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A Digital Scrapbooking Journal - Part Five

Learning New Digital Scrapbooking Techniques

Wednesday, April 11, 2007: Digital Scrapbooking Guilt Trip

Sometimes I just want to follow my muse. That’s what I’m doing now as I pursue whether I can ever make much money with it, so at this point it’s a hobby. It’s something I love to do when/if the day’s to-do list is complete!

Why do I feel a bit guilty whenever I immerse myself in learning this new (to me) craft form? I guess there are several reasons. There is always real work to do: orders to fill; articles to research and write; dinner to be made. Perhaps more importantly, my hesitancy stems from the fear that I can’t get good enough to turn digital scrapbooking into an income generator. Right now it’s just an expense! Well – and a joy.

It’s a real conundrum. I guess I just have to figure out what I want to do “when I grow up”.

Thursday, April 12, 2007: The Future of Digital Scrapbooking

There is another thing that is holding me back from making the time to learn digital scrapbooking: the fear that it is a passing fad. Wouldn’t it be just my luck to get accepted onto the ScScrap Girls ’ design team a month before the website folds and the digital scrapbooking craze vanishes from the face of the earth?!

So far I’ve used my digital art skills to make gifts like a family calendar and little bagalopes for Valentine’s Day. But I can’t make multiple items to sell using the Scrap Girls’ products I’ve bought unless I purchase commercial licenses for each product.

That leaves me with three options if I want to pursue this art form for profit. I can purchase Scrap Girls’ commercial licenses when I buy their gorgeous products or design my own digital tools from scratch, so that I can sell the cards and bagalopes and calendars I make. Or I can apply to join the Scrap Girls’ design team. It would be so awesome to be part of such a talented team. The worst they can say is “no”, right?

Nudging me in the Scrap Girls’ design team direction is a comment made by Natalie Rhinesmith, editor of Creative TECHnologies magazine which addresses my concern about the possible demise of the scrapbooking craze.

“As much as we don't want to believe it, the trend of scrapbooking will someday die out, so it'll be a benefit that digital scrappers have expanded their approach to designing, it'll allow them to comfortably move into perhaps mixed-media collage, art journals, or typography-centered mediums (among others). The digital approach makes that transition seamless.”

Friday, April 13: I Just Need a Plan

I’m ashamed to admit that it was three months ago (January 2 to be exact) that I blogged, “I decided to redo all the decorative banners on my website, The Artful Crafter [using my new digital graphics toys. ... In a few days more I hope to upload the new designs.”

If you’ve looked around the site lately, you know that I still haven’t completed this task! I did one banner for the Wire Sculpture section – and that’s it! My DH (dear hubby) has been after me to get this done; but there always seem to be more pressing matters to attend to.

I need a plan to get me moving forward toward the Scrap Girls design team (my ultimate goal). Putting it in writing in January didn’t help; but maybe that’s because I didn’t break it into manageable steps. So here it is.

• 1. Complete and install at least two banners a week until the whole site is done. Due date: June 23.
• 2. Purchase Scrap Girls’ Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed [just type “secrets” into the search box to check it out] and work through at least six video lessons a week. Due date: July 31. (I sure hope they’re short!)
• 3. Design my Scrap Girls application pack. Due date: September 30.
• 4. Submit my application and anxiously await a response.

This is kind of scary, but I asked myself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen.” I may fail to meet these goals as I move along. What would I do then? Adjust them with more knowledge of what I’ve gotten into. If I fail to make the design team, what then?

I still will have learned some valuable skills that I can use in my craft business and website.

I’m putting this blog on my bulletin board where I will have to face it every day. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007: I’m on My Way!

Last Friday I wrote that I just couldn’t “get off the dime’ and progress toward my goal of upgrading all the banners on The Artful Crafter and my ultimate goal of getting onto the Scrap Girls’design team.

Putting it in writing Friday definitely energized me. I’ve already reached this week’s goal of completing two banners and am working on number three. I’m going for banners that are themed with the pages, are attractive to look at and make readers stop and think.

The Puzzled banner above will go atop our Site Map. Get it? If you’re having trouble finding what you want on The Artful Crafter, the Site Map can help you out. I think it should go on the Search Engine page too but need to convince my DH (Dear Hubby) since he is responsible for the organization of our site.

One challenge in this project is that scrapbook pages are LARGE – typically 12 X 12 inches – and these banners need to be teeny tiny. Each little square is only 115 X 112 pixels. That’s about an inch and a half square.

That doesn’t give me much real estate to work with. Sometimes I feel like the Puzzled banner myself!

P.S. I was so busy working on my banners, I missed out on a big sale at Scrap Girls. I could have saved 13.7% on anything in the boutique until 12 midnight yesterday. Darn! I need to pay closer attention to the Scrap Girls free daily newsletter.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007: Back to the Drawing Board

Darn – the Inspiration banner above looked really nice in Photoshop; but now I can see it won’t look good on The Artful Crafter. The first three squares look fine but the last one has too much detail to be seen in such a small format.

This is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said these little blocks don’t give me much real estate to work with. I guess the good news is that with each design – and design mistake – I learn something new.

This is what I intended block 4 to look like. Notice how the little antique tabs are clipped onto the pocket folder. From one Scrap Girls’ tutorial I learned how to erase parts of the clip to give the appearance that it actually goes behind the folder. From another I learned how to give some of the layers drop shadows so that they look like they are on different levels – almost floating off the page.

I love the effects you can achieve in only two dimensions. But I must admit, I’m a bit frustrated right now. This was my second do-over of the fourth Inspiration block. The first one really stunk – or is it “stank”? Anyway, you get my gist.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Thursday, April 19, 2007: Crafts are Fun!

I’m just not feeling inspired to complete yesterday’s Inspiration banner right now. So I decided to set it aside for a while. Hopefully my muse will whack me in the head with an idea one of these days.

In the meantime I completed the banner above which will go atop The Artful Crafter Plans and Patterns pages. I’m pleased with this one and think it will look nice on the site.

The papers and some of the embellishments I chose are from the Scrap Girls’ Refresh Collection Biggie. What’s neat about buying the Collection Biggies is that everything is color coordinated for you – from the papers to the alphas to the cute little embellishments.

Dressing up the banners makes me want to redesign my logo and put a pretty background paper on The Artful Crafter. I mentioned this to my DH yesterday and you could have heard the groan a block away. He doesn’t know if it’s feasible with our web hosting service.

I asked him to puhleeeease think about it. I wish I could do more of the programming chores. I know they can be quite tedious. Crafts are fun – writing html code and rebuilding pages are not!

Visit Scrap Girls to learn more about their digital scrapbooking products.

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