Organizing the stash....

I used to be a traditional scrapper, and I guess I kind of still am. I definitely have a big box of paper and tools leftover to prove it!

One of the things I love about digital scrapbooking is that it doesn't take much space... anywhere I can bring my laptop, I can scrap. However, organizing the stash of digital supplies takes some effort too. One of the hardest things is that stuff comes in complete kits (collections) of coordinating items, but someday, I may need a blue button or a red ribbon for a layout and not know which of the 100+ kits it might be in.

That's why I use Picasa, which is FREE (I like that!) and works really well to organize stuff using tags. Over at The Daily Digi, there is a review of Picasa today, and I recommend checking it out:
Picasa – A free & useful tool in your digi scrap toolbox

TAGGING

This is the tool I find most helpful in Picasa, which they do mention in the above review. You can set up whatever tags you want, and then mark each graphic file with as many tags as you want. I tend to use simpler tags, so that I can easily cross-reference. For example, one paper might have these 8 tags:
paper
print
stripe
red
blue
green
black
distressed

If I'm looking for a stripe paper to match a photo with purple in it, I can search for "purple" "paper" "stripe." I use it most often when searching for elements. If scrapping using a themed kit, but that kit doesn't have a button or ribbon or string in it, I can search my entire stash in seconds by element name and color to see if I have something else that will work.

THE CATCH

Tagging a large stash can take a loooooooooong time. I've put in hours tagging, but I did go back and tag EVERYTHING. Now, I tag as I acquire new stuff, so it's much less painful, and once it's done - it's done!