A new hobby - Digital Scrapbooking

Oh wow.  I recently discovered digital scrapbooking and I have to say that I am AH-DICT-TED!  I am crafty and I love photography and I have long been a fan of making photobooks for myself and family to collect and share memories. I really tried to get into paper scrapping especially since the kids were born but there were just SO MANY choices of papers and embellishments etc and I could never get to a critical mass of enough STUFF to makes the pages I envisioned and I certainly don't have the space to spread out all the stuff to do it. ENTER digital scrapbooking.  Now all I have to do is think of a theme (first baseball game, trip to the zoo, beautiful nature picture..), search for a digital "kit" of fun matching elements like papers, alphabets, embellishments etc. and after a quick download I am ready to scrap. It takes me an average of 2 hours to design a really nice page with many layers of elements but it can also go very quickly with NO CLEANUP!!  I love it!!  And a bonus is that there is no layout "regret," in that if you cut and paste paper elements you are pretty much committed to that layout. With digital scrapping, you can change and update the layout as often as you like!!

Here is how I got started in digital scrapping.

Google it. Of course. I hit upon ScrapGirls and started reading in the forums about how to get started. I ready about a freeware layout program that was similar to Photoshop Elements called GIMP2.  It works similarly to Photoshop in that you add "layers" of elements and you can control which elements float over or under other elements, their opacity, their size, color, shape. etc.  It works great for me and I love that it is free.

Get "stuff."  In the digital scrapping world these are called elements. Papers, embellishments (like frames, flowers, buttons, tags and cards for journaling, etc), alphabets aka Alphas etc. Well there are a lot of ways, actually. There are a lot of digital designers out there who are very generous and often give out freebies to fans of their facebooks pages, subscribers to their newsletters and/or if you register on their website.  There are also digital stores that offer up many beautiful kits and separate elements at very reasonable prices and often on sale.  Many even offer coupons for a future purchase once you purchase one of their designs.  Coupons are often embedded in the download so be sure to open all the files. Depending on the size of the file and your internet connection, downloads can be slow but worth the time.

Some of my favorite stores are:
ScrapGirls Boutique
Sweet Shoppe Designs
Pixels and Company
Digital Design Essentials
Digital Scrapbooking Studio

Some of my favorite designers are:
Libby Pritchett Designs
Sugar Plum Paperie
Traci Reed Designs


Get inspired.  Google scrapbook pages. Check out designer layout (aka LO) suggestions attached to kits or in their newsletters. Many of the digital stores also have member forums that you allow you to connect with other digital scrappers.  There are often galleries where members share their layouts and this can get you inspired on how to start scrapping.  If you paper scrap, then your ideas can easily translate to digital format.  Subscribing to several digital scrapping email newsletters can also get you inspired.

And since this is my blog I am going to showcase some of my favorite LO's  I hope they get you inspired to give Digital Scrapping a try.

Credits for Marbled Godwits:

Papers: An Innocent Heart Collection from Digital Scrapbooking Studio: AIH6copie, The Urban Fairy

Embellishments: An Innocent heart collection designers: The Happy Heart (thh), Fayette, Sugarplum Paperie

Others: Sugar Plum Paperie Wanderer, Gina Cabrera, Snickerdoodle Designs, Digital House Designs Sara Schmutz Indian Summer

Credits for Sweet As Sugar:

Papers: LLO_BoyJoy (Laura Louie)

Embellishments: An Innocent Heart Collection from Digital Scrapbooking Studio Designers: Happy Scrap Girl, Mandy King, Dianne Rigdon,

WordArt: Libby Pritchett from A Spoonful of Sugar collection

Day at the Beach credits

Paper: Mommy Me Time Scrapper_Popthecork

Embellishments: Erika Zane_Grow, Journaling_Prompt by Gina Cabrera

Disclaimers:
Make sure you have a good firewall, that you have enough memory to run your layout program and store your digital files and that you only download and open files from sites you trust. You also will need an unzip program.

In my future posts I will talk about many Digital scrapping topics like (not in any particular order)
1. getting organized
2. printing your digital creations
3. crediting the designers who created all the elements you use in a Layout
4. designing your own nameplate for blog post
5. What is a TOU? What does S4H/S4O mean? and other abbreviations
6. my creative process