Digital Scrapbook Sources & Info

I am a huge fan of digital scrapbooking & let me tell you why! First, I actually do it. How many of you never scrapbook except for when your girlfriends all have a scrapbooking party? You too! It's just so much work to get out all of my supplies, then just get between two to five pages completed before it's time to clean up, or leave it out risking mayhem & destruction to your precious pages. So, I just procrastinate getting it done, creating piles of pictures just waiting to be documented. Now that we have our first child, I have even less time for getting out all of those supplies. So, when I discovered digital scrapbooking, I was hooked & I haven't looked back. I will eventually have to finish my wedding album, which is in an actual scrapbook, but for the most part, I am totally caught up on the last 4 years of marriage that I had been neglecting. So here is a list of why I love digital scrapbooking, otherwise I might go on forever:

1. It's cheaper - no printing pictures, no buying paper, glue, embellishments or pens, & I don't have to buy the big binder scrapbook.
2. I actually do it - I can sit down at my computer (which I spend a bit of time on anyway) & get a page done pretty any time, & I don't have anything to clean up or put away, just close a few programs. Since I actually do it I've been able to catch up on a few years of pictures.
3. The books are skinnier
4. It's time saving - no having to go pick up your pictures, among other things
5. So much more versatility - instead of cutting your pictures up to crop them, you can just shrink them, so you retain all of the wonderful images you wanted to capture in the photo, & you can make your photos black & white, color, part of each, etc. You also don't have to have the "perfect" paper or embellishment to match since you can make your digital papers virtually any color that you want.
6. If you mess up, it's not a big deal, just hit the undo key, rather than having to start over or find some way to disguise the mistake.

I could go on, but hopefully you are catching on to the fact that this is such a wonderful way to document your memories.

I use Photoshop Elements to create my scrapbook pages. I make my pages in a 12x12 format, because I like that I can get so many pictures & journaling on one page. There are so many tutorials online for how to create a page, that I'm not going to explain it. Just google "digital scrapbooking tutorial" and you'll be amazed!

I also am totally a cheapskate or, I guess a nicer way to say that is that I'm frugal. I hate to spend money when I don't have to, which is where a few wonderful websites come in. You'll be amazed and pleased to know that you can find more than enough free digital supplies online. I've only purchased a few kits over the years that I've been digitally scrapbooking, when I wanted something specific. I'll start a list of what I use & add to it as I find more things, so check back every now and then.

Once I have enough pages created, I use Blurb.com to get my book printed. You download their free software, insert your pages, then upload it to the website & have it printed. There are a few online stores where you could have your book printed, but I've found Blurb to be the most affordable & I love how my first scrapbook turned out!

• DigiScrap Parade - A quarterly blog hop for fantastic coordinating kits.
• Fonts for Peas - Free fonts, Free Scrapbook supplies
• Blog Trains - link list to blogs that have a free mini-kit all in a coordinated color scheme or theme
• Designer Digitals - Sign up for their weekly emails & get access to free papers, templates, & other digital goodness
• Shabby Princess - Free coordinating scrapbook kits, they also have freebies on their website blog
• Summertime Designs - Very cute free kits. She has links to all of her free kits in the right sidebar, just scroll down a bit.
• Peppermint Creative - They have a free kit download every now & then, though it isn't changed very often.
• Stacey's Scraps - Free quick pages & some kits
• LDS Blog Train - monthly blog train takes you to different designers that each create a small kit that coordinates with the theme, giving you a large free kit if you download everything.
• Tammy Tags - Blog trains & Facebook hops for free kits
• A great way to find free coordinating kits is to search for scrapbook blog train, there are so many resources that I could never list them all.

I will add more as I find them, but these are a good start. You will probably be overwhelmed by all of the cute kits you can find in just these few websites. Happy scrapping & feel free to ask me questions if you need help.