[momvetkat]

Hi - I have taken the advice of all the friendly people here and am slowly moving my way through Ro's PS tutorials. I also have joined the club and purchased a few JIF6's. As a result, I have A LOT of stuff just sitting in folders on my desktop because I don't have a clue what to do with it. As a somewhat OCD type, it is already driving me a little nuts because I don't know where anything is. I read the 15 things PDF and went to Picasa but all I see is something that looks like a photo organizing site, nothing to do with folders etc. Sorry if I sound clueless, but I am. Can anyone tell me how to start?

[jenrou]

momvetkat, on 06 June 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

Hi - I have taken the advice of all the friendly people here and am slowly moving my way through Ro's PS tutorials. I also have joined the club and purchased a few JIF6's. As a result, I have A LOT of stuff just sitting in folders on my desktop because I don't have a clue what to do with it. As a somewhat OCD type, it is already driving me a little nuts because I don't know where anything is. I read the 15 things PDF and went to Picasa but all I see is something that looks like a photo organizing site, nothing to do with folders etc. Sorry if I sound clueless, but I am. Can anyone tell me how to start?

Welcome!
Do a search on Picasso or Organizing supplies and there's tons of information. There's even a section on organizing. I use Picasso, and it will take snapshots of which folders you tell it to. It doesn't move your files, but you can look through them. Under Tool, folder, I think is where you select the folders for it to scan. At first it will try to scan everything, but you can turn them off.
You can drag or copy files to your scrapping software, but I usually just go to my list off files and place them in PSE.

Good luck! I think Ro gives you a list of how she organizes hers somewhere, but in the messages on the Roganizing forum, you will find some of that, too.

I'm not that organized, but I'm sure someone else can help you more.I usually keep my collections together, but some split them up.

[April Showers]

Ro goes over a basic organization system in the 15 Things You NEED to Know to Become a GREAT Digital Scrapbooker (FREE Starter eBook). I use the basic system with folders that reflect how I scrap. It is a great place to start.

[April Showers]

I obviously didn't read your first post carefully enough! Sorry about that. I organize two different ways - and I know I'm not the only one who does it this way.
I have one folder with the page elements separated into different folders- like Ro shows in the 15 secrets ebook. I do color sub-folders for papers and word based sub-folders for the word art - which I''m still working on! If I find a certain type of product building up in my "Other Embellishments" folder, I'll create a folder for them.
I have another folder where I put entire collections into their own folders with the only sub-folders being the alphas and any psd files like frames that sometimes come with them. That way, when I open the folder, I can see everything in the collection.
Often I'll find something that works well with my photos while going through the papers, so I'll head over to that folder to see what else is in the collection that may go. I know you can do a picasa search, but I rarely use picasa.

[momvetkat]

OK, I think I understand about having folders and subfolders etc. I am just not as computer savvy as I thought I was. I have a Mac and right now I have two folders on my desktop - one labeled Ro's secrets with her first videos and the other labeled Scrapgirls with all the stuff that came with the videos, freebies from the website, stuff I got from signing up for the club and a few JIFs I bought. It is a mess and I don't know WHERE to put it or HOW to put it there. Can anyone tell me step by step how to start?

[April Showers]

Sorry I'm not a mac user, so I can't give a step by step on how to set up your folders.
I have one large folder (actually it is a separate drive) with all my scrapbook things. I have a folder for my finished layouts, one for Collections and one I call "Digital Elements" that has the supplies sorted by type. I have a Tutorials folder too where I keep class pdfs, Ro's Scrapbooking Secrets Tutorials and a few other things. If I find my folders are getting cluttered, I create a new folder to keep things neat and easy for me to find.

[Smiles]

The main thing about organizing anything is to set it up according to the way your brain works. I don't believe Picassa works on a Mac, so that isn't going to help you.
I set my folders up the way Ro suggested in the 15 secrets ebook at first, but discovered that's not the way I scrap. You might want to keep collections together until you get a little familiar with your scrapping style.

Now I have a folder 1_My_LOs, so it is always first. The next one is 1_NewDownloads (till I get them unzipped, sorted, and put into their proper place). My 2_ folders are individual items (alphas, cards, craft projects, embellishments, paper, 8.5x11 paper, frames, etc. (these are only for things that are not part of collections)
My 3 folders are my Scrap Simple folders (brushes, fonts, templates broken down into craft templates, alpha templates, digital layout templates, embellishment templates, paper templates, actions, photomasks, and styles). After the numbered folders I have collections by designer names (ABL_Birdsong is the first). It works well for me, but I have tweaked it from time to time as I discover a new technique.

[Deb C.]

Smiles, you stated above: "I don't believe Picassa works on a Mac, so that isn't going to help you." I just went to Picasa.com and underneath the download button it says "Intel Mac OS X 10.5+" so I'm assuming it does with on a Mac now? Or did you mean that organizing our scrapbooking supplies would not work on a Mac? Just wondering because I was planning to try Picasa but don't want to load it if it isn't going to work on my MacBook Pro.

Thanks.

[healthyscraps]

Creating folders to store things on a Mac computer is simple. Double click to open your hard drive. On the left hand side are a list of favourite places on your computer. Click on 'Documents'. Drag your Secrets DVD files from your desktop into this folder. Next drag in your 'Scrap Girls' folder to store all your supplies in, just like you have been doing. You may want to create another folder in your Documents window called Layouts, where you can store all your digital page layouts you create. I agree with Gayle, how you organize your digital scrapbooking supplies will depend on how you like to work. To begin keep your collections and products together just like you have and work out a little later how you want to change things.

Deb, yes Picasa does work on Mac. I downloaded it and installed quickly with no problems. When you first open it you are asked if you want it to search your whole computer or a select group of folders. It quickly went to work collecting the list of my images. From there it is over to you to sort and organize. There are some really cool features, I was really impressed. The software does say Intel Mac 10.5+, to check your Mac version, click on the 'Apple Symbol' in the top left corner of your screen, and choose 'About This Mac'. Right in the Mac OS X header it will tell you what version of software you are running, below that in the Processor line it will say if it is an Intel Mac.

Hope that helps. Just post more questions if you have any, we are happy to be of assistance.

[momvetkat]

Thanks for the advice. For now I will do as healthyscraps suggested. I did download Picasa and it quickly found all my photos and supplies but I don't know how to organize into folders. Guess I won't worry about it for now. I did find an e-book on Picasa and maybe that will help! Thanks for all the suggestions.

[MLLatscrapgirls]

One thing I will add is - don't wait too long to begin organizing! lol - I made that mistake. You want to spend less time finding your stuff and more time scrapping with it.

My system is pretty basic. I have a folder called Scrapgirls. Inside that folder, I have a folder labeled Kits, Paper Templates, Embellishment Templates, Shapes, etc. Picasa is set up to search through all of them. I also have a copyright folder with the TOU for each designer so I have an easy place to grab the full name. (Not a problem now, but things change.)

I use Picasa usually to find things (blue paper, flower, frame). But having a consistent folder system means I can always get to my supplies easily. It also means that if I need to switch from Picasa to another system, all of my things are right there. I use Windows so this may be different for you, but keeping things like this makes it easy to use the main search ability of my computer also.

At any rate, I love Picasa so you are making a great choice, IMHO! Welcome to Scrapgirls and have fun!