November's goal was to learn to digital scrapbook. At one time I loved to scrapbook. I loved recalling memories and recording the past. My first two children have several albums which they enjoy looking through. Scrapbooking was a creative release and something that I could complete that stayed done (unlike cooking, cleaning and laundry!)
But the last three years, something happened. I don't know if it was more children, or lack of long nap times, or beginning homeschooling or a combination of everything. But I quit scrapbooking. The effort to get everything out for a few minutes, then put it all away when I was interrupted was just not worth it. In an odd way, blogging took the place of scrapbooking as my creative outlet.
But I still wanted to have a place to record memories of my children. I wanted my younger children to have at least a baby album of their own. It saddened me to think of all the memories that I won't ever recall since I haven't been journaling in their scrapbooks.
My sister-in-law, Sonya has been encouraging me to try digital scrapbooking. I thought I would hate it. I'm a hands-on tactile person. Digital scrapbooks appears "flat" to me. I like manipulating paper, ribbons, and photos. I consider myself computer challenged. I want to cut back, not increase, my screen time.
Yes, I had the list. But Sonya was persistent that I should at least try it out.
So, about the last day of November (I don't procrastinate or anything) Sonya came over and gave me a crash course to get me started. I looked into several digital scrapbooking programs but in the end, chose Foto Fusion from Luma Pix since that is what Sonya used.
I was utterly shocked to find that I LOVE digital scrapbooking. The program was so easy to learn and includes great tutorials. In the time it would take me to clear my desk to start scrapping, I could nearly have a page pulled together. I love how easy it is to crop and enlarge photos and even correct some coloring. So far I have just done our vacation photos and some of our fun family events of the year but I'm excited about actually getting back to my children's albums soon.
Digital scrapbooking isn't totally like the "real thing". But for my stage of life, I think this works much better. I love that I can work on it for ten minutes then hit "save" when a child needs assistance. Since my children are far more important than my children's scrapbooks, this works for me. Thanks, Sonya!
I'd love to hear any tips and thoughts on scrapbooking from the rest of you moms.
Maybe that is what I need... I feel sad also that I cannot keep up with album. Especially because my husband LOVES my photo books. We all enjoy sitting down with them and remembering.
ReplyDeleteI love to digiscrap for all the same reasons that you mentioned. I use Scrapbookmax to create pages and scrapbooksplease.com for printing the pages. When I first started, I signed up at scrapgirls.com for their daily newsletter which includes a free graphic everyday sent to your email box. Over the last 2 years I have collected hundreds of new graphics to add to my collection. I hope you continue creating lots of memories for your children. They grow up so fast! If you have a few moments you can check out a few pages I recently created. Just click on the scrapbook link on my blog. Happy scrapping. Tammy
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you - digital scrapbooking is a lot of fun! And, you're right - it's different than the traditional version. But, some of those differences are what I like most about digital scrapbooking!
First, you don't need a lot of 'stuff' to do digital scrapbooking. Since everything is on your computer, you don't have to store a lot of paper and embellishments like you do with traditional scrapbooking. For anyone who lives in a small house like I do, that's important.
And, with digital scrapbooking, it's easy to share your work. You can print out scrapbooks for yourself or for family members and friends and it's easy to make multiple copies by just reprinting the pages. And, it's really easy to share your scrapbook when it's digital by sending it to family and friends in email or on photo sharing sites. If you live a far distance from other family members, that can be really handy.
So, digital scrapbooking makes it easy to share the wonderful and joyous moments of your life.
How amazing is that?
I'm working on catching up on your bread posts, but when I saw this was your lastest post, took the time to quickly read! Yay! I too, loved the art of putting together "real" scrapbooks, but have struggled to keep up. Last year, I really decided to do my yearly and baby albums online, and haven't looked back! I have been able to keep up and feel so happy to know that I can pass these along to the kids, and no one will feel "left out" because mom quit making albums for somebody later on down the line!
ReplyDeleteMine are pretty simple, I just use Walgreens website to make photo books at this point ... but love having the peace of mind that I am doing something to save my photos! Glad that you enjoyed it after all!
My dad has now mentionted to me that he is saddened that all the picures they have taken over recent years just remain on the computer, where no one can see them. So, my latest idea is to work on a couple picture books for them to give them near Mother's/Father's day this spring. Thank goodness it is a project that is "doable!"
I'm still traditional, even if I don't have time for it right now. All the photos are on my computer from the last five years and not printed. My goal this year is to get them into holding albums so I can scrap the ones I really want to later and not feel like I need to put them in albums because I took the photo. I have a whole room dedicated to my craft and scrap stuff, but it's hard to find the time. Its one of my big goals for the year. I use the Photo Freedom book my Stacy Jillian to help me with my organizing. I love her system!
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