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Sunday, 9 September 2012

Filing & Organisation - Mel

So today I have been doing a job I have been putting off for a while - filing away a pile of finished layouts. I really don't enjoy filing layouts but I love looking through nicely organised albums.... so it is a means to an end!


I have tried various organisation systems over the years;

layouts filed in order I completed them
I found this too incoherant when I looked through the albums as I scrap when I get some inspiration for a photo not in the order they are taken.

layouts filed in chronological order
This worked fine until Olivia was born and then I started to think about who would have the albums in years to come - too difficult to separate them

"Library of Memories \ Photo Freedom" Stacey Julian style
I love this concept for storing photos waiting to be scrapped and I still use it for that but once the layouts were made I really didn't like the theme albums, they again seemed to incoherant for my chronology loving mind!


My current filing system I settled on and then amended slightly after doing Shimelles Cover to Cover Class.

I keep annual chronological albums for each of the girls. Pages with both of them or the whole family in go in whichever album has least of this type of page in at the time I am filing unless the journaling is particularly pertinant to one or other of them - In the photo above there are 3 postbound albums on the left which *swhould* be 2005, 2006 & 2007 for Isabelle. I say should because I hate adding or removing page protectors from post bound albums so they are not exactly in single year albums. I will probably swap at least one of the postbounds for d ring to make it easier. I would have swapped the lot but they are custom designed albums which were bought with Isabelles name in a decorative design on the front and sentimentality has made me stick with them! The brown and red albums in the left hand cube are 2008, Isabelle on the left, Olivia on the right! Pale blue and pale pink are 2009, green and patterned pink are 2010. Unfortunately only 5 albums fit in a cube and I didn't want part of a year in one cube and the other childs album in the next cube so the light green on the right on the middle cube is a travel album. In the far right cube I switched to WRMK albums and there is 2011 and 2012 in there.

In addition to the chronological annual girls' albums I have "Upgrade Albums" for big events (for us this is mainly holidays) and eventually there will be one for our wedding. My travel pages all go in a general travel abum and if and when there are enough pages to warrent a separate album for just one trip then the layouts get shifted into their own album. Finally I need another album for things that don't fit anywhere else! I need to find a home for layouts of my neices - they will no doubt have their own album and then there are the Book of Me type layouts as I have only recently decided to scrap any of those.

So - I have been organising and filing. Anyone care to share their systmes? What works for you and why?