USED Kits

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USED Kits

What does everyone do with kits that they have used? I have a folder called USED that is VERY VERY full and still thousands of kits I have yet to use. I think I'm a digital scrapbook hoarder. Some I have paid for, some I have downloaded thru blog trains, and some were freebies. I just can't seem to let them go but my stash is getting out of control. I have a kit for EVERYTHING!!

I have never deleted anything I've purchased. My EHD is HUGE! But I just can't bare to throw stuff out. I have kits that are from as far back as 2006. No joke! It's like a historic archive in there.

I keep it all too, there is something satisfying downloading kits. After I use a kit, I put them in folders that are numbered 1-12 that sort of correlate with the time of year. School stuff in 09, christmas in 12, etc. and that way if I just need something to finish a page or need inspiration I can look in the section for a particular season or holiday and check out all the kits that are like that. But truthfully now I often just search on digitalscrapbook.com which is way easier smiley.

I will delete stuff after a while. I use DigitalScrapbook.com as my archive and anything else I buy is for the novelty. I use it a bit and then I'm on to the next thing.

I'm definitely a hoarder. lol I won't let anything go, because it could become useful at some point.

I am a bit of a hoarder too. I organize my kits by theme and zip them when I am not using them. Most i get here or cause I am on CT's . there is only one designer - Boomersgirl - who i love and buy her stuff.

I have 2 designers I hoard from and one as retired and I'm constantly begging her to let me buy out her library but she never responds. HAHA One is a kit designer and the other one is a layout template designer. I have SO MANY templates I haven't used yet. I scrap in 8.5x11 so I'm constantly modifying them to fit.

I keep every thing, afraid to delete it ..... what if I need it down the road. I sound like my parents, who lived during the depression, you know, they never threw anything away. As I well know I know because I have some of their stuff it in my basement. At least digital stuff doesn't take up space in my house.

I mostly dl directly from here, easier than to start searching on my drives. I delete monthly to bi-monthly, loads of stuff.

Yep, most definitely a hoarder! Though with designing, I figure it’s worth it (and keep most of it pretty organized). Online storage is getting cheaper. That said, I definitely do use individual items downloaded on a ‘I need this quick & easy’ kind of basis here too.

@Karry, I'm brand new to this but when I did paper scrapbooking I sort of followed this idea:
• Go through the kits and purge what no longer appeals to you.
• Sort the remaining elements into categories that make sense to you. That might mean sorting by color or theme or holiday/season, whatever you like.
• Someone on FB mentioned that I should only d/l items that I really like. And if I buy a kit and there are several pieces that don't appeal to me she said to get rid of them right away. ...I know my tastes change so maybe that won't work for me. Not sure.

What I do know is that I'm going to buy an EHD just for digital scrapbooking. I don't want to bog down my PC.

Although the above sounds like a good idea it would be crazy time consuming. That would be something I'd do while I were waiting in a doctor's office or some such. Maybe in front of the TV?

i'm a hoarder too. kits i've already used are put in a folder called "kits used" and the new ones are, you guessed it, in the "kits new" folder.

I'm a digital scrapbook hoarder! I still have a few things back from 2007. I've lost a lot through a hard drive crash, but it didn't take long to start building the stash back up. smiley I keep everything in folders according to designers and then by store. If they have more than one store, then I put them in the which ever of their stores that I am most active at. I'm glad I've kept so much as my style has evolved over the years. Currently I'm getting more artsy. Five years ago, I would have cringed at using an artsy layout style. lol! I have TONS of kits that I have never used. I keep telling myself that I'm gonna use what I have before buying more, but then I see a kit 'I have to have' or one I want that is on sale for such a good price. lol!

I also do the new kits and used kits folder Marlyn! Eventually I realized I mostly like using new things and don't really need a giant archive of old kits, when I can just search here for whatever I need.

Hi,

I am also a collector with an external drive with 1 TB. Simply because I know how much time, creativity, also craftsmanship and also headaches a kit requires. I see them as small works of art. However, in Germany the copyright is stricter than in the USA. I remember that around 2005 there were not yet these permissions PU and CU and you had to create a kit all by yourself.

I divide into year folders with subfolders BT, purchase kits (store subfolders), greeting cards, family scraps etc. and number in the title according to importance.
Then on another EHD I have a subdivision into kit items, which I like very much in individual kits by theme. So I find Embellis Alphas, Figures faster as if I search for the whole kit. Meanwhile, I actually delete older kits. which no longer correspond to my current, hopefully developed taste. But honestly, sometimes with a heavy heart. There I am nostalgic, because I have experienced beautiful times in a German forum, which was unfortunately closed, because the leader life gave other tasks. I use kits, if they are high quality, even several times, privately or in forums.

However, today I no longer download every freebie unless it has my favorite colors or my themes. Today I sometimes buy an unusual theme kit (especially men's themes), which I never did before.

Oh, how I wish I still had some of the things I purchased/downloaded from 15+ years ago! I'm not even sure what happened to them all; I think they got lost in one of my computer upgrades. smiley There were a few designers I absolutely loved who I don't think are still around, and I can't even remember their names any more.

All that being said, while I don't (deliberately) delete anything I like, it is getting to be a bit much to organize and to go through whenever I want to make a page. There are so many cool/beautiful things I have that I can't even remember much less find now. And it's SO frustrating when you have a large kit that the designer didn't label other than something like "element 01" . . . "element 47" . . . "elements 128"!!! You can't search for anything, plus inevitably when I use some of these types of elements I forget to label them better in my Photoshop layers, and then I forgot where I even got them from!

Sorry, rant over. I guess this topic must have struck a nerve!!

Nona, regarding labelling your layers -- if you use Photoshop, you can just drag the element you want from the kit folder to photoshop and the element's name will show on the layer.

Right, Marlyn, thank you. Unless I'm misunderstanding, that's what I do already. My problem is more in what name the designer has designated for each piece of the kit - it often doesn't label what the element is (eg. "bluebird") and sometimes doesn't even give the designer or kit name within the file name. Ideally it is something like "janedoe_ChristmasJoy_star" but often it's just "element 76."

I also struggle with getting rid of things I’ve downloaded! Even though my Photoshop Elements organizer is overstuffed and getting more all the time, thanks to here and freebies that I find on other sites. I am trying to get more discriminating about what I download, and better about cleaning out things that I know I’m unlikely to use. But since I often tend to shop my stash and reuse older things, especially for things like the recipe challenge here, I’m mostly trying to tag as I go so I can at least quickly find the color or pattern that I want.

designers who do not properly name their elements are in the minority, thankfully.