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Downloads, Desktops and Documents, Oh My!: The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon Day 1

POSTED ON March 30, 2011 IN Adventures in Organizing, The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon 2011

Hello fellow digiscrapping spring cleaners!

Day 1 of The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon has officially come and gone and I am back to share all the juicy details of my progress. (And if today is your first day joining us, you can read all the details about this project right here.)

Last night when I told Adam about my grand plan for whipping my computer back into tip-top shape in just 4 short days, his response went something like this:

“Well, I guess I’ll see you next week!” And then he waved goodbye and laughed. Laughed!

Clearly he was well aware of just how much work I had committed myself to doing this week and to be honest, even I had found myself having slight reservations. Or to be a bit more accurate, random moments of gut-wrenching panic followed by “Holy crap, what have I just publicly committed myself to??”

But rather than frittering my day away by reading the design adventures over at Young House Love (dang that John & Sherry with their two posts-a-day awesomeness!) as I might normally have done, I decided to face my procrastination tendencies head-on and push through my fears and reservations in the name of action.

Today’s letter of the day is A for Action

Well perhaps it should really be B for Backup as that is always the first step I take before I do any major-level file deleting or moving. Better to be safe than sorry in the event that I inadvertently delete a file I really really need! But after a quick Time Machine backup onto my backup EHD, I was ready to go.

I had always intended that for Day 1 of The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon, I would ease myself into things by taking baby steps so as not to get too overwhelmed. So rather than tackling the bloated and in much need of help DigiScrapping or Pictures folders first, I decided to start with three sets of files that I thought would be fairly easy to make progress on: Downloads, Documents and the Desktop.

My original plan was to clear out the Downloads and Desktop files first before moving on to the Documents folder figuring that the files in those two folders would be easier to sort through than the ones that have been sitting forever in my Documents folder.

But after spending about 5 minutes browsing through the 198 files of complete randomness in the Downloads folder, I quickly realized that the reason 99% of those files were still in there was because they had no other place to go. Yes, poor things, they were adrift in a sea of random files, fonts and unzipped scrappy products. So instead I turned my attention to the Documents folder in hopes of giving all those poor orphan files a shiny new home.

I’m Not Sure I Want This Mess Documented

So here’s what the Documents folder looked like when I started:

Day1 Documents before crop

Basically a ginormous mess of random file and folders with the occasional note thrown in for good measure. As you can see based on the files names, I clearly run a very tight file-naming ship around here. A few of my personal favorites:

  • The Untitled file and folder Ooo, very descriptive.
  • the folder of Random Notes
  • Another set of random notes or noites. Perhaps that’s french for notes?
  • Quote which is not to be confused with its good friend Misc Quote

And sadly, this is only one screen’s worth of file names. I’m sure there were many more hidden gems lurking below. Sadly the only folder that actually sees any regular use here is the “Money Stuff” folder which is why it’s colored green. It was the only way I could find it easily in the sea of files, which probably should have been a sign, no?

I’ll admit at this point I was really starting to feel overwhelmed. In fact, I had a text file I was using to keep track of my process and how long things were taking me and this is a direct quote:

started clearing out documents folder – feeling overwhelmed by all the files!!

Yes, double-exclamation points and all. So in an attempt to get things feeling a bit less overwhelm-y, I created a folder called Random Files (ah, the irony!) and moved all the floating single files into that folder. (If you look closely in the image above you can see I had already created it, haha.) After consolidating all the orphaned files, I was left with this:

Day1 Documents midway crop

Doesn’t that look so much nicer and neater already? Still not really organized but it at least looks like it could be!

At this point, I did a quick audit of all the files in the Documents folder and it became clear that the majority of these files fell into three categories:

  • References – files containing useful information
  • Memorabilia – files that I’d like to keep for memory-keeping related reasons
  • Action Files – files for projects or classes I’m currently working on (or have in the past)

So I created folders for those items in the Documents folder and started sorting and deleting. Eventually I was left with just seven folders in my Documents folder:

Day1 Documents after thumb

SO much better.

In case you’re curious about the internal workings of the folders (I know I always am!), here’s a little peek into the Reference folder:

Day1 Documents reference crop

Dealing With Downloads and Desktops

Once I had done the dirty work of getting the Documents folder organized, clearing everything out of the Downloads folder and Desktop was a snap.

Any files that didn’t belong in these categories (like DigiScrap, NettioDesigns or Pictures related) were moved into their proper folders elsewhere. Of course those folders are now a bit of a mess but that’s for another day, right? Haha.

Day0 Desktop before

The only real surprise was when I discovered a folder on the Desktop called “Desktop Cleanup” which was in fact, full of several GB worth of files, mostly photos, that I had cleared off the Desktop surface with the intention that they would be filed away on a later date. Oops. On the plus side, Susan, I found those photos from Disneyworld you were looking for! LOL!

Day 1 By the Numbers

All told, it only took me about 2 and half hours to go from a sad, embarrassing, disorganized Documents folder and bursting-at-the-brim Downloads and Desktop folders to an organized Documents Folder and completely empty Downloads and Desktop. Not too bad for Day 1, right?

But the important question here is, did I free up any space so Photoshop can have room to breathe again?

And sadly, the short answer is no.

Documents by the Numbers

Although I managed to clear out about 15GB of files out of the Desktop and Downloads folders, the majority of those files were moved into other folders. As you can see the Pictures, DigiScrap, NettioDesigns and Documents folders all grew in size with the worst being the Pictures files increasing by 12GB. Dang you sneaky Desktop Cleanup folder photos!

I did feel like I was a deleting machine as I was working but as we all know, documents in general are pretty tiny to begin with, so all told they only added up to about half a GB of space. Wah wah. But I know it’s a step in the right direction and the real progress will begin once I start tackling those dauntingly large Pictures and DigiScrap folders. So for now I’m content with the progress that I have made.

Now It’s Your Turn

So what about all you? Do you have a system for managing your documents? How do you treat your downloads folder? Do you store files in there for good or is it just a stop over until you get around to filing them? Anyone else make some good progress on Day 1 of The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-thon?

Let me know in the comments!

Editor’s note: This post is the second post in a series of posts documenting my quest to get my beloved Mac back into svelte, sexy shape. You can see all posts about The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon here.

POSTED IN Adventures in Organizing, The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon 2011

The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon

POSTED ON March 29, 2011 IN Adventures in Organizing, The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon 2011

My scrap mojo is gone. Gone! And not just in an oh, I’ll take a break and it’ll come back eventually kind of way.

But gone in an omg, what if it never ever returns??? kind of a way.

Now I know what you’re all thinking.

“Just relax, it’s no big deal.”

“It’ll return eventually.”

“Every scrapbooker worries their mojo is gone for good when it disappears.”

Believe me, I know. And if this were just your run of the mill missing mojo, I would totally agree with you.

But this time it’s different. This time we’re talking defcon level five missing mojo. You see the reason for my missing mojo has nothing to do with creativity or lack of ideas. Those old standards of  “take new photos,” “use a template” or “buy a hot new product” aren’t going to work in this case.

Because the reason for my mojo going on this not-so-brief hiatus?

Complete disorganization.

For months now, I’ve been finding it hard to get motivated to scrap. I just chalked it up to outside factors – the gorgeous weather we’ve been having, other fun projects I’ve been working on, the fact that my awesome hubby is finally home for a change.

But last week while working on a layout for the Take Out Tuesday challenge at Sweet Shoppe Designs, I had a bit of a revelation.

Enter Exhibit A.

Totphotocluster 250

At first glance, I’m sure this layout seems quite innocent. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s in my signature I’ve-never-met-a-paper-I-didn’t-love style. I actually quite like it! And despite my missing mojo, it came together fairly easily once I got started.

But let’s dig a little deeper here, shall we? Specifically, let’s focus in on the photo.

You see, I’ve scrapped this photo before.

Enter Exhibit B.

3layouts

Now normally this wouldn’t be an issue for me. I don’t believe in being “caught up” so I have no problem scrapping a photo I love more than once. And lord knows I must love this photo considering this is the 1st 2nd 3rd 4th time I’ve now scrapped it. It’s even got a primo spot on the photo shelves in our living room – which brings me to the real problem here.

Because the real reason I scrapped this photo again had absolutely nothing to do with how much I loved it and everything to do with it’s placement on my harddrive.

Enter Exhibit C.

Folder Image

It’s Time for a Confession

Last year when I had prints made for our photo wall, I saved the edited jpg files into a separate folder outside of my normal organizing program, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The reason at the time was harmless enough – it would make it easier to upload the images to the online printer later on. But ever since then, these photos have found themselves playing a recurring role in my scrapbook layouts for one reason and one reason alone: I could scrap these photos without having to open Lightroom.

I know. I’m embarrassed to even admit it (and seriously, if you saw the state of my files, you’d be embarrassed for me too, haha). But my beloved Mac is in need of a serious Biggest Loser-style diet and exercise plan.

In compy’s (as he’s affectionally known around here, haha) defense, it’s all my fault.

  • I got lazy about paring down photos when I uploaded them.
  • I stopped moving completed layouts onto my external harddrive.
  • I let my Downloads folder get so full of crap, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack whenever I download new files.
  • I started relying heavily on Spotlight searches to find products on my computer because I had no idea which folder they were currently hiding in.

Unfortunately the effects of all this laziness have finally caught up with me and I’m paying for it with some serious Photoshop, Lightroom and Mac slowness (which the occasional random program error thrown in for good measure). That spinning beach ball-of-doom and I have become good friends and it’s seriously cramping my scrapbooking style.

It’s Time to Take Some Action

So I’ve decided that between now and Friday, April 1st, I am going to be doing some major computer spring cleaning.

Clearing out the Downloads folder. Deleting blurry/repeat photos. Consolidating the 4 different “New Goodies” folders I have sitting in my DigiScrap folder (appropriately named “New Goodies”, “New Goodies 2,” “New Goodies 3” and “New Goodies_MOVE.” See, I told you it was bad!).

I’ll be sharing my adventures here on the blog and I’d love for you to join me. 1000 points of awesomeness to anyone who plays along.

Join In the Fun

So who’s up for the challenge? Anyone else have a computer desperately in need of some spring cleaning? Please tell I’m not the only one who’s files are in such embarrassingly bad shape? If you’re in, leave a comment in the comments section so we can cheer each other on.

The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon. 4 Days to a fitter, faster, more awesome compy.

Let’s whip our computer loves back into the svelte, sexy machines they were meant to be.

Editor’s note (and by editor, I mean me, haha): Originally I had planned to give myself until the 5th of April to complete the Great Spring Clean-a-Thon. But as I am an absolute terrible procrastinator, I knew doing so would just mean I would wait until like, the 3rd ,haha, and then try and do everything at once. So in the interest of  focusing on action for a change, I have purposely given myself what is admittedly a crazy tight deadline. Even more so as I have two creative team layouts that have to get done this week as well. But I’m looking at this as a challenge and figuring whatever progress I do make this week will get me one step closer to scrapbook organizing zen. If you’d like to adjust the timeline so it works better for you, please feel free to share your plan in the comments!

POSTED IN Adventures in Organizing, The Great Computer Spring Clean-a-Thon 2011

An Update on my 28 at 28 List

POSTED ON March 3, 2011 IN Life Adventures, the 28 at 28 List


One of my big goals for this year is to complete my 28 at 28 list. I heard about this project a few years ago after seeing it on both Elise and Kelly Purkey‘s blogs.

For those that haven’t heard about this before, it’s really simple. Around your birthday, you make a list of goals equal to the age you are turning that year. You then have until your next birthday the following year to complete your list.

I chose to make my list full of fun things that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile but you could easily make a list of crafty projects, scrapbooking layouts, etc. It’s totally up to you and it’s an awesome way to get yourself into your scrapbooks a bit more too.

My original plan had been to create a list in 2009 for my 27 birthday. But as Adam deployed to Afghanistan just a week after my birthday, I had other things on my mind at the time and just never got around to writing out a list. So when my 28th birthday rolled around last May, I was determined that this year would be the year.

I’ll be turning 29 (eek!) on May 24th, so with just under three months to go, now seemed like a good time to share an update on my progress and what my plans are for the rest of the unfinished items. So without further ado, my 28 at 28 list as it stands right now:

  1. Go on a picnic

    Done. Adam and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather last weekend to knock this one off the list.

  2. Bake something from scratch

    Not yet, but I love to bake so this one should be fairly easy.

  3. Start a blog

    Done. Obviously, haha.

  4. Visit a state I’ve never been to

    Done. Not only did I visit one new-to-me state but I knocked this one out of the park by visiting THREE new states in ONE day: Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Take that item number 4.

  5. Complete 3 mini-albums

    No, but I do have plans for this one. We’ll see how it goes.

  6. Go on a dressy, romantic date night once a month

    Once a month sadly didn’t happen. So unless someone invents a time machine in the next 3 months, I think I’m out of luck, haha.

  7. Keep a positive attitude during our move

    Done. Military moves are always stressful but I’m going to give myself an A+ on this one because I think I actually handled everything really really well. Certainly a lot better than our last few moves which was my goal.

  8. Sew something pretty

    Technically I completed two projects that would count for this but I’m not ready to call this one done just yet. I’m going to see if I can fit in the project I really meant when I added this to my list.

  9. Start my own business

    Done. A little something called NettioDesigns.

  10. Complete a December Daily 2010 album

    Sadly, not done. I honestly don’t know how Ali Edwards does it. Maybe she has scrapbooking elves who come in the dark of night and create her pages for her? I managed to get through about day 16 so it is more than half done. Maybe if I get a second-wind of Christmas-yness in the next three months, I’ll try to finish mine up.

  11. Take a weekend trip to a new city

    Done. Adam and I took a weekend trip to Houston last October to see the Houston Texas play the New York Giants.

  12. Visit a new National Park

    Done. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns National Park on our way from Colorado to Texas. If you’ve never been there you should go. It is AMAZING.

  13. Go on a bike ride

    Not yet, but I’m thinking it needs to happen soon – preferably before it gets super ridiculously hot here in Texas.

  14. Make three new friends

    I largely put this on the list because I knew it would be a big challenge for me. But I’m going to try to make this more of a priority over the next few months and see what happens.

  15. Learn to shoot in Manual mode

    I’m kind of undecided about this one but we’ll see.

  16. Read five non-fiction books

    I’ve read 4 so far: The Happiness Project, Craft Inc., The Art of Nonconformity and Eat, Pray, Love. With just one book to go, I’m thinking this one should get done fairly easily.

  17. Do something that scares me

    Done. Adam and I went ziplining in Hawaii and even up to the morning of I was tempted to back out. But I went and I LOVED it. It was a highlight of our trip for sure.

  18. Complete at least one themed scrapbook album

    Definitely a no. I’m kind of scared at the idea of tackling this large of a scrapbook project. So we’ll see how it goes. If I do, you can be sure I’ll share it here.

  19. Go on a romantic vacation for our 5th anniversary

    Done. We went to Hawaii for 14 days. It was awesome.

  20. Expand my jewelry collection

    Well if going from zero to two counts then yes, haha, but I’d still like to work on this one a bit more.

  21. Create a system for my photos & scrap supplies

    Not yet, but this is on my list to work on this month and I will be sharing my progress here on the blog.

  22. Go local more often

    Done. And we’ve found some really great places that we love.

  23. Go to a professional football game

    Done. This one goes hand in hand with Number 11 when we went to Houston and watched the Texans play the Giants. It’s definitely a difference experience from watching on TV!

  24. Watch 5 classic movies

    1 of 5. We watched The Wizard of Oz a few weeks ago because Adam had never seen it. Crazy, right?

  25. Create an art/scrap canvas

    I actually forgot this one was on the list, haha. Oops.

  26. Go on a train ride

    Done. Adam and I rode on the Royal Gorge Railroad just before we left Colorado Springs.

  27. Start a new tradition

    Done. Although next year will really be the test to see if we keep them up.

  28. Document this list

    Technically done. As evidenced by the layout above, I have documented my list. But I would like to put together some kind of album documenting more of what I did for each item so for now I’m going to call this one 50% done.

So that brings my grand total to 13 items completed – 15 to go. So about half-way done? I think that’s good-ish considering how busy we’ve been since my birthday. I do find it kind of funny that pretty much all the travel/adventure type items are done and pretty much all the crafty ones remain. Not sure what that says about me, haha.

So what about you…anyone ever tackled a list project like this before? Were you able to actually complete your list? And is anyone thinking it would be fun to make a list for their next birthday? Adam’s birthday is on Friday so I’m trying to convince him he should make a list in honor of his 28th birthday too – we’ll see what happens!

POSTED IN Life Adventures, the 28 at 28 List, Digital Scrapbooking

If You Blink, You’ll Miss It

POSTED ON February 28, 2011 IN Announcements

Does anyone else feel like February flew by ridiculously fast? I feel like I blinked and the month was over before. Perhaps it has to do with my being out of town/visiting family for 14 of the 28 days?

But it’s definitely been a busy but productive month around here!

I was lucky enough to be featured at both The Daily Digi (see my profile here) and the Sweet Shoppe (see my profile here) this month and of course my personal shoppe here at NettioDesigns officially opened too. I was even able to cross a few items off my 28 @ 28 list (which I’ll be sharing more about soon). Not too shabby in only 28 days, no?

Sadly the end of February means my time as the Sweet Shoppe Treat of the Month and as part of the The Daily Digi DigiFiles is ending, which means TODAY is your very last day to pick up these two exclusive sets of templates. So if you haven’t stopped by and picked up these templates, I highly recommend you do as after this month, they’ll be gone for good.

Darcy’s Inspired by Nettio templates at Sweet Shoppe Designs:

My contribution to the February Digi Files at the Daily Digi:

Don’t forget if you buy the Digi Files, you get ALL of these awesome designers’ products at a GREAT price:

Goodbye February, you’ve been a great month! Now bring on March!

POSTED IN Announcements

Saying Goodbye to a Tiny Little Grandma

POSTED ON February 26, 2011 IN Life Adventures

Clouds

Photo by Chu

For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to start off this new blogging journey. Should I share some of my scrap goals for the year? Chat about my plans for Faves: the 2011 Edition? Share my 28 @ 28 list? I hadn’t really settled on what topic I would choose – I just new I wanted it to be something special.

And then Adam’s grandma passed away. And all those ideas seemed a bit silly.

Last Saturday, Adam and I left for a last minute five-day trip to California to attend his grandmother’s funeral. The last time we had been in CA was in July, when we had stopped over for a week on our way Hawaii, specifically to spend some time visiting with his grandma.

When we were in college, we visited her quite regularly as our university was only a short distance away. But with deployments and living both overseas and out of state thanks to the military, our visits had become few and far between. Although both Adam and I knew in the back of our minds that it’s was always a possibility with her being 86 years-old, I don’t really think either of us left that visit in July thinking it would be the last time we would get to visit with her.

Adam’s grandma was much like you’d imagine a grandmother to be. Watching Adam interact with her was somewhat comical as at 6 feet tall, he towered over her petite 4’9″ frame. She spoke with a thick Columbian accent which made her both difficult to understand and incredibly endearing and cute at the same time. Our visits with her were never what one would call exciting, but that wasn’t the point. Watching her face light up when she saw that Adam had once again come to visit her made our time spent there absolutely worth while. There was never any doubt about how much she loved seeing him and how proud she was of all that he had become.

On our drive home from the cemetery on Tuesday, Adam and I were talking and he made a simple statement – how he wished he knew more about what his grandma was like when she was younger. What was she like when she was our age? We of course know the basic facts of her life, but it was a bit of a sad moment when we realized that there are so many little moments and memories unique to her that are now forever lost. It made us wish that we had made more of a concentrated effort to ask and document these stories on our trips to see her.

It was at this moment that I turned to Adam and said simply:

“You see. THIS is why I scrapbook.”

Sure I love products, design, photography and technology as much as the next girl. But the heart of scrapbooking for me will always be the stories. Documenting all those little life moments that reveal who we are right now at this moment. Maybe I’ll never have children or grandchildren who want to know more about what my life was like when I was younger. But it makes me smile knowing that if one day someone does want to know more about what my life is like right now, there are five years worth of pages and stories documenting mine and Adam’s life together. And that is a really cool thing.

So I end this post by sending a huge thank you to a tiny little grandma. Thank you for reminding me that this hobby is about more than just the bells and whistles – what we’re doing here truly has real value. And thank you so much for being a part of our lives. I hope you’re dancing in heaven with your loving husband whom you’ve waited so long to see. You will be missed.

POSTED IN Life Adventures

NettioDesigns Grand Opening Sale Coupon Code

POSTED ON February 16, 2011 IN Announcements

Ok, everyone, slight change of plans. Due to a rather large quirk with the coupon system in the cart, I’ve turned off the automagical sale and we’re going to go old-school style using a coupon code instead.

So in order to save 20% off your entire order, use coupon code:

openingday20

Please make sure that you don’t input the coupon code until you’re 100% ready to check out. Making any changes to your cart (adding or subtracting products) will cause your cart to reset/and or not apply the full coupon amount.

Hopefully this will solve some of the weirdness that was going on with the cart. Fingers crossed! Thanks again for your understanding!

POSTED IN Announcements

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HI I'M LYNNETTE. Graphic designer, tech-lovin’ memory keeper and lover of bold colors & patterns, good food and the great outdoors. Here at Nettio Designs, I share a behind the scenes peek at my own creative & life adventures. Read more...

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