I have a ton of kits and single elements and no real way of tracking them. Right now I just got them organized by Theme: all summer theme kits in one folder, all autumn theme kits in one folder, and so on. I often find that elements are interchangable but it takes for ever to search trough my collection and often times I don't even know that I have a certain element until I find it by chance.

So, my question is how do you all keep track of what you have?

__________________
Jana
Please visit my gallery.

Under "My Documents" I have a file named "DigiScrapping." In this folder, I have about 20 folders with the names of the different types of elements. To make things easier, I just used the names that are found in the Download section here at SBB....********, Metals, etc. For individual papers I have a file called "Papers" and kits go into a file named "Kits."

Except for the kits and alphabets, I have all the elements "unzipped" directly to the element folder. Alphabets and kits I like to keep together, so when I unzip them, I keep them in their folders.

I hope this made sense...and I hope this helps!

__________________
Jen in N. TX
My Blog

I like to have a hard copy, so I have a binder with my kits in it. I open a Word document, type the name of the kit, the designer, where I bought/downloaded it (in case I need to go back later) and what CD the kit is on (if applicable... I tend to burn my kits to CD when I get 8-10 of them collected). Then I insert the kit preview picture that is included with most kits (the .jpg used to "sell" the kit which has all the elements in one picture). Print, 3 hole punch and I'm good to go. That way I can flip through it with the picture on screen and find the kit I want to use, without inserting a CD, pulling up a kit, then deciding it's not the right one and having to repeat each step.

__________________

I use Digital Image Library. If you buy Digital Image Suite you get both DIP and DIL. In the library I assign keywords to everything I have saved in my scrapbook folders. When I want to find something I can do a search by keyword. (For example I can do a search for paper that is pink and brown. That search uses 3 keywords: paper, pink, and brown.) This way I don't have to break up sets when I save them on my computer; yet, I can use different pieces based upon what my keyword search comes up with.

It took a lot of time to assign keywords to everything. However, I feel like I'm now able to use things I forgot I had.

The library has an archive function. This way I can back up my files with the keywords attached. Luckily I did this the other day because something happened and many of the items on my hard drive lost their keywords!

Kristi

On my hard drive I have folders for each of the artists from whom I've downloaded. This helps me to keep track of the "who" when it comes time to attribute. Then I use adobe photoshop album to tag everything in each of the folders with key words such as color, textures, buttons, tags etc, etc.

Now when it comes time to work on a LO I can search my "stash" by color, or item that I need for the LO. If I really want to see everything that came in a kit, to make coordinating easier, then I just lookup by artist in album.

And, I keep one album just for scrapping items and a seperate album with all my photos.

HTH

__________________
Susan
Outer Banks Foto Art

Thanks for all your input so far.

Cataloguing, tagging and cross referencing all my elements sounds like a lot of work. That could take months… I guess I was looking for some quick fix.

__________________
Jana
Please visit my gallery.

Yes it takes a lot of work. How much time are you wasting searching for your elements now?

I love my folder system. I know exactly where everything is, all the time. It was worth the time investment.

__________________
Jacqueline
Kitty and Baby Mama
My Gallery

I also put my elements into folders such as frames , papers, tags ,metals,misc. Really works alot easier.I keep kits together in a seperate folder because I dont want to break them up.i keep 1 "new" folder that I download everything into till I get a chance to unzip them into the catagories.