A lot of people, when they hear my blog name or email address, assume that the “scraps” in Scraps of Life refers to scrapbooking. That’s not the case (it actually represents the bits and pieces–aka scraps–of time and experiences that make up our lives) but it’s true that I’ve been into scrapbooking since the late 90s, back when the landscape was wild and the supplies were few. My how things have changed (in, um, 17 years).
If you’ve hung around here long enough, you know I’m the crafty sort and I do love my papers and glue and for the longest time I swore I’d never give them up! I still haven’t, but I did broaden my horizons back around 2006 or so when I started fooling around with digital scrapbooking–turns out, I really liked it!
Even though I have most of my supplies for traditional, paper, scrapbooking I mostly use them for other projects these day. Instead, I’m 99% digital when I do make the time to scrapbook. Why?
- Digital elements don’t get used up
- Digital elements don’t take up a lot of space (well, physical space… my external hard drive is another matter, but storage gets cheaper every day!)
- You never run out of glue
- You can change the color of a paper or embellishment if it’s not quite right
- Unfinished layouts are easy to save and come back to
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve held onto a particular piece of patterned paper because it was so pretty and I didn’t want to use it up because it was now discontinued. Or how I once borrowed my mom’s SUV to go to a scrapbook retreat because it meant I could bring more supplies. OR how frustrating it is to have the perfect thing for a layout but it clashes horribly with everything else I want to use. The struggle is real, and the supply bills are high!
Digital kits and elements also tend to be a lot less expensive than their physical counterparts. Add to that the fact that most of our photos these days are digital, you save money by not having to make prints for scrapbooking (not to mention the ease of resizing images to fit just so) and you can still print out your pages and put them into albums.
An unexpected benefit from digital scrapbooking was learning to use Adobe products (I took a course from Scrap Girls back in the day on how to scrapbook with Photoshop Elements 3.0–I think 12 just came out? No, wait, we’re on version 14 now) that made it so much easier when I started my webcomic and needed to do some digital post-processing. I’ve also dabbled in creating my own digital papers and elements, including this little mini kit (from back in 2012) which is kinda perfect for this time of year! In honor of Digital Scrapbooking Day (which is the first Saturday in November, aka tomorrow), I’m putting this little set up for grabs (for free!).
More recently I got bit by the Project Life bug. I love that it’s quick and easy and the templates are so much fun to use. I bought a physical kit to put together an album of years of family photos for Mom a couple years ago, then I switched to their digital options for my own stuff. Here’s a smattering of some of my recent layouts
From our wedding album (which I really need to get on the ball with!)
From our honeymoon at Disney (I still have a lot to do on this book, too)
Halloween 2015! After all, the everyday is what makes the most memories…
And one of last year’s conventions.
Will you be doing any scrapbooking this weekend, digital or otherwise?