Fields Of Heather: Christmas In July

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Week One - Organizing My Christmas SVGS
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I know many of you are just anxious to get started on a project. I'd be the last to discourage that. Pick something, send it to cut, and while it is cutting, start thinking about organizing all of the svgs and supplies you already own.

For week one, my emphasis is on finding all of my Christmas SVGS, organizing them, setting up a folder to store some inspiration and projects to make in (a visual to do list) and then checking supplies and attempting to be realistic about what I can actually get done this year.

This Weeks Goals:

Sort & Organize My Christmas SVGS
Check My SVG Purchases
What Projects Did I Start Last Year And Not Finish?
Create Folders For This Years Christmas Projects
Planner Page - Brainstorming Goals For The Christmas Season
Planner Page - Supply Inventory

Step one for me is to see what I already have. It's always more than I think.

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Sorting & Organizing Christmas SVGS

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As I say over and over, what works for me may not work for you, and what works for you may not work for me. AND, what works for me is always "in progress", I'm constantly making changes. But here's a look at how I keep my Christmas svgs sorted:

Christmas has a WHOLE LOT of subfolders - more than any other category of svgs on my hard drive. All of these are stored on an external hard drive.

If you use Windows and you do not see thumbnail views of your svgs, it's MUCH easier to sort them if you can see what they are! Here's how to enable thumbnail views of svgs:

https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2018/01/how-to-see-thumbnails-of-svg-files.html

I use the windows power toys option.

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STEP TWO

Checking My Purchases

Now that my files are all organized and I can see where everything is, it's a good time to check the sites I buy svgs from, and make sure there isn't anything I forgot to move over to these folders. In most cases, you can just go to your account, and look for your purchase history. Here are screenshots and more detailed instructions for the sites I purchase from most: https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2023/06/tip-search-your-purchase-history.html

Design Bundles, as of August 2026, is going to subscription only - so just to be safe, this may be a good time to download ALL of your purchases...

And with the Creative Fabrica taking over all of the Dreaming Tree files, and Leo leaving DT, if you have a CF Membership, you may want to download all of the DT Christmas files too. I don't know what will happen with all of that. (See what little we do know here )

Although the thumbnail viewing option I covered above is helpful for many svgs, when it comes to complex 3d paper svgs, I always try to save the photo of the completed project into the folder with the svgs too. Sometimes it is included in the download, sometimes it is not - I right click and "save as" on the project photos, just to be safe.

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STEP THREE

CHRISTMAS "WORK" FOLDERS

I always keep a "Cut Now" folder in dropbox [one of my cloud storage options] , with the projects I want to make soon.

In that folder, I added a Cmas folder.

Inside, I stuck preview photos of the projects I'd like to make this July. In a folder labeled "2 upload", I have all of the files I need to add to Design Space. This is a visual to do list for me. I'll add more files as I decide exactly what I am doing this month, but this shows me some of the things I didn't get to last year.

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Now to find my stash of "Not completed" projects, and decide what I want to finish this week-end.

Next week, Week two, will be all about Christmas Cards.

Getting my list organized, my supplies ready, and deciding on a few designs to make. I won't make TOO many ahead - maybe half? Because I know there will be so many new designs I'll want to make later this year. I never make just one card design - I'm not cut out to be a factory worker. I make many different designs each year.

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