Digital Scrapbooking: All the Fun Without the Mess!

Oct.23, 2008 by Genesis Davies
Baby Scrapbook

Real life scrapbooking is a lot of fun, but you can make a huge disaster in no time at all. Not to mention, you will need to buy the tools needed (though you can make do with a lot of household items), store the papers, stickers and other embellishments that seem to pile up, and you will also need to print out the photos that you want to use. Since the majority of parents these days are using digital cameras, most of us have our photos stored on the computer. What better way to avoid all the hassle and skip straight to the fun than with digital scrapbooking?

What Is Digital Scrapbooking?

Digital scrapbooking is basically scrapbooking on your computer. There are special scrapbooking programs available, but you can use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements if you already have them. I personally use Photoshop, since I’m already familiar with it.

You can buy plenty of “papers” or digital patterns to use in your scrapbooking. These can be cut into various shapes, used as backgrounds, mats or frames, just like you would use real paper. The options are limitless and if you just can’t find what you want, you can always get creative and make your own! The paper pack shown here is “Girly Dreams” from Scrapbooking Hearts.

Digital Scrapbook Paper

Paper isn’t the only part of digital scrapbooking though, you can add virtual ribbons, buttons, and other embellishments to your scrapbook pages and create a truly unique layout. In some cases, it’s virtually impossible to tell if you’ve used real items or not! This foil bee is just an example of many accessories you can find online to add a little extra pizzazz to your layouts.

Gold Foil Bee

Another advantage to digital scrapbooking is the ability to crop your photos into any shape you like. From ghosts and pumpkins for Halloween to shamrocks, hearts and Christmas trees for other holidays, you can have some very fun photos and it’s far easier than tracing and trying to cut evenly with scissors.

Digital Scrapbooking Advantages

We’ve already covered the distinct lack of mess involved with scrapping on your computer, but there are plenty of other reasons to get into this, as well. It’s pretty quick and easy to whip up a simple page like the Bug Hunters one showed here.

Boys and Bugs

I used “Bugs on Green, Sunshine, and Grass” papers for this, along with foil accents, all available from Scrapbooking Hearts.

Here are four more advantages to digital scrapbooking:

No mistakes. Even if you mess up badly and totally destroy a photo, it’s not a problem. Just reload the picture and you can start again.
Integration. You don’t have to go “all digital” or “all paper”, there’s absolutely no reason not to print your own papers, stickers and decals and use them in your paper scrapbooking, or even print photos already on their page layouts and then add real life embellishments before adding them to an album. The possibilities are endless.
Cheaper. Real paper products not only take up space, they are also more expensive than digital products that can be had for a very low price.
Instant gratification. If you’ve ever done paper scrapbooking and discovered that you didn’t have enough of the paper pattern that you wanted to use, you’ll know how frustrating it can be to wait for something to be delivered before you complete a project. With digital scrapbooking, all that goes away, since everything is downloaded the second you pay for it.

If you are looking for an easier way to indulge your scrapbooking obsession, try digital scrapbooking, you might be surprised to find that you love it!