HollyBelle
Well-Known Member
Thanks for kind words about my pages. My filing system goes something like this:
This is my left side of windows explorer. The 0-My Pages is the work I have completed, it is then divided into years and sometimes even months, depending on how many are there. I put the 0 in front so it would be on the top. I also name each layout with the year first, so everything done this year would be 2009xxx, where xx is a description of the layout/title. This helps in case I lose directories somehow, I will know the years of each layout, plus I do date most of the stuff, sometimes I don't add years on them, however.
I also wanted to keep my commercial use products separately, so it's a 1-. All of them can be used for any designing that I may do.
I also wanted to keep my scans and clip art downloads handy, so it's next with 2.
Then I put a folder for all major sites (well not ones I don't have any downloads from) ... I expanded NDISB (Natural Designs in Scrapbooking) because it's fairly small. Some of the other sites have a ton of designers... so under each major site, I list each designer. Under each designer, I separate by kit. If the kit has an alpha, I keep that in its own folder under the kit, since 26 or 52 plus numbers and symbols is a lot of files to ignore when you are making the page. I name that folder 'alpha'.
Now, if the kit is a collab, I do a couple of different things. If it's just 2 or 3 designers getting together on a project and I am CT for one of them, I will put the kit under her name. If I'm not on the CT, or if it is an entire store's collab (like a monthly mega), then I make another "designer" for that site called "Multiple Designers & Collabs". Under each of those, I put the name of the collab. And now, depending on the kit and how well the files are labeled, I will either make a separate folder for each designer, or just clump them all together. Usually I try to rename the TOU for each designer to match their file labeling system, to keep that together.
Sometimes designers change shops and when I realize this (sometimes years later), I will just move the whole designer to her new shop.
When I started, I did use the "put all ribbons together" filing system, but that only works for a very short term. Eventually you will find designers that name their products stupidly, there's an entire site that used to (they may still), name everything paper1, paper2, element1, element2, etc. No designer names, no kit names on them... NOTHING! Do you know how many element 1's I had??? GAH. My current system keeps kits together, so that it is simple to credit when I post. I also do a lot of CT work, so I usually stay within a kit, or at least a designer when I am doing CT layouts.
When I download, I do so directly into the correct folder. I create a new folder with the kit name as I download, so I know where to find my file and it won't get separated from its siblings.
BTW I opened Neverland Scraps, because she is a Disney fan and has several Disney-ish kits in her shop.
Wow, Fran! I totally missed that you posted all of this! Thank you! So you start your organization with the store?! That's the piece I was missing. I was starting with the designer... and aleady I've found out that things are labeled stupidly. I, too, am super organized in my filing and use dates on things so this is very helpful. Thank you so much. :sohappy: I lurk around some over on the DIS (you post some beautiful pages) and I've found some helpful hints when it comes to true digi scrapping.
