Digital Scrapbooking

So one of my new year's resolutions was to get caught up on our family scrapbook. I am over 3 years behind, and now I need to do Amy's as well. I have come to the conclusion that while I love the look and texture of a hand made scrapbook page, I just cannot motivate myself to do them. For one thing, I don't want to sort through all my pictures that I have saved on our computer, decide which ones I want to use, figure out what size I need, have them printed at the store, pick them up, etc. It would be easier to just create the page online since all of my pictures are on the computer anyway. So I have now entered the world of digital scrapbooking. Here are a few of my favorite things that have helped me.

1. Adobe Photoshop. I love this program. My sister was making the cutest announcements and I asked her how. She told me about her Photoshop software and I had to get it. It does so many cool things. And I know it does a lot more than I am currently using. I would highly recommend that everyone gets this program on their computer. It's amazing! (This picture is of the version that I currently have. They do have newer versions out now.)

2. PageMaps. I love this website. It has so many great ideas of how to layout your scrapbook pages. You can use the layouts for cards (which they have separate layouts for), announcements, invitations ,etc. I have printed off all the layouts and put them in a binder. It's very convenient.

3. Free Kits. I have found some great sites that let you download free paper, embelishments, alphabets, etc. You just have to register with the site (which is free) and then you can download the kits. It's great. I downloaded a bunch of them and have them saved on my computer. Now I have lots of options to choose from when I am working with Photoshop. My two favorite sites right now are Shabby Princess and Scrapbook Bytes. For more of my favorites look on the right side of this blog under the Digital Scrapbooking section.

4. Fonts. Online there are about a million websites where you can get free fonts. This picture is a list of a few that I got from my sister. You can click on it to enlarge it so you can see them all. Once you have downloaded your free fonts, you will need to have them all unzipped and saved in a folder on your harddrive. In order for the fonts to automatically show up on the font list in your different programs on your computer, you will need to follow these steps.

Installing Fonts

Go to the Start Menu, then to the Control Panel, click on the "Fonts" folder. Once in the Fonts folder, click File/Install new fonts. Then select the drive and the folder where you saved the new fonts, select the font name, and click okay. And you should be good to go.

Anyway, there are some of my favorites as far as digital scrapbooking goes. I hope that I can stick to my goal and get it done this year, or at least started.