Digital Scrapbooking 101

OK so several of you have asked me about digital scrapbooking and photo editing. I am pretty new to all of this too, so this is definitely 101. Hopefully I can share some main points and some links to help you from there. I am loving photo editing and digital scrapbooking and best of all, I have found that it is pretty simple.

I use Photoshop Elements for just about everything. You can download a 30 day trial of it at Adobe's website. You can use this program to edit your photos and make your digital scrapbook pages, cards, blog backgrounds, or whatever you like.

Getting Started

Shabby Princess has some good tutorials. When you first look at Photoshop Elements, it is a bit overwhelming. These tutorials will help you find your way around the program.

Now to the fun part! There are several cool websites that you can use to get all your papers, embellishments, and kits. A lot of them are FREE! You can also buy them, but I have not found that necessary. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Shabby Princes downloads - They have several very cool free kits. They don't add kits often, but the ones they have are great

2. Digiscrap- This website is great. Basically they keep a record of different bloggers who give away their digital scrapbook kits. These are organized by date and are to get you to visit their sites. Usually the old dates are no longer free, but you can find some neat stuff if you stay recent.

3. Just So Scrappy - I love this lady's designs. She gives away something free everyday too.

4. DSE- This site emails me something free everyday. It is pretty good. You can also join for a fee and get more, but I haven't done that.

So now I have a pretty good supply of papers and stuff to make my pages. I made our Christmas card this way, Ruthie's invites to her bday party, this blog background, and my scrapbook.

PRINTING??

I know that is your next big question. I use Vistaprint for all my invites because they tend to be pretty affordable and give a lot for free. For my albums, I create a 12x12 page in Photoshop Elements and then save that as a jpeg. Then you can go to whatever Photobook website you choose and put that jpeg as the whole picture to the page. I hope that makes sense.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS! I am not a graphic designer or even that creative. I just love preserving family memories. It is really pretty easy once you get started.