Foundations, Part 2: Photos and Text

Thanks for coming back to check out part 2 of my Foundations style series. Now that you have a good foundation for your organizing and your pages, the next items to consider are the photos and the story. After all, that’s why we scrapbook…we take tons of pictures and want to record the stories and feelings that go with them! So let’s look at the Photo Accessories group and then how about the text accessories.

Photo Accessories are pretty simple…this is where you put categories for items that go under, around, or are clipped to a photo. I don’t personally use any Adobe software products, but if you have actions for manipulating your photos, this is where I would put a photo actions category. I keep a simplified set of sub-categories for frames but you can be as detailed as you like. Again, the point is to have a short but easily defined list to speed tag your items then when you have time or the need arises you can refine your organizing.

Text accessories are fairly similar. Does an item enhance or enclose your text?  Labels, tags, journaling strips plus elements like alphas, fonts, and word-art are all about helping you with the storytelling side of your creations. As you can see, my word-art sub-categories has been expanded because I’m seriously addicted. I used to dig endlessly through single word labels, barcodes, and other word-art items looking for a cute definition or a quote. Now, with my word-art sorted out, it’s easy to find a sentiment for a card I’m making or a cute label for a tag.

I challenge you to go through a category of your own that has become so overloaded that you can’t really find what you are looking for. Can you sort some of it into a different category because it’s used differently? Can you break everything into sub-categories? Make your categories work for you by being easy to find, and clearly defined so it’s just as fast to tag as it is to search. That’s what the Foundations Style is all about.

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