A Sneak Peek! A MouseScrappers Challenge! A StashBuilder Mickey Head Prize Package Freebie!! And a Digital Scrapbooking Organization Tutorial

Come join me over at MouseScrappers.  I'm hosting a weekly challenge this week and you could get a Mickey Head Prize Package for participating!  Plus I've got a special freebie for my Newsletter, Facebook and Blog Followers!!!

This week's challenge is all about Spring Cleaning.  I've been cleaning and organizing everything, but my biggest project has been cleaning my scrapbooking files and photos on my computer so that I can find what I'm looking for quickly and easily.
The challenge is to make better use of your scrapbooking stuff by organizing it.  Then you will be able to find what you want and use multiple different things on a page as opposed to just creating a page from one kit.  To participate in the challenge, you must make a scrapbook page using items from at least 4 different designers/kits.  (Find the complete rules to play here at MouseScrappers.)

So here's a DigiScrappin Organization Tutorial to help you:

When I first started scrappin digitally, I just collected everything and it became this huge pile of crap - which is ironic because that's why I love digiscrappin!  There's no mess - at least you can't see it - unless you look on my external hard drive of course :)  So after trying lots of different ways to organize, (Some people organize by designer, some by store, some by theme, etc.) I've found a system that I really love and it's been so useful to me I thought I would share and maybe someone else will find it helpful.

When I first download and unzip a kit (I use UnZipThemAll and LOVE it), I delete the zipped files and it looks like this:

I then combine the papers, wordart, elements, etc. into one folder, removing unnecessary files and renaming some so they have a descriptive name (so that I can do a search for them if necessary - there will be a follow up tutorial on that soon).
See the kit now:  (You're getting a Sneak Peek at my next Charity Kit - Warrior Princess!)

This way, I can see all the parts of a kit at once.
Now, onto the Organizing part.
I find that there are 2 different ways that I want to find my scrap stuff - by theme and by supply.  Sometimes, I want a Christmas themed kit or a Boy kit.  Other times, I want a staple or paperclip to add to my page.
So, that's why I have my scrap stuff organized by 2 basic categories: By Theme/Color and By Supply
When you click on my Scrap Supplies Folder, this is what you see:

Now I will show you what those 2 categories look like.
Here is the By Supply Folder:

The By Theme Color Folder looks like this:

This way, I can look for a specific themed kit or colored kit or I can look for a staple or ribbon or something else for the page I'm working on.
But it gets a little more detailed with my Disney Scrap stuff.
When you go into my Disney Themed Folder, you see another set of By Theme and By Supply Folders:

This time, when you click on Supply, I have only Disney specific supplies in this folder:

For example, here is what my Mickey Heads folder looks like inside.  It's got all of my Mickey Heads from any kits that I have in one location so when I want to add a hidden mickey to a page, I can just come to this folder!

My Disney By Theme Folder looks like this.  It's pretty much done by Character and Lands, etc.

Then if I'm doing a page for my son meeting Mulan, I can just click on the Mulan Themed folder and see what I have for that page.

Hope that helps!  I have another tutorial almost ready for organizing that I will post in a few days too.

Back to the Challenge!
If you work on organizing and complete your page following the rules, you will get StashBuilder: Mickey Heads 1 to put in that new Mickey Head folder of yours!!

And I have another StashBuilder MickeyHeads for my Facebook, Newsletter, and Blog Followers!  I will be putting this on Facebook, emailing it out to the newsletter people, and blog followers - you know you need to email me for it because Blogger does not give me a way to find you!!!  Contact me at agrievingmommy@yahoo.com

Hope this Challenge helps you get a little more organized!
Sending hugs to you :)
Denise aka A Grieving Mommy

PS - Warrior Princess, my latest Kit 4 Charity will be out in just a few days!