Run ABC Kit - The "C" Papers

Seriously, where does the time go?  This picture of Abby was taken a year ago but it feels like yesterday!

I am trying to organize my digital scrapbooking layouts (to send to Shutterfly for printing) and I have come to realize that I have scrapbooked the same photos (obviously my favourites) several times.  With paper scrapbooking it was easy - you printed your photos and then you scrapbooked them, no duplication.  I have been working backwards I think - I choose a kit I want to work with and then I seek out pictures that will match.  This is clearly not working for me!  How do you keep track of what you have done or what is your work flow for scrapbooking digitally?  I am sure there are many new digital scrapbookers as well as "all over the place" scrapbookers like myself who would love to know your secrets - please leave us a comment about what works for you.

Download Expired

But you can still get them here

 

Go to Store

Comments

[cindyrelly]

I don't have advice for organizing because I have only done about 10 or so LOs! I can't wait to read what the pros have to say because I want to get busy scrapping and get an account with shutterfly too ;) What a beautiful smile your little girl has .... she's precious. Oh, Thanks for the papers too!

[cam]

I have a tag in photoshop elements organizer for "to be scrapped". Once I've scrapped a photo, I remove that tag.

love this kit, by the way! I'm really enjoying this!

[Bec]

I had a terrible time feeling organized when I switched from photos printed at the photolab to photos from my digital camera. I decided to keep them just like I did previously... I arrange our memory books in date order and that is also how I scrap, never scrapping the present backwards. At this point I am in the year 2005 and may get caught up some day...maybe. I have always used a folder for each year, and inside was a folder for each month. During my children's school years they each had a yearly folder, but we have outgrown that now. That way I could drop any pictures or my children's keepsakes in the folders immediately and scrap them whenever I had spare time. I realized that was the way to keep organized digitally too because it was what I was used to doing already. I save pictures to a cd as I take them, and also store them in folders by year on my hard drive. As I work my way through each year month by month I delete what I have scrapped from my hard drive and only keep those I have yet to scrap on my computer since I have backup copies of all my pictures already on cd's. This has worked very well for me.

[Brooke - in Oregon]

Great 'C' papers thanks again!!

I keep my photos by year - month - date and I pretty much scrap Kaylie's layouts in order so that is ok. I am a bit weird about my 'order' but I actually make a outline of the main events each year. As something new pops up I add it in so I know I want to scrap it and where it fits into the year. Sort of obsessive but it works for me. lol

That was a lot of rambling I hope it made sense!

[Rainbowkitty]

I jump ALL around when I scrap, so what i have found that works best for me, is to move my pictures into a folder marked Used. I keep this inside the original folder with my date and such on it, but this helps me a LOT, that way I dont get so confused. If I KNOW I wont scrap any additional layouts from that event or what not, I will move the entire folder into a completed pages folder. It works for me.

[Shawna (aka: shawnyrvr)]

My Set Up is all done in the beginning. I have a Year Folder, then month folders in each year, then in a month - say July (it's busy around here) there are folders: 080704-Independence Day; 080718-Shawna's B'day; 080721-Family Reunion; 080728-Smokey's Annual Camping Trip -- Now after I scrap a Photo I create a new folder within those that is labeled Used Photos... and I move the photos into that as I use them. If I every want to find something again by a specific even it's still where I know to look but I don't accidentally scrap it twice... But I can always use them again if I really wanted to do an Emotion page instead of an event page... Hope this makes sense.

Thanks for todays Papers!!! Blessings!

[Sharon-shutterbug]

No advice from me, because I do the same exact thing! You'd think, with 30.000 photos on the computer, that it would be hard to use the same one twice or three times . . . but apparently it isn't!! :)

Thanks again for the awesome freebies!

[Jess]

I keep my photos in folders chronologically and then FORCE myself to go in order. IF there is a kit that I just HAVE TO use right now because it is too cute or I am inspired, I save the page I make in the photo folder until I reach that point in the book. So far, so good.

For my favorites, I use them for other projects (calendars, gifts, etc.) and don't have to worry that they will appear multiple times in the same book. With over 400 pgs done, i think I only OOOPPSSS duplicated 1-2 times.

Hope this help! YOU ROCK!

[Terebene]

Thanks for the papers!

I keep all my photos digitally by date folders within a year folder. I use the date range of the actual pics (isn't digital great?) and then I add a title if it is a major event. Then, when I scrap the entire folder, I add a little -d (for done) and I know I can quit looking in those folders.

I am now working backwards in time, too, as well as continuing to keep us with forward progress. But is works pretty well because if I don't think it was worth scrapping when I did that folder, I know not to waste my time later. Also, I feel progress - it is an accomplishment to finish a month or a year (yay - 2006 done!) when going back in time, especially as it gets harder to remember the events.

[Debi]

I have a file that I keep finished scrapbook pages by year in. I try to always do my pages by years. The year starts in September with the first day of school and ends in August. I am scraping backwards too. I'm trying to get my daughters high school years done first because she is graduating in June. I have 9 -12 done and now I am starting at the "begining" and scrapping from birth to 9 grade. I have all of her pictures in files by school years also. There are s folders with in the year which are by "event" but at least everything is in the same place when I'm looking for a picture. Hope this helps, it works pretty well for me:)

[Fenn]

I do my LOs according to date order, I sort my photos in small folders according to date, starting with folder name eg '#1 5 Feb 2001', so I just do the LO accordingly to the date, no duplications. And name my LO according to Numbers, so now I am in my #192 LOs...lolz I printed them with my own printer and arrange them in scrapbook album according to date order. Hope it's help:) Oh ya..thanks for the papers:)

[spanielmom]

All my pictures are in the my pictures folder in their own folders by date with brief explan of what they are about. (ie: 12-25-08 kids christmas) When I go into that folder and scrap a photo, I move that photo into another folder in that particular date called "scrapped". This way when I come back to that folder 2 years later (aaahhhhh I hope not) I know which ones I have already scrapped. Hope it helps. Love the kit.

[JAB]

Thanks as always for your hard work!

I organize my pictures by year and month. As I download pics from my camera to my hard drive, I pull out the ones I want to scrap and copy them into a folder called
" pics to scrap". When I have time to acutally do a layout, I look in that folder and pick the ones I want..or pick a kit and look for matching pictures. When the layout is complete, I delete the picture from the "to scrap" folder. It is ok since the original picture is in the month/year folder. That way I don't end up scrapping the same picture twice. Like you, I kept ending up with the same pictures in several layouts. This is what I was able to come up with to help.

[LouAnn]

I sort of do the same as you (choose pictures to match a kit) especially when I'm working on projects for a CT. (Since you get to use their new kits!) But... I use acdsee, and all my pictures are tagged by year, location and subject - so it does make the pictures easy to find. Then when I use a picture I also tag it as used. And when I'm looking for a pic to use for a specific kit I do at least try to stay in the year I'm working on - for example now I'm trying to finish up 2006 (even though no other years are done.LOL) becaue i want to complete a 2006 memories album!

Cute papers too! I didn't DL because I have soooo much stuff right now - but they are darling!

[makeyesup]

thanks for the C papers, they are super. Organizing anything can be cumbersome and trial and error. My method is that I have folders marked according to who is in the photos. For eg. each GD had her own folder and the layouts with her as predominant goes into there. Also have folders for my family layouts, old or new and my late husbands. Luckily, this seems to work as I almost used the same photo with the same kit twice. Since I knew where to look for the .jpg file, it stood out like a sore thumb.

[Danielle]

Last year I decided to stop trying to play catch up from previous years...meaning my youngest son's albums ( I do yearly albums for each child) were never started. My children are now 6, 5, and 2 1/2. I also decided I wanted to try having my pages professionally printed into a hard covered bound book. I also knew I wanted some pages for gifts through out the year and that I that I wanted to make a DVD of all the pages to some music as a gift.

So, starting Jan 2007 my goal was to stay caught up in the current month. My photos are saved in first a yearly folder and then monthly folders in the yearly folder. I also save my scrapbook pages seperately but also in yearly and monthly folders. So, it is easy to look through each and see what has been done and what needs to be done. Keeping fairly current helped me remember more about where I was with the photos and also helped me with journaling.....although I will still admit it is not my strong suit. I still prefer to let the pictures tell the story.

My family all lives out of state so I also tried to post the layouts as I finished them and write a quick blurb on my family blog about them. As this was more personal I keep a family blog and a scrapbooking blog.

I haven't gotten my pages printed yet but I have just a couple of stray layouts to finish and 2007 will be complete for all three kids. I try to make some layouts that would be considered family that work for all three kids and I also try to individualize some pages...one to personalize the book for them and also to cut down on pages in their books....printing can get expensive(at home or professional prints)

One day I hope to stay caught up enough and get inspired to catch my boys up to current date, at present my daughter is the only child totally current. While it used to stress me out, I am now pleased just to have achieved my goal for 2007 and it is now my goal for 2008...just trying to stay current.

Thanks again for all your great papers and elements for the jump, skip and run kits. They are just awesome!!!!

[Tink]

Thanks for the great papers.

As for what I have scrapbooked, I keep my photos in folders according to year, month and date. And I don't like moving them around, so once I have actually used a photo in a scrapbook page I use an at sign (@)at the end of the name to indicate it. i.e. DSC06775@.jpg It still keeps the photos in order but allows me to see which ones I have already used. In addition, if I have used most of the photos in a folder I will also put one at the end of the folder name.

[Elaine]

I have a photo org program - keeps it chrono and tagged by child. When I want to scrap, I usually do it by events or by a month at a time and I take the photos I want and create a "book" of pages where I do an entire month's layouts and keep them in there so when I pull a new photo out that's in the same time period, I go to that set of layouts.

[Aly in GA]

My style is similar (in bits) to many others. I was NEVER a paper scrapper. When I started digi-scrapping, my oldest was 6 and my youngest was 11 months. I had INCREDIBLE guilt over not scrapping anything from my oldest son's first 6 years. I had physical photos, until we got our first digital camera when he was about 3 months old. My label format for my digiphotos, like others, is date-month_event. I then file them in folders that are labeled year-month.

My first 2 months as a digiscrapper, I busted through 50 layouts (helped me while I was grieving heavily from my mother's sudden death.) In that time, I was able to catch up with my youngest's first year and had started catching up with my oldest's first year (I wrote on calendars for both of them during their first year of life noting milestones, emotions, checkup stats, major events, etc.)

Obviously, I'm scrapping backwards too, and trying to stay caught up in the present. I'm not always successful (I still have a page of last year's Easter pictures to scrap for my oldest's - and Easter is in 3 weeks!) but it's going pretty well. In the 150+ pages I've completed since May 2006, I've unconsciously doubled up on a photo twice, and intentionally done it once.

I like Tink's method of putting an @ sign at the end of a picture file once it's been scrapped, and at the end of a folder when most of its pictures have been used.

Funny, I used ACDSee to catalog my digi supplies, but haven't used it at all for keeping my photos sorted. Guess I feel comfortable enough with my current method - or chronic laziness (probably the latter - LOL!)

Thanks for the inspiration ladies! And thank YOU for the wonderful C papers. Have a great week.

p.s. - I continued to use my 35mm camera for several months after we went digital. And, I'm embarrassed to say, I think I've only used scanned photos 2-3 times. Still have to crack open that egg and get to scrapping! ...Some day.

[Pixiequeen]

I'm loving all the advice! Thank for the great papers as well!

[Sara]

I use Archiver's Online for getting my 12 x 12 layouts printed. They are the cheapest site I've found for it. 10 or more and it's $2.49 a page. I don't know about other sizes, but that's the price for 12 x 12 and it's cheap!

[Sharon Kay]

I have had that problem in the past as well with scrapping a photo more than once. I finally have solved the problem! I have a smaller external drive that I have copied all the photos onto...as I scrapbook a picture...I delete it!! ...and it is still backed up on the original drives.

I was really confused when it came to my son's school album because I had started it in paper scrapping...so went through and deleted those photos and then started looking at digi and delete the photos...I don't have near as many photos to scrap for his school album as I originally thought!

Thank you for the C papers! Love them!

[Carole N.]

First of all thank you for the newest set of papers. I am always excited to see what you have for us.

I am NOT organized very well when it comes to my photos. I label each set that I download as to the person, event, and date. They all go in a file for My Photos.

I am on the Home Team at a scrapbooking site so I tend to look for the right pic for the kit I am working with. I actually scan quite a few as well as I have heritage photos over 100 years old. Between us, our son and his family and the heritage I have boxes of photos besides those on my computer. The boxes are all sorted by date.

Due to two joint replacements in the last year and a half I haven't gotten to do as much as I like to, but I seem to be pretty good at remembering what I have and finding it.

For being so organized with my digital supplies, I feel like my photos aren't, but I still have FUN and I guess that's what it is really all about. That and preserving the memories.

I have really enjoyed reading how some organize their photos and I think I will pick one and get with the program. LOL

Thanks again and Hugs!

[Karen]

I'm still in the doing things in order mode left over from my paper scraping days. Actually I still paper scrap some albums as well. Anyway if I do a special page out of order I tend to jot it down or put the layout in the organizer by the pictures and then I know that one is done.

[Princess Jen]

I use the tags in PSE. I tag the pictures with to-be scrapped and then when I'm done, I tag it with digi-scrapped. So I know when I look at a picture if it's been done or not.