Organizing and Storing Your Scrapbooking Ideas

by Nicole Humphrey | More from this Blogger

16 Jan 2009 07:26 AM

It would be wonderful if we all came equipped with the ability to store all of the awesome ideas that we see or would like to try, in our brains. Unfortunately that is not the case, so that leaves us with the decision on how we plan to store any ideas we come across. Here are some popular ways to organize your ideas, inspiration and other items that are a challenge to store.

Bulletin Boards/Magnetic Boards

Having been in the scrapbooking world for quite some time, I have seen many scrapbookers who only save a handful of ideas to use later. If you don't have a lot of pieces of paper or pages to store, try using a bulletin board and pinning your inspirations to that. To be honest, having it out in plain view will make it much more likely that you will utilize the idea in your layout.

Binders/Albums

Many scrapbookers find it easier to just throw all of their inspirational ideas in a scrapbook album or idea binder. Either way, it is a compact, organized way to store the many pieces that you have cut from magazines, etc. If you adhere these to a larger piece of paper within the binder, you can make notes in regards to your plan.

Files

Filing the ideas by theme is a very quick and efficient way to organize your scrapbooking ideas and other resources you've pulled out of magazines or printed. If you are working on a particular theme, it is simple to pull the file that corresponds with that theme and you have an abundance of ideas that fit the layout you're working on.

Photo Boxes/Baskets and Containers

These can either be organized by theme, or just to keep everything in one place, the ideas can be placed in a photo box. Be sure and label your container or box so that you know at a quick glance what is inside. When you are getting ready to work on some layouts, grab your box and set it next to you on your surface. You can look through it when the ideas simply aren't coming.

Kits

One of the ways I tend to utilize the page ideas I'd like to scrap-lift are to put together a kit with the papers, accessories and photos, then slip the layout or sketch that I want to copy into the page protector with all of the items. This way, when I am ready to scrap, everything is at my fingertips. I don't clip a lot of ideas so I use both the kit method and the bulletin board/magnetic board idea.

How do you store your ideas?

Learn more about Nicole Humphrey

Nicole Humphrey is a freelance writer, consultant for CTMH and a Sr. Blogger for families.com. She resides in St. Charles, Missouri with Mike and their five children and two furbabies.

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