Scrap this! Scrapbooking goes digital

Take the scrapbooking experience off the page — and onto your PC!

By Heather Camlot

Gayla Ber was drawn to scrapbooking after the birth of her twin girls. “Sticking pictures in an album is all fine and good, but I wanted something different,” explains the Thornhill, Ont., administrative assistant.

While Ber loves working with scrapbooking paper and tools, she recently tried crafting pages on her computer and commends the speed, ease and flexibility.

“You have more leeway with the pages — you can change the font, you can download different templates. You don’t have to worry about finding the right paper and embellishments,” she says.

Traditional scrapbooking is the third most popular craft in the United States. About 32.1 million scrapbookers spent more than US$2.5 billion in 2004, according to a survey by leading industry magazine Creating Keepsakes. The cost of paper scrapbooking, however, along with time constraints, cramped workspaces and small children underfoot, is turning people away from the traditional medium onto digital, says Digital Scrapbooking.

What is digital scrapbooking?

You’re already using a digital camera to take photographs. You may even be dabbling in a photo-editing program such as Microsoft Live Photo Gallery to touch up images before e-mailing them to friends or posting the images online. Digi-scrapping allows you to take photo-sharing one step further. By combining photos with graphics and fonts, you can create beautiful, narrative pages  on your PC.

“To me, digital scrapbooking isn’t all that different from traditional scrapbooking,” says Kristina Nicolai-White, founder and general manager of the scrapbook site Two Peas in a Bucket. “You don’t need to have artistic talent. It’s not about being creative; it’s about documenting what you want to document.”

Why go digital?

If you go digital, you can edit your photos. You can correct blemishes, add effects such as lighting and filters and, of course, undo an action if you make a mistake. You can also purchase supplies online for immediate use (perfect for those 4 a.m. bursts of creativity), print multiple copies to create memory books (or have an online company bind them for you) and post your layouts online for viewing.

What do I need to begin?

You’ll need a few essentials including scrapbooking software (Word 2007 will work well too), at least 256 MB of RAM and suitable storage space (either on your computer or on a CD, DVD or flash drive). To enhance your designs, you can purchase digital scrapbooking kits (or digikits) from any number of online scrapbooking shops. Digikits include specialty or themed “papers,” frames, labels, tags and more. Depending on how diehard you are, you can delve even further with specialty programs such as Fontifier which transform your handwriting into a computerized font.

For beginners, Nicolai-White recommends checking out an online community for tutorials, designers to answer your questions, member feedback, industry news, free downloads and products for purchase. Try Two Peas in a Bucket, Scrap Girls, Scrapbook Bytes and Designer Digitals.

How do I start digi-scrapping?

When you’re ready, open a new page in Word, pick a size (traditional scrapbooking is 12” × 12”) and then dig in. Scan keepsakes such as concert ticket stubs or handwritten letters, insert photos, and drag all the elements onto and around the page. (You may have to set each element to Format > Text Wrapping > In Front of Text to be able to drag it.)

A quick note about using digital photos: you probably have hundreds of photos lurking on your computer, but even when you know exactly which one you need for your page, you may have no idea where it is.

Windows Vista’s Photo Gallery can help make finding the photos you need fast and simple. You can apply tags to each image with name, date, rating and any other relevant information. When you need to find a certain picture, just type a keyword into the program’s search engine and the image appears in seconds.

What do I do with my layouts?

Once you’ve completed your layouts, save and pick one of several options:

• E-mail them.
• Burn them to CD or DVD as a slide show. Try Windows Movie Maker, which comes with Windows Vista Premium and Ultimate.
• Create an online album. For a simple way to share, try Windows Live Spaces. Alternatively, some scrapbooking sites, such as Two Peas in a Bucket, offer free space and private, password-protected viewing.
• Create a traditional album by sliding your printed pages into a sleeved binder. (Be sure to print your pages on acid-free paper to preserve your memories.)
• Upload sheets to a digital photo lab, such as Future Shop, and have your pages mailed to you in a hard-bound album or photo book.

Remember, digital scrapbooking is about preserving your memories, not exhausting your creativity to produce the most perfect page in the online realm. As Nicolai-White says, “Let go, have fun, be free with it.”