================================================================
Paper Crafts – Organizing Your Layout and Card Ideas
One thing I will not recommend is tearing apart your magazines. There are so many times later on, as I look through it again, that I find a different idea that I did not the first time I looked at the book or magazine. In addition, you can always look at the ideas you can find in the ads themselves. If you do find yourself tearing the magazines apart, you eventually will have a file with nothing but ideas in them.
I have things organized in two different ways, and for me, this works well. It might take a bit of work up front, but you can then have your ideas organized so that you can find what you need when you need it. I will add this…I am still an organized work in progress, but this system I have done works very well for me.
Supplies you need to get started:
Binder/binders in 2″ sizes
A-Z tabs
Paper (lined and plain)
Sticky notepads
Recipe file holder
Recipe cards
A-Z tabs for recipe file holder
To start with, begin with your magazines, looking at each issue with a fine tooth comb. This project can go places with you, taking a magazine or two and your recipe cards to write information down. As I look at the magazine and find an article that, I want to refer back to or a layout idea…I write the following information down.
Magazine name
Month of issue
What area this fits into (layouts, organizing, colors, etc)
What page or pages this is on
What about this I want to keep
As you, write the information down, place in your recipe cardholder under the appropriate letter. This helps when you are looking for baby ideas, or journaling ideas, you are able to go to the perfect magazine for what you are looking for. For all those ideas that are lying around, you are going to add the pictures to the same type of A-Z categories you did with the recipe cardholder. This way, if you have examples, you can always pull the binder down and look at the examples you have to recreate what you want!
Again, this is a work in progress to organize your ideas better. This is the best system for how I do my creating…and when I get stuck, and can’t decide what to create, I can always look in my books to find the perfect color, embellishment, title idea, or what have you!