so I usually just type all the things in the name of the jpg image and the kit folder if that makes sense. ;)
familyhistoryscrapper said:
I always love hearing how other people organize things.....how exactly do you all 'tag' your previews? Are you using a certain program to do this? Just curious.
Click to expand...
 
WOW Colleen! that's quite impressive, very organized!! Man oh man, I wish I knew of all of this before the 100's of kits I need to reconfigure, haha!
 
Sorry Em, the taggers are going to totally hijack your thread now :P

Colleen, have you tried the new(ish) tagging in Finder? I think it's even easier than using Get Info. https://www.imore.com/how-set-and-start-using-finder-tags-os-x-mavericks

So my system has been evolving for years. I've used several programs and things to tag. (I sometimes think I like the organizing part just as much as the scrapping part)

The very first thing I do after I download is change the folder icon into a picture of the kit preview. (I don't think Windows users have to do this?) And if it's a buffet thing, I put all the buffet bits and pieces into a big folder and paste in the swatch of the buffet colors for that month.

I use the built in tagging function for my mac, but a great free alternative is Tagit. I used that for a long time before the Mavericks OS came along. It works great with Deep, a tagging system that also lets you search by color. Deep is kind of a resource hog, so not the best on older computers, but I loved it. I also tried organizing in Aperture, similar to this process, but I like the idea of searching in Finder instead of having to open Aperture every time I wanted to look for a kit.

I tag every top level kit folder with designer name and anything else that I think could possibly be relevant- season, theme, etc. If it doesn't have a theme, I'll tag it with "everyday". If there is a prominent color scheme, like Connie's Hues kits, I'll tag that too.

For templates, I tag the preview images as "1 pic", etc, up to "5plus pic" (I did that when I was using templates for Project Life, so I wanted to keep all my templates together that I could use for PL in one spot) Sometimes templates could have spots for one photo plus a journaling card or something like that. In that case I'll tag it with 1 pic and 2 pic, so it would be found in either search. I also tag templates for things like siggies, 8.5x11, double pagers, photosless pages, etc.

After it's been tagged, a kit or template used to go into a folder by theme. This year one of my goals for myself is to use every kit at least once, preferably 2-3 times, and to use every single template. So I renamed the files of the kits I've bought or got through CT like this "Date, kit name, times used". It's been really enlightening to see what I'm actually using, and what's been sitting in my 2015 folder since January. Once I feel like I'm finished with a kit, it gets retired to my themed folder system.

I also use Smart Searches in finder to help me keep track of designers at different stores since they move around so much. It's fabulous when it works, but it breaks with bigger stores with a lot of designers like GS. Leap has really robust Smart Search capabilities that seem to work better than the one in Finder, but I've only done the free trial version.

Are you yawning yet? I could keep going :P
 
I have a PC...

I have my kits in folders organized by designer-kit.

I was using ACDSee to tag my kits until my computer crashed almost a year ago. I really liked using it because I could find individual items in certain colors (I like mixing kits!) and for certain stores/designers. And, I could organize all of my fonts without having to install them to use them!

Once I get a new computer, I'll re-install ACDSee and start that again. I'm another one who enjoys tagging...it's a relaxing activity I can do while watching TV with the family in the evening :)

I had tried the PSE Organizer, but it kept crashing PSE, so I stopped using it.

For the time being, I have copied all of my previews for GS into a kit folder & a template folder so that when Survivor starts, I'll be able to find the kits I need.

Thanks, Jen for the idea of creating shortcuts!! That will help SO much!
 
I use only previews to organize and cross reference. I have a set of folders for them that are labeled for the sites I do challenges at, different themes, color schemes and designers. Any one preview may "fit" in five or six folders but since it's just the preview it doesn't take much room. My kits are all on an external HD and that HD is duplicated on another EHD (I've heard too many horror stories so all of my kits and all my psd files are saved in duplicate that way) So when I look for a kit I search whatever preview folder is right and then the kit is on either EHD in alphabetical order.

(I keep a copy of the preview files set updated on the EHDs too!) Paranoia is better than crisis! LOL
 
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