Digital Scrapbooking 101

I got asked a few questions about my pages yesterday and after writing a huge email, decided I should share it will all y'all.

First off, digital scrapbooking is awesome. You can find tons of free papers, "stickers" and kits. I have yet to pay for any digital scrapbook supplies. I can also "clean up" in about 60 seconds so even if I only have 15 free minutes, I can actually accomplish something unlike when I would spend half my time taking out and putting back all my papers, scissors, etc. Another benefit is that I can make duplicates, so Lucy will have a copy and so will Craig and I. And I print ours as 12"x12" albums but I can easily print select pages in an 8"x8" for the grandparents.

Software:
To start off, you need a photo editing software. I use photoshop elements. It is a really user friendly program although you won't think so the first day or two you use it. But keep trying, say 30 minutes a day for a week and suddenly, it will be your best friend. I still have version 5.0 which is pretty old (I think they are on 9.0 now) but it works well so I'm not planning on upgrading yet. I got it from ebay back when 5.0 was current for ~$50 I think. If you think you might be interested, they have a 2 week trial. I also use it to edit all my photos as well as design my scrapbook pages. There are other programs too but I don't have any experience with them.

I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to use the program when other have done it better. Shabby Princess's tutorials is where I got most of my initial information but there are lots out there.

You can also use shutterfly or snapfishes album design programs but then you are limited to their papers/fonts/layouts and I didn't find their items very inspiring. With the photoshop method, you save each layout as one picture so in the end you just upload your 20 or so "pictures" as full pages. Shutterfly has templates you can use but I just make them all 12x12 and try not to put anything important at the edges since the very edge might get cut off or stuck in the crease.

Supplies:
Papers/Kits: Whatever you can get in Hobby Lobby, you can find digitally - papers, "stickers", embellishments, etc. As I said before, there are tons of free kits out there so you don't have to pay for anything (although most kits for sale are really inexpensive too, like $1-$4). As you get more experience, you can even find "tears" and "brushes."

A few of my favorites are:
Shabby Princess
Three Paper Peonies
Raspberry Road Designs
DigiScrap Depot

For the most part, I just collect general style papers and kits as I find them then use them as needed but sometimes I search for specific themed items (like when I wanted farm animals for lucy's b-day invite), "digi scrap freebie ___" will usually turn up at least a couple cute things.

Quickpages/Templates:
When I started, I normally made layouts the same way I was used to, arranging by hand. But then I discovered templates and fell in love. Templates allow me to quickly turn this

layout credit

into this.

 word art credit

 and all the time I spend making it is spent on the fun stuff, like picking out cute papers and arranging the embellishments without worrying about how to fit the pictures on the page. My absolute favorite place to get templates is simply yin. I've pretty much used all her free ones but I will start buying her others from her store since they are great. And she really seems like the nicest lady.

I don't use very many quickpages since I tend to be too picky and I always want to change at least one thing (did you notice that even with the template above, I had to add another picture :-) but I'll probably start as my free time seems to be getting less and less. With a quickpage, everything is done, you just have to add pictures. This is one of my favorite quickpages.

credit

Word Art:
I also love word art. I love having cute little sayings and phrases on my pages, but I'm not clever enough to come up with my own :-) But I don't have to as long as Bethany does for me. She has tons available for free right here. 

Printing:

I get my albums printed at shutterfly and have always been pleased with the quality. I've gotten prints from snapfish too and they were fine but I started with shutterfly and I really want all my albums to match so I'm sticking with them. If you are like me, you might initially gasp at the cost of printing an album but once you add up the cost of an album from hobby lobby, plus paper, embellishments, scissors,and glue along with the cost of printing the pictures themselves, you are probably saving money. And the best way to save more money on album printing is sign up to receive emails from shutterfly. You'll get codes quite frequently, but the best seem to come a few weeks before the major gift giving holidays (imagine that! :-) Shutterfly will keep my projects indefinitely so I can have it all ready and waiting for whenever a really good coupon is available. Its hard not to print it immediately when I've worked so hard and want to hold it but the $15-20 I've saved makes it worth it.

Well, that was long but hopefully it inspired you to in download the trial photoshop elements and a free kit and give it a try. I think you'll like it!