Digital Scrapbooking, Journaling & Tutorial links

Digital Scrapbooking - The art of manipulating photo’s on a “page” on your computer and adding interesting papers, elements and stories to create a family heirloom that will be treasured for generations to come.

These pages can just be digital and put into a slide show to share with family and friends or you can print them out on your printer and put them into your family album. Another way to make an even longer lasting heirloom would be to send them to one of the many photo book printers on the web, and have them printed into a hard bound book, that will (hopefully) last for many generations. Whatever you do with your final product, you can be sure you will enjoy it.

I think that most people will agree, the reason they first started was so they could try to preserve a piece of their family story, be it the present day one, or some of your past. Digital Scrapbooking is the perfect way to accomplish this, because you can reuse your supplies over and over, and if by chance you don’t have the paper you want to use, in the right color, it’s not all that hard to recolor it to match your page. So what are you still doing here reading? Go grab a kit, and start playing!!!

Journaling:

Journaling (to me) is one of the MOST important parts of Scrapbooking. At the very least, I think you should always, ALWAYS, include names and dates on a layout. Even if YOU know who it is in the picture, it doesn’t mean that future generations will, so don’t be shy, put the names and the date (even just the year is better than nothing) if possible on all layouts. If you are posting it online, you don’t have to have that part show if you don’t want to, but for the ones you keep for family, it’s a very important part of the layout.

If you can its also nice to know the particulars of the photo, such as where it was taken, and what is going on in the photo. Even your thoughts at the time would be really interesting for others to read. I know most of you will say you just can’t write, and believe me, I know what you mean, I am not writer myself, but you don’t have to be a “writer” or be the perfect English (or other language) student, just write from your heart, the way you talk, or think, and it will be YOU, which is what your family will want to see. If others who know and love you, can read what you write on a layout and can almost feel you are with them, you have given them a most precious gift, because you have left some of yourself in it, for them.

Remember, you can turn that journaling layer off before you save your “for the web” layout if you don’t want to share it with the world. Just remember to turn it on when you save the full size version for print!!

I have to thank my beloved Uncle Orison for this journaling lesson. He always taught me to write names and dates on my photos (way back there before the turn of the century, before digital cameras *giggle*). I like to think, if he were still alive, that he just might be caught up in the Digital Scrapbooking Bug like I am, and be out there teaching others how important it is to journal. Since he isn’t, I thought I would put a little note here about it, in his memory.

Now really, go grab a kit and get to playing!! Its SO FUN!!!

Happy Scrappin’
Deb

And Uncle Orison
1954-1994 You are still missed.


Digital Scrapbooking Tutorials - Getting started and beyond

I thought about doing some tuts to try to show you how to get started with digital scrapbooking, but since there are several tutorials already out there, that do this, I thought I would look around and put some links here, to help answer any questions you may have. Hopefully at least one of them will help you. I'm always happy to help when I can, but time seems to be a BIG problem lately, so before asking me, please try these. :)

PSP = Paint Shop Pro   PSE = Photo Shop Elements   PS = Photo Shop

Tutorials - Learning to scrap your first page

Digital Scrapbook Place - for ps, pse, psp, dip
Scrapbook-Bytes- pse
Scrapbook Elements - PS, PSE, PSP
The Shabby Shoppe - for ps & pse

Tutorials - Using Quick Pages
Scrapbook Elements - PS, PSP
The Shabby Shoppe - for ps & pse - the piece of cake png files is what she is calling a qp (quick page)

Tutorials - Other

Digital Scrapbook Place - for ps, pse, psp, dip
Scrapbook-Bytes - ps, pse, psp
Scrapbook Element - ps, pse, psp and other
The Shabby Shoppe - for ps & pse

This is just a few to get you started, I'm sure there are a lot more out there, if you google for them. I am in no way affiliated with these sites, I'm just providing a link to their tutorials for your convenience.