Cheating At Scrapbooking

Cheating At Scrapbooking Submitted by Stacy Brunner

Seven weeks ago I had a beautiful baby boy.  Since then we've been making memories around the clock with no time to document them in the scrapbook.  I've dabbled in digitalscrapbooking in the past, but I really prefer the real thing with glue and paint and everything messy.  But with so little time to get into the creative zone and clean up the mess afterwards, I have revisited digitalscrapbooking.

Here is a two page layout I created with some digital elements.  The event was my friend's fourth of July cookout where the gang battled it out with super-soakers and then crafted an adult size slip-n-slide for some afternoon fun.  The photos were classic… I couldn't wait to get them into my scrapbook.  So in less time than it would take me to print photos, crop them, design a page, and then put it together, I had this layout. 

If you are looking to get started in digital scrapbooking, I recommend cheating.  Digital designers make it very easy to cheat.  Template kits provide you with the layout for your pages.  Other digital kits provide you with background papers and elements for your designs.  You can also accessorize with fonts, letter sets, and digital brushes.  You don't have to know a lot to get started and pages can be crafted in short order.

The first thing you'll need is photo editing software.  There are several different applications available at different price levels.  I use Photoshop Elements (also known as PSE in online forums).  For about $100, it's as good an investment as a diecut machine used by many scrappers.  You can use it for touching up digital photos that you print for paper scrapbooks also. 

To put a page together really quickly, purchase a template kit and a kit of backgrounds and coordinating elements.  There are many sites that sell digital scrapbook products, two popular sites are A Cherry On Top and Two Peas in a Bucket.  These sites also have galleries of user pages where you can browse for ideas.  Also check out their digital scrapbooking tutorials.  

For the pages shown here, I used templates designed by Marcie Reckinger called "Got Layers Set 7 ".  The background papers and elements are from a kit called Coolness by Michelle Underwood .  Both kits were purchased from A Cherry On Top. 

[tag-tac]scrapbook layouts[/tag-tec], [tag-ice]scrapboook layouts[/tag-ice], [tag-self]scrapbook layouts[/tag-self]

Tags

Scrapbook Layouts, Scrapbooking, Scrapbooking Ideas