I am thrilled at how many of you learned something or took something away from my post on Power Scrapping last week! All of the comments, emails and pins of my post made me all tingly inside! I hope that you can learn a little today too!

I have two quick little tricks for you today, kind of a follow up to last weeks post.

First, tracking those credits! Whether I’m power scrapping or just scrapping, tracking credits can be a challenge!

I work on a Mac, so unfortunately, this tip won’t work for you Windows users, but maybe someone can share a trick for doing something similar on a PC in the comments….

There is a handy tool on your Mac called “spotlight comments” I have actually blogged about this tool before as an easy way to tag your files. Today, I’ll share how I use it for tracking my credits!

To start, you’ll need to have a saved file. For me, this is usually my pre-photo filled template. Head to the file, right click and select get Info. A window will pop up with all kinds of information on your file. (See left of screenshot). Here you can easily rename a file, add a colored label, or track your credits.

The top box, labeled Spotlight Comments is where we will be working. You can put anything in this box. As mentioned above, it’s great for tagging (and using the Spotlight Search tool to find things) or for tracking credits. You can even use it to put journaling you want to save with a photo or add a few notes about a document so you don’t have to open it to see what’s inside.

Today, we’ll track our credits. While I work, I leave this “Info” window open in the background. When I select a kit, template or element – I can put the information about it right in the comment box.

Here I have added in the credits for the template I used. It’s from Moose Maps: Photobooth by Two Moose Designs

It automatically saves, as soon as you type and stores when you close this window, so all you have to do is add the information! If you right click, get info again – the information will be right there!

When my layout is finished, I copy this information to the same place on my web-size file, so it’s ready to copy and paste when I upload to my galleries!

Super easy!

But, you might be wondering why I copy the credits to my web version and don’t just upload my layout to my galleries as soon as it’s finished…

Remember, I’m power scrapping! The scrapping bug has bit me, and my goal is to get my layouts finished – not waste time doing the ‘other stuff’ that goes along with scrapping! I don’t want to stop and upload my layouts one by one, it’s time consuming! So, I save all of my web sized layouts in a folder or on my desktop, and when I’m done for the day I head to my galleries and upload them!

I put 1 copy in my personal gallery on Picasa, usually upload my layouts to Facebook to share with family and friends, sometimes I post them on the designers Facebook Pages too (us designers, we love seeing our work being used) and then to my gallery at theStudio (and elsewhere, if it’s CT work). I open each gallery in a new tab on my browser, upload the layouts, copy the credits and go tab by tab pasting in the credits for each layout. I only copy the credits once, and paste it in each gallery – and do this for each layout until they are done.

I’m saving time. I don’t have to find my credits for each layout each time I upload, I don’t have to log in and upload each time I finish a layout and I enjoy the feeling of seeing 4, 6, even 10 layouts flood my gallery at once! I feel like I did something when I upload in bulk!

When it comes to scrapping, I’m all about using my time wisely to be as productive as possible!

If you have an area of scrapping that is time consuming for you, leave me a comment – if I have a solution or trick I use, I’ll share in a future post!

Thanks for reading! Find more Nibbles Skribbles:

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