Digital Scrapbooking....So, Here's Where to Start.....

In case you haven't noticed, or you are new to my blog, I really enjoy digital scrapbooking.

Before I started really trying to learn in January this year (after some failed attempts), I thought of it is "cheating" in some way. I had been a paper scrapper for 15 years. I liked to buy stickers and paper and adhesive. I liked to print photos and arrange embellishments onto a layout and create a finished page that I could put into an album to share with others. I still like to do that, especially with my creatively, inspiring friends in the Scrapbook Cellar. Nothing beats real live friends getting together to create, inspire, and support each other. But, day to day, I don't have all the time to haul out my supplies, ponder an arrangement, complete a page, and then clean it all up (I have a dedicated creative space, but it's in the front room of my house...the first thing you see when you come in, so I like it tidy, and I share it with my creative daughter, who usually has her projects drying on the table. So, I'd really need to add another step to getting creative on a daily basis, as I'd be the one most likely to clear off her work in progress before I could even have room to start mine.) This is where using the computer came in handy for me, and the start of my digital obsession.

For this hobby, I use Photoshop Elements. I'm using version 7, but I think they've just released, or are about to release version 9. I've had PE, as it's referred to, since version 3, but back then, I only used it to store and sort my photos. I had no clue of the full capabilities of this program until I started digital scrapbooking, and even then, there is so much more I need to learn to get it's full usefulness. There are other programs you can use, the full Photoshop (which is expensive, so I don't have) and Paint Shop Pro (which I've never used). Likely there are more out there, I'm just not familiar with them.

So, to start, you'll need a program to work in, some digital papers and elements (which I'll talk about in the next post), and a little time and patience to learn.

Tomorrow, I'll share where I started learning about how to do digital scrapbooking. I'll also be posting my journey into digital all this week, and how I went from this:

To this:

Here's the plan:

Tuesday: Digi 101,  tutorials

Wednesday:  Feedback, Real life Scrapbooking, Telling Your Story, and Log Your Memory

Thursday:  A valuable lesson in resizing your layouts