How to decide?

[digiscrapper]

How do you decide which kits to purchase? By designer? By current pages you are working on? By things you may do someday (someday I will go to Paris)? By theme? By inspiration to work on an old set of photos? For a gift album?

After reviewing a lot of my purchases over the years, I noticed have lots of similar type kits, many of which I have never used. My stash is HUGE and often it takes me way too much time to decide what to use for a current crop of photos. When I see credits by people who have used elements from several different kits, I wonder how much time it takes to assemble all that is used.

 

[faerywings]

That's such a good question. And my short answer is: It depends.

I know. Not helpful. LOL
I think that my biggest draw to a particular kit is the designer's style. I love messy kits chock full of mixed media papers, paint, and brushes/overlays. My second consideration is the subject or theme. I scrap a lot of photos of my dogs or my flowers so those kits automatically get bumped up for me.
I also make a yearly album for my nephew's birthday. Since he is involved in a lot of sports, I have to look for kits that work with those photos.

So it depends on what I scrapping about and what my end goal is. Throw in the fact that as a Cheery O, I need to represent Oscraps as a whole my purchases and gallery tend to be extremely eclectic. A total mishmash, if you will

I tag my kits with ACDSee so I am able to look for specific kits and elements pretty easily so I can (usually) assemble what I need for a page quickly. For the execution of a page-- that is a whole 'nother story!

 

[LSlycord]

Oh...such a good question. I love nearly everything...and I'm terribly disorganized when it comes to my kits. I file everything by designer and then by kit. But I do love new kits!!!

 

[scribler]

Oh that I had a good answer. Sometimes, I do a great job of choosing a kit or brushes or papers because they work well with my photos or my art journaling goal. In those instances I am a good shopper. But I also have a problem with that kits with lots of flowers and feminine elements call to me. But I mostly scrap pics of my hubby and my fur babies. Not as useful. (Not really helpful to you but I wanted you to know you aren't the only one creating a collection of unused or rarely used supplies. lol)

Yes, assembling a page using multiple kits or element packs can take awhile but it's usually worth it. Luckily, I usually know which designers create products that fit the page I am creating, so I just look through their products on my hard drive. (Also, sometimes a search in the store will help remind me of products I've already purchased. lol)

 

[AZK]

I'm usually drawn to a kit by the colors in it, and then I take a closer look at the elements and papers, since that will help me decide if it's something I want to work with. I'm always excited by new styles of kits, but yes, my stash goes back to 2008 or so, and I don't have them organized enough to make use of them efficiently, so I tend to be a one-kit scrapper.

 

[Kythe]

Basically I go by style of the designer. I love watercolour brushes and overlays to create borders and clusters so I look for those things in a kit. If I need to create a challenge or a page as a CT then the kits I choose need to blend with that purpose.
Sometimes when I have a lot of time on my hands, I go to some older kits in my stash (2006) that I haven't used and create blank QP pages that I can use for personal photos. (I always make note of which kits I used and keep the PSE copy in case I need to alter the frame space.) Those are put into a separate album for quick retrieval)

 

[Veronika]

after I used to buy "querBeet= in German " = "across the board", I now limit myself to certain designers.
From time to time I also buy from another designer if certain things appeal to me.
Since I not only scrap digitally, but also create real AJ pages, I also look out for them.
I let myself be guided by the colors and elements, even downright "triggered", there are certain elements that appeal to me immediately, for me there must be a lot of "artsy" and mixed media supplies and of course the right colors, I like natural tones

 

[Jam-on-toast]

Ha ha... been there got that... lots of kits in my stash I bought because I liked them but somehow never gotten round to using them. I guess buying kits is a completely different hobby, lol...

I usually get what I like - sometimes becase I like a sample layout, sometimes it's the colors or the theme - Xmas is the one theme I can never have too many of... Once or twice I got a kit because I wanted to try a new style... I love sales and tend to get lots of stuff... oh, and templates - those will be the death of me... I've got a couple thousand, I guess...