Have you ever spent an entire weekend scrapping? I just did! Do you remember the Disney themed scrapbooking website, MouseScrappers, that I told you about last week? We had a marathon scrap weekend and I got 16 pages done. I found that I had some photos from 2007 that hadn’t been done yet. That’s nothing though, I have a trip to Disneyland that still needs to be scrapped. We went there in 2000!
That is a common observation among many scrappers – it’s so hard to keep caught up with your photos. When you start getting years behind like I did, how do you keep organized? There’s a lot to organize in scrapping. For digi scrappers you have photos and kits. Paper scrappers have a lot more to keep track of in the house.
So how DO you keep organized? For paper scrappers (and other crafters in general) you can get some great ideas from Pinterest. I have seen so many original and incredibly clever ideas pinned. Sometimes I wonder where these people get their creativity! Obviously your best friend is storage containers and shelving. Look at this very unusual but highly creative pin: Pinterest Craft Organization. Many of these ideas would be easy to adapt for scrapping. And I love how simple yet very functional this idea is: Pinterest Storage. Although that example is for a sewing room, just think how well it would work to keep your papers and books and embellishments all handy in one place. If space is an issue, you just decrease the number of storage units. Perfect! And even somebody who barely knows which end of a screwdriver to use, like me, could put that together.
When it comes to photos, you have to be careful. Are you storing prints? Remember what I said last week about archival supplies! I’ve been guilty of putting a stack of photos in an empty shoebox, intending to come back soon and put them in an album. Of course, “soon” keeps getting farther and farther away. If photos stay in a shoebox for too long, they do start deteriorating. Many craft supply stores have archival storage boxes and I strongly suggest that you invest in some. If you are going to go through all the effort and expense of making a scrapbook, you may as well look after your photos as best you can while you are waiting to scrap them.
Digi scrappers don’t have as much to organize in the physical sense, however, one thing I’ve found is that my computer is filling up fast! I have discovered some great suggestions at various digital scrapbooking sites that I like. Here’s a couple to get you started: Digi Scraps Drive-In; and MouseScrappers Organization Forum. There are a number of organizational tips in the Digi Scraps Drive-In link, but they are lower down on the page.
Digital photographs also require a bit of attention, although definitely not as much as prints. First of all, you don’t want to have a computer failure and lose them! Trust me, I know about that first hand and it is a heart breaker. Sometimes redundancy is a good thing. Sometimes redundancy is a good thing. Yes I typed that twice on purpose. Make back up copies – store them in an online photo storage site such as Photobucket, Flickr or Picasa. You can make copies onto discs or onto an external hard drive also.
No matter if you paper or digi scrap, you have to keep up with the organization. All the storage in the world isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t use it! I got a little lazy over Christmas time and already I’m regretting that. Like I said I spent the entire weekend at a scrap marathon and I spent almost as much time looking for what I wanted as I did actually making my layouts.
Changing subjects just a little bit… I promised last week to share some great websites where you can get free digital scrapbooking supplies. One of my favorite sites is Creative Busy Hands. Another good place to look for freebies is Craft Crave although you have to do a little digging to find them (for some reason digital scrapbooking is under the Paper Based Crafts tab). My favorite place however is still MouseScrappers.
I know I keep talking about that site and no I do not gain anything from sending you there, but if you are interested in doing any kind of Disney vacation themed scrapping, you really need to hit MouseScrappers for tips and inspiration. There is a thread for freebies and sales, and there is a thread for kits, organized by theme so if you are looking to scrap your Animal Kingdom page and need a kit to do it, check that thread. Scrappers from all around the world keep an eye open for kits that are suitable for Disney layouts and they post in that thread all the time.
I hope that you are already organized but if you aren’t, consider taking a little time to do it. It definitely makes it so much easier to work on your pages if you don’t have to spend time untangling ribbons and going through piles of papers while you are trying to hunt down where your little sweetie took your archival glue to paste macaroni on a toilet paper tube, or searching folders of files on your computer first!