Incoherent Scribblings

SBQ: Freebie Organization

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Cindy and is:

Do you have a system for organizing freebie charts in your stash? If so, what is it? Do you print out copies of all of the freebies that you find on the web (that you think you might actually stitch) or do you maintain electronic copies of them until you are ready to stitch them?

My organizational system for Internet freebies has changed a quite a bit in the past year.

When I first discovered online freebies I saved them to my hard drive and then spent three or four days (and an entire color cartridge) printing them out. After they were printed out, I put them in protective sleeves and organized them in three-ring binders more or less by the website where I found them.

I never deleted the freebies from my hard drive and in fact, I kept adding to my collection; though I did start printing them out only when I thought I might stitch them.

However, when I got ready to move back to the US last summer I made the executive decision to leave the three-ring binders and all their contents behind. I did that for three main reasons: Number one, those binders were heavy and were going to cost more to move than I thought they were worth. Number two, my tastes have changed quite a lot in the past few years and I had plenty of printed freebies that I knew I would never stitch. And number three, the freebies were printed on A4 paper and wouldn’t fit in an American binder.

On top of all that, I decided it would make more sense (and save a couple of trees) if I just printed out the freebies as I stitched them, so after I went through the freebies on my hard drive and deleted a bunch of stuff that I know I will never stitch, that is what I do now. The freebies on my hard drive are organized by designer and when I do print them out, I still put them in protective sleeves and in a three-ring binder.