Blog hopping/parades and organization

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Blog hopping/parades and organization

Since I'm relatively new to this, I have a question. I just completed the May blog hop via Digiscrap Parade. Is it okay to sort them as I see fit? Because now I have thirty-seven files from the various designers seems impossible, and the thought of trying to work out of that intimidating pile gives me a headache. I'll never remember where an element or splatter I like would be.

How do you track or notate creative credit when posting from things like this after reorganizing?

O veterans, help this noob!

What I do to not get lost with my blog train downloads when I need to sort them is: 1) A new folder for the specific blog train with this name (e.g Birds and bees BT). Inside this folder I put all the zips I colect, and I unzip in the same folder. The good designers usually put their parts inside a folder, where they shoud stay. Sometimes one (or two, three) designers forget to do it, so I make folders for their parts. So, take a look on how the folder of a huge blog train looks like:

@Allie: The question of whether it's okay really depends on what your aims are. If you're just planning to use stuff for yourself and never, ever post online or anywhere you'd need to credit the designers, then you can put things wherever you want. Several people here have expressed regret for having organized that way in the past, though, so I'd recommend taking a more cautious approach, even if you don't think it's something you'll ever need to have kept track of.

The #1 most helpful thing for me in this process has been renaming files as I sort and organize them. (More on the specifics of how to do that in a second.) Most designers are pretty on top of things and title each item with their name/design name. If this is the case, I make sure the designer's TOU and the preview (if there was one for their particular part of the blog train) start with the same name. It's weird and slightly annoying to me that this isn't always already done - like I just downloaded some files from Captivated Visions, and each item name starts with "cvisions_" but the TOU is called "captivated visions TOU." The reason I make sure the names match is that then whenever I use an item, no matter where I pull it from, I can do a quick search (for files with the word "cvisions" for example) and quickly locate the TOU. I have a folder called "Previews and TOUs for separated kits" where I put all the previews and TOUs for kits that I pull apart and sort into Elements, Papers, etc. folders (like sometimes I download a freebie that I only wanted one item from, and so I delete the rest because I know I'll never use them).

If the files are not already helpfully titled with the designer's name, then it's time for some bulk renaming. Getting on top of this really changed things for me, because, like you, I was paralyzed before by not knowing how to keep track of stuff, and so rather than move things around and lose track, I would leave things organized in ways that made them impossible to actually use conveniently (like you're saying here about the many designer-specific folders from the blog train). Now I have a program that lets me rename things in bulk, quickly and easily (Free for Mac: NameChanger; Free for PC: Bulk Rename Utility). After things have been renamed, I organize them in the way that is most useful for me, knowing that now even if I dump all the elements from the blog train into a single folder, they will remain titled with the designer's name.

For more on organization, there's a great thread here on PixelScrapper that's been going on for a while and contains a lot of collective wisdom. Hope this has been helpful, just ask if anything I said needs to be clarified. It's nearly 4am here at the moment and my brain is operating a little sluggishly! smiley

That Bulk Rename Utility sounds awesome, Violet! smiley I pretty much do what you do, except I was manually renaming things one at a time which is slow & tedious. I don't tend to scrap "kits," so I like to dump everything into folders (papers, elements, etc.). The only exception to that rule is the hop/trains/collabs - those I tend to keep together in one big folder (rather than folder by designer). I started doing it this way after participating in SPEED/SLOW scraps. I'd go hunting through folder after folder for what they wanted you to put on your layout & it was so time consuming. Now I can just go to the "elements" folder, for instance, and under that "ribbons" to find the ribbon(s) I want to use in the layout for the SPEED/SLOW scrap. smiley

My system means a little bit more shuffling when it's time to scrap, but it makes sense for me. I put the whole train in one folder, and within that folder, I divide it up by designer. I make sure there is a preview for each designer's portion; this SOMETIMES means I have to make one, but designers are pretty good about including folder previews now. For the main folder, I choose one or two previews that are my favorites or that I think best represent the train as a whole and use those as my thumbnail previews. Then I put the whole train into whichever appropriate folder it belongs to, for example: birthday, christmas, spring, etc. When it comes time to scrap using that train, I'll look at each of the folders with a large thumbnail view and pick out some of my favorites. If, as I scrap, I find that I want to use a button or ribbon, etc., I'll just search in the folder search bar for the item name (usually designers include such a description in the name of the item). My search then pulls up all the buttons/ribbons/etc. in just the train & I can pick from those.

This way, I maintain the designer name & individual TOU in each individual folder, so if there's any questions later, I can give appropriate credit.

But definitely check out the organization thread Violet referred you to, as a lot of your method will probably depend on how you organize your stash in general!

All the organising of files is so time consuming that it leaves a lot less time to actually scrap. smiley

I like to have my elements in folders - flowers; buttons etc. Each file has the designers name or initials and I keep another folder with the TOU in.

I almost to the letter do exactly what Lady Phillippa does with blog trains or MEGA kits that are color schemed to match... smiley

i totally understand Elizabeth!... heck even without any MAJOR organizing, just unzipping and putting them in folders all properly labeled to give credit later on for a layout is very time consuming. smiley

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All the organising of files is so time consuming that it leaves a lot less time to actually scrap.