Want to take up a cool, computer based hobby? (Digital Scrapbooking)

Member Name: NizPerson

Product:	Digital Scrapbooking
Date:	05/11/08 (344 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Preserving memories, making personal gifts, no mess and no tools

Disadvantages: Cannot include real articles, just pictures of them

What craft can you do completely on a computer? Digital scrapbooking!


What is digital scrapbooking?
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Same as traditional scrapbooking, only, you do it using your computer. You don't need any tools, no glue or cutters, no special materials or no need for a steady hand either. The only thing you do need is a little bit of creativity and of course a computer.


How do you start
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First of all, you need some software to produce your scrapbook pages. Photoshop is the most popular. In addition there is Paintshop pro, Microsoft Digital Image pro etc. For starters though I can highly recommend a very good, simple software for the digiscrap newbie. It's called Scrapbook Flair. Just google it and download it for free.

Next you need to know what sort of things, or scrapbook elements, you can use on your pages. Of course the main thing will be your photos! The backgrounds are known as papers. Then you can add things like buttons, ribbons, sticky notes and other such embellishments. If you want you can get these in sets - called Scrapbooking kits - which contain matching sets of papers, alphabets, embellishments etc. You don't have to pay for these things, you can use the free ones widely available on the Net.

Here is an example of a free scrapbooking kit. http://www.shabbyprincess.com/UrbanKiwi.asp.
Note that it includes a choice of papers as well as some embellishments like paper clips, some stitching, buttons etc. You can use those to create your perfect page.

There are thousands of such free scrapbook kits available, have fun searching!

If you need help on how to do certain things there are plenty of step by step tutorials available online.


How do you get ideas?
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There is an abundance of sites with digiscrap galleries where people showcase their creations. To share, discuss and get ideas. You can use these pages as inspiration to create yours. This is called Scraplifting.


How do you actually make the pages?
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Once you've downloaded and installed your software you need your photographs and your page elements. You can get your page elements from free sites like shabbyprincess.com, twopeasinapod.com, freedigitalscrapbooking.com etc. Choose a suitable page size first. If you're getting it printed from one of the photo printing places make sure it's in a size they do photobooks in. Then start experimenting. Use some nice papers. Drop in some photos. Write a note and tack it up with a pin. Use a slightly transparent ribbon over a part of a picture you want to hide. Brighten up a corner with a button. Use photocorners on some of your pictures. Make an important picture stand out by putting it in a frame. Do a sequence of photos on a filmstrip. The possibilities are endless.


How do you print them out?
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You can print them out yourself on your printer and have it bound. Or use a photoprinting site to make it into a book for you. Like me you can make it as 8"x8" pages and then go to photobox.co.uk and choose the square stylebook of that size. Don't use any of their page templates though, this is completely your creation! Just make sure that EVERY page is a full-bleed picture (every page is taken up fully by one photo) and drop your pages which you've saved as jpeg images. i.e. When you upload your pages each page you've created will be one photograph.


Now here's a small project for you
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Why not make a little book of memories of your family for a grandparent? Or your nieces/nephews for a sibling? Or some holiday pics for a friend who you went with?

Just download the software and start. Check out some ideas and don't be afraid to use them. Start small, do a small book with a few pages. It'll be a gift that'll be much appreciated, at the least for how personal it is.

Summary: Happy scrapping!