I love photos. I always have. My dearest possessions are my mother's old photos dating back to the 1920s (wow that's nearly 100 years old!) and covering her life in Latvia, then as a post WW2 refugee in Germany, then life as a 'New Australian' in the post war immigration influx. Then there's all the photos of the kids, and now the grandkids.
When I realised I hadn't stored my photos properly I had to take them out of those horrid albums with the sticky pages. I wanted something better than just shoving them in a box where they might deteriorate anyway so I scanned them and now my sentimental collection lives 'on the cloud' - and then I discovered the art of digital scrapbooking.
I knew about 'paper scrapping', a craft which has been around for a very long time and which involved showcasing select photos or programs, or invitations, cards etc on special pages, decorated with coloured or patterned paper, adding embellishments like ribbons and lace, and creating a page to tell a story, preserve a memory or just show off a fabulous photo. I loved the idea, the way you could make the pages look, but I had neither the inclination nor the room to store all the bits and pieces required, and which had to be dragged out every time I'd want to create a page.
But for digital scrapbooking all I needed was my laptop and my scanned photos. I had developed an love for digital design and taught myself Photoshop so digital scrapping was a perfect match for me.
To decorate my digital pages I have to buy digital 'kits' of background papers and embellishments. And fonts! Can I just say here I love fonts? A weird addiction, but finding 'the right one' is as satisfying as having a French vanilla slice.
The beauty of scrapbooking is you can just focus on the photo, or you can add a whole story by journalling on the page as well. It's also an excellent way of recording the dates and places of special occasions for future generations. You can scrap a page about something you love, a hobby, a piece of music, a place. The options are endless for creative expression, and in a way that suits our techy world.
Yes, digital scrapbooking still keeps your work/photos 'online', but technology now lets us easily and inexpensively put our memory pages into print books rather than hidden away prints, and is an easier option for keeping images in good condition rather than the fuss of storing prints properly (although I love my nearly 100 year old originals and although I have scanned them and used them in the biography I wrote about mum, holding them in my hands is something special.)
I can spend hours putting my pages together. I get totally absorbed and with the flexibility of digital, can experiment and try different looks until I get it right. The undo button is my best friend.
I'm sure there are scrap booking purists who still go 'old school', but the ease and convenience of being able to just turn on my laptop and be able to create wherever I am makes me a super fan of this 'new art'.
For anyone who is interested in a bit more information, I have written the Digital Scrapbooking Bootcamp and it's available free here.
Andra Ashe
https://www.andraashe.com/
4 comments:
You've opened my eyes to a whole new world, Andra!
Fun hobby made even easier, Andra! My daughters have been making digital books with their photos of special occasions. I have the boxes of photos that rarely get looked at. But I've never been a scrapbooker either. Fun post!
Andra, what do you have to have to scan pictures? It's expensive to have FedX, etc scan onto a thumb drive. I've hundreds of pictures and some do go back to the early days of photography. Sure would be easier to preserve them this way.
Sounds like fun. Great idea to do a digital version of scrapbooking.
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