Digital Scrapbooking the Memories of Tomorrow
With the near total domination of digital photos today, it only makes sense that scrapbooks have gone digital too. There are lots of advantages to digital scrapbooking, but one disadvantage.
You are no longer limited to what you can find to decorate and embellish your scrapbook album. Digital scrapbooking makes it possible for you to create practically anything you can imagine. For example, you can create your own “paper.” In a physical scrapbook, paper serves as your background. It’s like the canvas in a painting that provides texture and mood. Once you start working digitally, depending on the software you use, the paper is a digital background. You have seemingly endless choices of colors and textures, including combinations that could never grace a physical album.
You can also create your own digital embellishments in a digital scrapbook. Using clipart instead of stickers becomes as easy as cut and paste (the computer version, that is). Thinking of what the perfect ribbon would be like? Layer colors, edges and designs together and your perfect ribbon appears. You can add shadows and perspectives to give your embellishments depth.
Whenever I write a scrapbooking quote or journal entry on my pages, I’m always terrified I’ll make a stray mark or misspell something. With digital scrapbooking, these worries are a thing of the past. You can type directly on the page. There are endless fonts, both free and paid, that you can download to match the mood and style of your digital scrapbooking project.
The only disadvantage to digital scrapbooks is that they are digital. Unless you want people to gather around the family computer to share in your special moments, you will need to find a way to print it out. Of course, this is totally possible and there are a variety of places who will print 12 x 12 or 8 x 8 scrapbook pages. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in “print digital scrapbook.” for a list. For example, Shutterfly offers this service. Your local camera shop may also provide scrapbook printing. Prepare to pay from about $1 a page and up.
The growing popularity of digital scrapbooking ensures that the art of embellished memories will continue long into the future. And whether you learn on computer or on your kitchen table, the basics of design and page composition will be timeless.
