A Digital Scrapbooking Journal - Part One

My Introduction to Digital Scrapbooking

Following is a journal containing highlights of my journey into digital scrapbooking. It took me so long to finally take the plunge, that I thought others might be experiencing the same angst.

If you've thought, "Should I digi-scrap? Could I digi-scrap? Me? Never!", please read on.

I'm having so much fun with digi-scrapping that I now have the secret goal to make it onto the Scrap Girls design team.

Well, I guess it's not a secret anymore!

December 20, 2006: Digital Scrapbooking: I'm Hooked!

I asked Joyce what she would like me to make her for Christmas this year. She knows I do computer graphics; so, after much hemming and hawing, she requested a family calendar. A pretty tall order, but I loved the idea.

Rather than just printing a simple photo on every page, I suggested that each month's design look like a scrapbook page, with a bit of journaling and some embellishments. She was delighted with the idea.

I didn't tell her I've never done any digital scrapbooking. I'd been wanting to try, but just hadn't found the time. You know how that goes. This was exactly the kick in the pants I needed to get me going!

I'd been receiving a free newsletter from ScrapGirls.com for several months and had even downloaded a couple of their freebies.

I'd also been reading about some of the techniques used with either Photoshop or its less expensive brother Photoshop Elements, like layering, blending and using brushes to stamp designs.

Mostly, I'd been drooling over the beautiful pages Scrap Girls includes in each newsletter.

Now I was finally going to take the plunge and order some of their papers and embellishments. What a delightful surprise.

I purchased three items for a little over ten dollars. While I was there I put every freebie in the boutique into my shopping cart as well. With that small investment, I got everything (instantly - all the items are downloadable) I needed to make my friend's calendar and probably used only 20% of the items - which means I have goodies to make a boatload of more unique original designs.

Thank you, Scrap Girls. I'm hooked!

December 21, 2006: Digital Scrapbooking: So Much to Learn; So Little Time

I realized right off the bat that if I'm going to improve my digi-scrapping skills, I need to organize my files better - both my computer files and my hard copy files. There are just so many wonderful tools and techniques you can use in digital scrapbooking that you need to know where to find each one when you want it.

I'd been printing out tutorials and design ideas from Scrap Girls for months. Imagine my amazement when I gathered my printouts together today and found I had enough to completely fill a two-inch three-ring binder!

Most of them I haven't even had time to read. I only knew the techniques or designs appealed to me and I wanted to have them available when I finally got a little "free time".

I think I have finally realized that there is no such thing as "free time" in this life. If we don't control how we use our time, time will always be a commodity we don't have enough of.

It probably won't work for everyone but my trick is to get someone or something to give me a firm deadline. For example, the Christmas cookies must be done by - duh - Christmas; or Joyce's calendar had to be done before she left town for the holidays.

Part two of the technique is not to over-commit!

December 22, 2006: Organizing My Digital Scrapbooking Files

I have to tell you that when I downloaded my $10 order from Scrap Girls (along with every freebie available at the time), it came to 29 links to click on and wait for downloading.

Since I didn't have a clue what I was doing, I yelled, "Help!" to my techie husband. I've downloaded very few files in my life; and every time I did, I had no idea where they were going and subsequently had to search my whole computer to find them - if I even knew the file name!

With a bit of help, we downloaded all the files and unzipped them into a Scrap Girls folder created right at the root of the C drive.

I'm not happy with that location because it means that every time I want to use one of the products in Photoshop, I have to go all the way up the subdirectory tree and then back down the Scrap Girls folder to find the file I want.

I didn't have time to fiddle with that at the time because I needed to give myself a crash course in digital scrapbooking and complete my friend's calendar in two days!

But I was psyched - up at 4:30 each morning and at the computer until 6:00 each night. The calendar was delivered on time. My friend was delighted and so - so am I.

I've had a chance to catch my breath and went poking around Scrap Girls for help on how to organize digi-scrapping files. I found exactly what I needed. Those Scrap Girls think of everything.

Next week, I plan to move all my digital scrapbooking files to a better location and group like products/colors according to Scrap Girls" suggestions.