Enter digital scrapbooking.
Oh my.
I tried it first last summer, and liked the results, if they were fairly novice. I started doing a few more pages a couple weeks ago, trying some new techniques, and I love it. The best part? I don't have to take over a whole table for a week to do a handful of pages. No tape or stickers or bits for Organique to strew, no cutting tools for cropping photos or paper, no expensive adhesives to replace (when your kid uses it on the floor), no mess at all. I can open up a project and spend 10 minutes while I nurse Baby, then leave it to cook dinner without hassle. After they're in their protective sleeve in an album, your 2-year-old can't reach in and tear off a photo or frame.
The downsides: You do need a decent editing program (I use photoshop elements), and a 12x12 page is about $3 to have printed. But I'd say it's worth it.
Here are a few of my digital pages...
Baby:
Organique:
Hubby (this was one of last summer's pages. He's building the chicken plucker.):
Organique again:
I 'made' very little of the 'stuff.' You can buy and download papers and elements, but there's a ton available for free (guess which I do). You can alter it appropriately, or use as-is, put it together as you like, and ta-da!
3 comments:
Oooh tell me more! I want to learn :) Do you use photoshop for designing the whole page, or just for cleaning up the pictures themselves? Is there a scrapbooking program you use? Where do you et all the "embellishment" stuff (like the "man at work" sticker-looking thing)? Where do you get them printed?
Andi, I'm not sure if I can get it all in a comment, but I'll start here anyway. :)
I use photoshop elements (a FAR cheaper version of photoshop. it does a LOT). I use it to deal with the photos - crop, resize, brighten, occasionally to erase a crumb of food from someone's chin (but not usually!). I ALSO use it for the other stuff; each 'paper' and 'element' (the things like the man at work tag). Those are treated kinda like photos too; put them here, there, under, etc. It takes a little practice if you've never used PSE before; there's lots to know, but it's not hard once you get the hang of it.
There are templates you can find (or make; they're not that hard) which you open in PSE, then just plug in different papers/photos/elements and go from there. You can also make your own templates, or just go from scratch.
I've seen "quick pages" which are pages already COMPLETELY done except for the hole for your photo and a spot for some text. I haven't done those; the creative process is important to me.
All the 'stuff' is downloaded. I only get the freebies, and even then it's good I have a big hard drive. :) Google raspberry road designs for some great free kits (matching papers/elements).
Many photo printers are doing the 12x12 printing now; I use Costco, which charges about $3. I've only printed a few of them, and haven't compared the quality to other online printers, so there may be better ways.
There are a TON of blogs showcasing techniques and products, youTube videos for the same.. You can download a 30-day free trial of PSE 8, then buy it if you decide you want it. There are other 'scrapbooking' programs out there, but there's nothing I'm missing so far (in my opinion) so I've not sought them out.
If you're the Andi on my fb, I have an album there with more pages. :)
I also resized these.. I didn't realize they were off the edges (at least on my screen) and halfway hidden!
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