Not necessarily fancy…but they are done. My 365 scrapping project. I just have one more week to catch up on.
Daddy’s Girl
March 10, 2009 By
My latest digi-scrap page. It took me 20 minutes! I wanted to do a layout with quircky colors and I think the purples, greens and yellows work. What do you think?
More Pandemonium Layouts
March 9, 2009 By
Here are the last three digi layouts for the Pandemonium series. Loved this line!
Digital Scrapping- My List
March 5, 2009 By
A few of you have either commented or emailed and asked about dabbling in digital scrapping. I have to be honest and tell you that I sat on the idea for a long time before I actually took the plunge. When I got to the point where I was feeling completely overwhelmed my paper scrapping and 9 months had passed since Catherine had come home and I had not done a single page for her, I knew it was time for me to get at it.
As far as having no time to learn or take on something new, I would have to say that I have learned this quite quickly and can actually crank out pages fairly quickly. What used to take me 5 or 6 hours in putting a paper layout together, I can now do in about 20 minutes. Really, the time invested is picking out what elements you want to use.
There was a definite learning curve but I would say that it took me about 2-3, 2 hour sessions for me to get some very basics down. I am pretty much a basic scrapper as it is and so it doesn’t bother me too much go this route digitally. As time has gone on, I am picking up more and more skills but I am still sticking to the basics for right now, especially with my 365 album. I plan to get a little more fancy with Catherine’s book and our trip to China book.
So here are some of the products I use and love:
I use Photoshop Elements 7 to make my pages. At first this was daunting to even think about using but the girls over at Weeds & Wildflowers gave me some pointers and off I went!
Speaking of Weeds & Wildflowers, their Life 365 kit was the first digital kit that I bought because the instructions for the project made Photoshop Elements 7 seem so easy! And also, I really would love to document our year since I had such a ball document our Week in the Life of challenge with Ali Edwards last year. I have learned so much from their forums and the galleries.
Over at the Two Peas Education Center, Sandy Krieger is teaching a free Photoshop Elements scrapping class online. It’s self pace and her classes are about 15 minutes in length. Easy stuff! I have also learned a great deal from browsing through her lessons.
One of my new FAVORITE websites about digi-scrapping is Simple Scrapper. Jennifer has some serious talent when it comes to turning this craft into easy-speak for us newbies. I have learned so many things from her site and from the links that she suggests. If you are into digi-scrapping, I highly recommend that you go and bookmark her site. You will love it!
Another favorite site is The Daily Digi. She has fabulous ideas with photos that are just gorgeous
The internet is loaded with digi-scrapping freebies but you really have to be aware of what you are dowloading. Make sure you are running your anti-virus program while downloading any files. Also, ask yourself if you really need the item. I know that we can quickly become overwhelmed with all of the elements that we have and so they easily become lost or they are just never used. I do have to say though that my favorite hot-spot blog to inform all of addicts of free stuff is Ikea Goddess. She will usually do a Freebies of the day post.
The one aspect of this craft that I learned the hard way is making sure that you get organized early on. Right now I am in the middle of organizing, sorting, and tagging all of my elements into ACDSee. Photoshop Elements comes with an editor but it isn’t as detailed as ACDSee. I wish I had done this from the getgo!
Here is a list of some of my favorite stores:
I have loved my digital scrapbooking experience so far. I have been able to do far more pages in 6 short weeks than I ever did paper scrapping. I will be printing out my Pandemonium layouts and actually adding paper embellishments to those layouts. This is known as hybrid scrapping. I can’t wait to get those layouts in! I wanted to end this post with this wonderful article written over at Simple Scrapper. It’s call 25 Reasons to Love Digi.
If you are a digi-scrapper, send me some of your favorite online shops and resources! I would love to see your favorites!
Catching Up wth 365 Digi-Scrapping
February 27, 2009 By
I have been throwing my 365 Album projects together. They are supposed to be simple and simple is my style. No matter how much I want to be super fancy with my designs, it’s just not happening for me yet. And so, some of these pages are okay and the others are a little blah. I like them all though and they are done! Now if I can find a program that can help me sort through all of the digi-items that I have, I will be thrilled.
