Digital Scrapbooking Organization

By Nancy Keithley

Once you discover all the wonders of digitally manipulating your pictures and finding digi elements to add to and enhance your layouts, you may quickly be overwhelmed by the daunting task of finding the *right* thing when you need it. One tool that has really helped me with this issue as an amateur digital photographer; as well as paper, digi and hybrid scrapper, is a free download from Google called Picasa 2.

Picasa 2 will seek out all the picture files on your computer - be they jpg, png, tif, bmp, raw, gif, psd and movies (you pick which). It may also be set to actively seek new pictures in particular folders every time you launch it. Mine is searching for png files as I type this, since I forgot to check that when I set it up on my new laptop.

When you launch Picasa 2, it begins looking in the folders you have designated for new pictures and organizes as instructed - by folder name, creation date, size or recent changes. You can customize the Tree structure shown (amount of detail presented on screen) in the folder view.

Picasa not only makes it easy to search visually or by name for items, but it also allows you to make some changes to your digital or scanned photos, such as printing them in Black & White, Focused B&W or Focused color, and Sepia. You may also upload pictures to a web album to share or print. These and other features make Picasa 2 not only a great organizational tool, but also a handy tool to have on your machine if you work with digitally stored pictures.

System requirements are listed below, and Picasa 2 works well with Vista, too, although it is not listed. It *will* take some time the first time you launch it as it will be searching your system for pictures to manage, so I recommend starting it and going off to fix dinner :)

System Requirements
Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XPMicrosoft Internet Explorer 5.0+ Picasa 2 is available in English only.

Organize those Stickers By Anita

It is that time of year again, when our thoughts turn to spring cleaning. So while we are making plans to clean our windows, air out our house, and wash those dreaded walls, let’s take a few moments to make a few plans for our scrapbook supplies.

Beginning with this month’s newsletter, we will tackle one area a month to clean out and organize. This month it is stickers.

The first step: Be brutally honest. Are you going to use those cute stickers again? Do you need them anymore? Take 15 minutes and sort your stickers in three piles – keep, donate or sale, and throw away.

Step 2: Immediately throw away or bag up those you are not going to keep (out of sight, out of mind – they won’t trickle back into your keep pile if you do this).

Step 3: Now take another 15 minutes and sort your keep stickers. I sorted mine in the following way: Alphabets, Animals, Biblical and Quotes, Children and School, Cooking and Food, fall, Family and Home, Floral and Gardening, Frames and sticker strips, Heritage and Victorian, Love and Party, Sports, spring and summer, and winter. (NOTE: In the season sections are any holidays which fall in those seasons).

This system works well for me, but you may find you have so many Christmas stickers that they need their own section, separate from winter, or Halloween separate from fall. Sort your stickers in a way that is good for you, not someone else.

Step 4: Now it is time to store our stickers for ease of use. There are several methods for storing stickers. Once again, you need to find the one that easiest for you. I chose to use hanging 12 x 12 file folders. This works for me as I can sit the file box next to me and just grab the file I need when I am working on a layout.

Another option is the Paper and Sticker Binder from Crop-In-style. This binder lays flat for ease of use and many options are available to protect the size of stickers you use.

Both the 12 x 12 file folders and the Paper Sticker Binder are available in our store.

Step 5: Now you are ready to scrap.

Drop us an email and let us know how you organize. We would love to hear your great tips.

Organize and Use your paper Scraps

Organize and Use Your Paper Scraps
It’s only inevitable that if you are a scrapper than you will have tons of scraps!
Now for my story. When I first started out I didn’t see any point in keeping those scraps and usually when I ended my scrapping session those scraps went right into the trash. I finally seen how I was using up tons of new cardstock and paper and decided that I should try and keep my scraps and see if I could save me a few more bucks. For a while it was great, and I just kept them in a gallon zip lock baggie. Then the one baggie turned into 2 and then the baggies finally turned into folders and then it was throw them in the big box. Now it was such a mess to just find one piece of paper I wanted that I turned back to my old habits of just getting another sheet of paper out, hence the cycle continues, more paper, more scraps. Finally it was inevitable that something be done with all those scraps, so I turned to organization ideas for scraps and came out with some great ideas that I would definitely like to pass along to all of you. Basically its sort, store and use, use and use. If you have organization and find them readily you will use your scraps. So here are a few ideas to get you started at using up your scraps by making them readily available for just that.

How to Sort and Organize Your ScrapsThe first step is to set aside a block of time so that you can finish your paper scraps organization project and have everything cleaned up and put away in one sitting. If you walk away, you'll end up with little pieces of paper flying around the room, and scraps of paper all over the floor.
Begin the process by sorting your paper scraps into piles. Create a pile for each color, and separate colors into piles of solids and patterns. Also separate textured and specialty papers into their own piles by color, as these are often used for different purposes and you'll want to find them easily. I usually just sit on the floor and create different piles for each colors. I don’t separate light colors and darks, such as like pink and dark pink, I just put them all in one category.

How to Store Your ScrapsIf you are a scrapper that doesn't have a lot of scraps, then an accordion file will probably work best for you. Find one that has index tabs so that you can easily identify at a glance where each color is stored. You can either write the color on a tab or simply cut a piece of paper in each color to place in the tabs.
For a larger scrap collection, try vertical hanging files in a file drawer. With this method you can have multiple files for each color and expand your storage files as your scrap collection grows. Another handy solution is to use poly envelopes for each color and store them on a shelf.
There are other ways to store your scraps. Those nice little clear colored storage trays work great. Or some people do shoe boxes. These are all fine; just make sure you label it somehow with the colors for easy choosing.
***For Shoe boxes try decorating the fronts with the color of your papers. Makes a great and easy way to store paper scraps.

Organization of all those scraps can be very trying, but I am here to tell you if you start with some kind of organization and keep up with it, you will be scrapping much more easily than just throwing them in a big box. Take it from me with that kind of storage all you do is cut up more paper or fumble through the whole mess looking for a certain piece of cardstock. Remember like everything organiztion is the key to success and believe me one less headache!