Scrapbooking and family history just go hand in hand. Back in 2005 I started experimenting with digital scrapbooking as a way to extend my scrapbooking experience as well as document our life through both pictures and journaling. A contributing factor was not being able to find the right sticker or background mixed with wanting something unique. If you have been following this blog you will know that I love Photoshop® as my main graphic editing software but the following 2 page layout was created with Microsoft Word® for Mac. The layout is a combination of digital and paper scrapbooking using elements of each. It is part of 6 pages highlighting our culinary favourites from 2005.
Page 1
The first thing I did was determine the main colour theme as being an almost sky blue. What doesn't show well in either picture is the actual background. On this two page layout the background and title is printed on brilliant white cardstock. The background for this two page layout is multiple lines of canning in a light sky blue. I used the same colour to make the title a script font and highlighted that to use Word Art. Once I had the desired effect, I printed out two sheets, one with the title and one without.
Next I selected the photos I wanted to use and size then printed off all of my pictures on matte photo paper using iPhoto. At thirteen pictures I knew the layout would be rather graphic intensive so kept the images small. Once I had the two sheets of pictures printed I had to cut them out using my Fiskars® large flatbed rotary cutter. This really is a must have for anyone doing paper scrapbooking! Next I used scalloped decorative scissors to round the edges of the photos for the first page. I really like the look of rounded corners and I know there are punches for that but part of scrapbooking is using what you have on hand sometimes.
Journalling is very important in scrapbooking because it ads that personal touch. I wrote the recipe in a dark blue font in Word and printed it off on plain medium blue card stock. Then I cut it into a rectangle and positioned it using 2 sided tape on an angle to give movement to the page. Using movement is a big part of scrapbooking but basically it just means adding interest. With the journalling in place I snipped off the over hanging portions with the rotary cutter. The pictures were then positioned around the journalling and secured with 2 sided tape.
Page 2
The pictures on this page were left with sharp corners. The journalling used the same font and font colour to write a bit more personal touch to canning then printed on white card stock. I used a fancy corner punch to make a design in the upper corner the used a piece of scrap paper to form a stencil to colour in a mirror image of the punch in the lower corner with a gel pen. To give the journalling a bit more of an impact and tie it in with page 1 I used the same blue card stock cut into a square then used it as a partial matting.
Next I arranged the pictures then secured them to the page using 2 sided tape. Next I wanted something a little extra so chose a couple of stickers from my vast supply of stickers. These were stickers from Creative Memories®. Now, I do have a love/hate relationship with stickers. First you are really restricted to available stickers and second you can never just find the right sticker. At the same time, you end up with a lot of stickers you will never use. But there's a work-around by using a Xyron Create a Sticker gadgets of which I have the smaller X and the larger 500. Just about anything can be turned into a sticker using either.
Microsoft Word® also has a feature where you can import photos. You can resize and position alignment them as well as some basic photo adjustments. Simply import your image into the Word document then go to Edit > Edit Picture. I was surprised at some of the effects so this is a nice feature of Word without having to invest a lot of dollars.
Scrapbooking remains to be a mixture of both paper and digital imaging for me although I am moving ever more to strictly digital. Digital scrapbooking expands your creativity. Basically any image can be used, adjusted or tweaked so you really are limited only by your imagination. You can add shadows for depth, rotate images for movement and the best part everything is done on the computer without any wastage. When you are finally finished you can print out the end result on brilliant white card stock. So a scrapbooking layout that would have taken several sheets of paper, cutting, trimming, stickers and other embellishments is now reduced to one sheet produced on the computer. In scrapbooking terms you are saving a lot of money! With experience you can get some very beautiful and very realistic results. At the same time digital keep your layouts flat so you don't have to worry about other layouts being damaged by raised elements on another. However, you will be missing some of the texture and textile feel of fully paper scrapped layouts. Combining the two techniques gives you the best of both worlds!
Garden Gnome
©2006-2009
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