Photobooks : A Great Place To Start

Thanks for the warm welcome yesterday and I loved hearing about all the ways you preserve your memories... even if it is in a rubber tub... a project for a rainy day [or two], right?!

Our random winner for the $20 gift certificate is Shawn Janelle

Congratulations! Please email katie at designerdigitals dot com with your email address!

Today I wanted to introduce you to Shutterfly Photobooks and one of my favorite projects!

I, like a lot of you, have photos scattered in boxes and tubs all over the place. I have 4 large, traditionally scrapped albums for my daughter but hundreds of photos [okay maybe thousands now that we have digital] that have not been scrapped and I wanted a simple compilation to see her growing into a teenager!

The answer was a photobook!

 

I created a year-by-year memories album to show how much she has grown and changed over the past years!

You can view the entire book in Shutterfly's Gallery

I used a layered template book and worked with just one kit, Alandia, from DesignerDigitals to help create a unified look throughout the book.

 

I also converted all but one of the photos on each page to a sepia so there would be less distraction. When laying out your pages you want it to be obvious what the focus image is on the page and make sure your journaling is easily read and converting the photos was a great, easy way to do that!

 

I absolutely love this book and think I'll be adding to it over the next few years and having it reprinted! And it will be a theme I will also be using for books for our granddaughters and my nephews! I figure if I get them going now, won't they make the most amazing presents for them when they are teenagers?!

I hope this inspires you to get started with some digital scrapbooking and photobooks!

And I have ONE 8x8 20-page Shutterfly Photobook to give away. Simply leave a comment about an album you would like to create! Leave comments by 12 noon EST July 31st for your chance to win!

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And now on to tackle a few of your questions!

deborah said...

Hi,

I am currently a traditional scrapbooker, but I'm interested in
getting into the digital realm. My question or Katie is, what do I need
to get started? (What programs, etc. do you suggest?)

Thanks for the chance to win!

How to get started? It can be easily accomplished with Photoshop Elements or any image editing program. Some are even so comfortable with Microsoft word that they simply scrap their memories in that program. But for the most versatility in your creative process I recommend working with Adobe Photoshop Elements which can be found for under $75. And then download a few freebies to get a feel for things before you pick put the products for your projects!

susan said...

I
am looking forward to your posts on digital scrapbooking and learning
more about the craft. I have a number of scrapbook "projects" that I
have started, but need to complete (our wedding six years ago,
Christmas memories, and my two year old's first year). I was thinking
of preserving some memories by creating books on picaboo and other
similar sites. Are these sites considered digital scrapbooking? It
seems like the choices might be limited.

I would think you could refer to creating the books on-line for print is a form of digital scrapbooking. What we encourage at DesignerDigitals is more of the creative process in capturing the memories and displaying them. With the right products and software you can bring your memories to life in your pages so the way you were feeling about that moment can be felt by looking at your pages!

Sarah said...
Hi Katie,
I have tried to start paper scrapbooking a little but have so many
boxes of photos I have mostly just gotten overwhelmed and stopped. I
would love to learn about digital scrapbooking as I am much handier at
a computer than with a scissors but don't really know where to start.

The best way to start is to select your photo[s] and select a background paper and start by arranging them on the page and adding your journaling. The more you do the more comfortable you'll feel. The you can add digital stamping [just like rubber stamping only more forgiving ;)], digital ribbons, digital page pebbles etc etc, whatever strikes your fancy to create a creative work of art! The great thing about digital... there's an undo key! And as long as you save your page layout into a new file and don't overwrite your photo file you can always go back and re-scrap the photo or change things around!

:)