Hello. My name is Monica and I am still quite new to paper crafting… as a SAHM we are on a limited budget. When I first got going, I purchased a lot of mix boxes on eBay. To be honest most of it was bits and pieces of kits, lots of singles and older paper packs/pads and mitch match stickers. I love all the papers they are colorful and beautiful. But, there are bunches of left overs or “unwanted” [GASP!!] paper.
Starting out has been so much fun and I have loved all the sites that I have discovered on the way! My challenge now has been … how do I put all my stash to use and incorporating my newfound obsession with Digital scrapbooking?
Watching the video tutorials, I have noticed that papers are put into little kits in plastic baggies and such. I love that idea. How do I get started on making the kits “go together”… when most of my stash is so mitch match?
Please help 
If you've been watching my process videos, I will often store the kits I print out in plastic envelopes to keep coordinating things together. If you're working with an old stash, you could just sort things by color to store together, or you could go a step further and make your own "kits" sorting by things you think look good together. I have a lot of scraps myself, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them as I'm getting ready to move and not sure I want to move them all.
thanks.. and i appreciate it very much. yes i have been watching the process videos and find them very inspiring. I am so impressed by the pages put together by the folks on this site. I hope on day I can put together a page worthy of your gallery. ha ha. Meanwhile, I will try putting my paper in little kits... right now they are sorted by color.. red with red, white with white and so on. thanks again for the reply.
For traditional scrapbooking, many people sort by color.
I tend to sort my paper supplies 2 ways: by type: woodgrain, polka dot, office, specialty, and then by moods/theme: love, travel, Christmas, Holidays, Seasons separated appropriately. This is great because I can also add in embellishments. Then I also have kits. These are usually collections or kit clubs, but there are some made by me as well. There are several youtube videos on making kits. I'd start with the most colorful patterned paper and build coordinating items from there.
If you are doing hybrid and starting with some of the lovelies from a digital kit, I'd see what from my traditional supplies go with it to add in to the baggie. I'd also make note of the digital kit/s.
Welcome to the wonderful world of scrapbooking! Don't be afraid to share your layouts!
I have thought about this a lot, but just from a digital perspective... I keep everything I download on my external hard drive. I often sort and then resort. Create folders and then resort some more. I've gone from storing all the solid paper kits in a "solids" folder to rearranging all of the kits by bundle. I have yet to find a system I am content with. I am sure the day will come. My goal is to just make it really user friendly so I don't spend so much time searching. PS I do usually come back to the PS site and search for whatever element or paper I am looking for and then I can more easily find it on my hard drive.
I want to thank everyone so much for their replies! Everyone is just so helpful here! I'm going to try these tips and try to find a method that works for me. I like the idea with the little baggies
thanks again for taking the time to help a gal out!!
ugh--searching is such a time suck
And naming the file--keeping the designers name, adding words to the name so you can refer to it easily-- the name of the file gets so long. Sort and re-sort 
When it comes to the physical... I always keep my things thematic and chromatic.
With the digital, I have a bit of a grab-bag approach. I have a GIANT folder which has a million folders inside of it, all templates are moved into 0Templates, regardless of where or who they came from or if I made them, and for the rest, I have left things in Kit Bundles- Digiscrap Trains are the "hardest" choice for me. Early on, I put everything from every designer into one bulk folder because I like the mix-and-match aspect, but later I decided to try putting each in their own individual folder and keeping a preview page in the base folder. Especially when they're BIG trains, that's how I handle it. Smaller trains with fewer designers, I still trend towards wanting to see everything at once so I can rely on divine creativity to hit me.
I keep my digital supplies grouped by kits, sorted into sub-folders by theme where applicable (with a separate folder for papers-only packs and another for "toolbox" elements like basic tape pieces or stitches or brushes). I also add tags onto the front of file names as much as possible, especially with blog trains, to sort them by type and make it easier to search for, say, "stitches" or "tape" and see what I have through all of the kits combined. This also keeps the blog trains sorted so that I can scroll to just the papers, yet still have designer info in the file names.
I also keep preview images as much as possible, especially with blog trains (since they're so big), and rename those to some permutation of "_Preview ##" (the underscore puts them at the beginning of the folder alphabetically). That way I can browse just the preview images to see if a kit has something I want in it.
thanks so much for the tips! i like the grab bag approach for the digis, i think i will keep a separate folder for the blog trains. i stop at those most often and keep a folder for each BT. thanks again so much for replying!
wow! thanks thats a great tip. i really enjoy blog trains myself, and stop at those most often. thanks so much for replying to my post. i love this place every one is so helpful and friendly!
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