Getting Started
Start scrapbooking today with this step by step scrapbooking advice! If you are completely new to digital scrapbooking make sure you get your hands on the free beginner scrapbooking kit which will give you some free scrapbooking items and a great idea for your first own layout!
There are a few things you need to do before you can really get creative and start your scrapbooking journey.
First of all you will need some appropriate digital scrapbooking software. You can choose from professional photo editing software, special scrapbooking software or free graphical software.
The most important thing is to have a scrapbooking program that works with layers. This makes it easy to organize your elements and adjust everything separately even after you have put the design together.
The second thing you need are some digital scrapbooking supplies. These are the design elements which you will use to transform your photo book into a digital scrapbook!
Digital scrapbooking kits are a good starting point. Scrapbooking kits are packages with coordinated colours or a certain theme and often consist of solid background papers, patterned scrapbooking papers, embellishments like flowers and buttons and sometimes a matching alphabet. With one kit you will be able to make multiple scrapbook pages or you can combine elements from different kits for more flexibility.
The last thing on this list is inspiration! It is a good idea to browse through a digital scrapbooking gallery and get inspired by the designs of other scrappers. It isn’t necessary to do this, but it will give you a good idea of all things possible with digital scrapbooking!
Ok, now we can really start scrapbooking! There is a lot of choosing to do so let’s go!
Choose your size! What kind of scrapbooking product would you like to make? An invitation, a calendar or ‘just a normal’ scrapbook page? Knowing what size your layout is going to be will help you with the following steps. The most common size for digital scrapbooking pages is 12×12 inch.
Organize and choose your pictures! Decide which event or moment you want to use for your scrapbooking page. This can be everything from a holiday to a birthday to just a nice family diner. You can use every scrapbooking theme you like or just scrap your everyday pictures! Organize your photos and choose your favorites.
It can be hard to select only a few photos. Especially with digital photography you have so many pictures to choose from. The good thing is that you can make sure you use the perfect photo to create the perfect layout!
Using too many pictures can make it harder to design a really nice digital scrapbooking layout and can make your layout look busy or cluttered. But it all depends on what kind of layout you want to make and what story you want to tell!
Choose an overall design! By now you probably have a basic idea in mind of what your page will look like. What may help you is making a little sketch of your planned layout. And of course you can also use a scrapbooking template to kick-start your pages. Just remember that you can always change your design as you go!
The next few steps can be done on forehand, but you can also just start your scrapbooking page, follow your intuition and experiment until you have made something you like!
Choose a background paper and other papers to make layers with! It is a good idea to select both solid and patterned papers. The combination of those two will add texture to your scrapbooking layout.
Choose your embellishments! It is hard to say how many embellishments a digital scrapbooking page needs. It depends on the type of scrapbooking project, your chosen theme and also the feel you want to create with your design. Every scrapper has its own style and as you go you will develop your own!
Come up with a great title! Titles can just add that bit of extra to your digital scrapbooking layout. In one glance you get an idea of what the page is about and it also makes a page more personal!
Do some journaling! You don’t have to this, but journaling definitely makes a digital scrapbooking layout more personal! And it really helps you to tell your story and preserve your memories. It can vary from a few words to a whole story and can display a wide range of emotions. These journaling ideas may give you a step in the right direction!
Now it’s time to start scrapbooking yourself!
