I started "digi scrapbooking" about a week ago and a lot of hair-pulling and hand-wringing and pacing and yelling at the computer and venting rants at sweet, patient Dear later (slight exaggeration)... here's what I have!
It occurred to me that I really ought to finally, actually DO something with all the pictures I take (and sometimes edit). In the back of my mind, I've been planning for probably a couple of years to get a Becky Higgins Project Life kit.
I'm glad I didn't.
Instead, I spent time exploring digital versus "traditional" scrapbooking and decided that my best bet would be going digital. I definitely had some reservations about scrapbooking digitally. I hate to lose the physicality of running your hands over printed out pictures and additional elements.
BUT, I decided there are more than enough reasons to go digital (not the least of which is that I haven't had the time, or inclination, really, to do "real" scrapbooking since before I had kids!).
Here's why I chose to go "digi" (see, I'm picking up the lingo).
Why Go With Digi Scrapbooking?
- No set up or clean up. Enough said.
- No materials to store. Again, enough said.
- Time. In addition to the above two items, traditional scrapbooking steps like cutting, gluing, etc. take a lot of time. Digitally, these steps are a lot quicker.
- Cost. Anything digital that I purchase can be used over and over again.
- Enforced workflow. When I've made a commitment to myself to work on page layouts every week (or so), it forces me to upload pictures from my camera more frequently. When I upload more frequently, I'm dealing with smaller batches of photos, which are so much easier to sort through. I can feasibly reject photos I don't want, choose which to edit, and even set some aside for my scrapbook pages in manageable chunks of time.
- Journaling. Yes, you could simply be diligent about putting together photo books every so often, but digital scrapbooking, as regular scrapbooking, involves a "storytelling" skew that makes for real treasures in the years to come. For me, I see it as a place to not only record photos, but also to include the cute things the kids say and little jottings-down of our life together.
- Community. Not only is there a ton of info out there for technical help, but there is a lot of digital scrapbooking inspiration to be found online. Even just knowing that there are others out there who are putting together layouts once a week I think will help me keep up with it.
- Reproducability. By scrapbooking digitally, I automatically have a backup of my scrapbook, which I can also churn out in multiples if I want to. Think: making a copy of a vacation scrapbook for extended family or friends who came along.
I have a lot of catching up to do with getting previous years' photos off the computer and into our home, but I think with the workflow I'm coming up with (again, with the help of the online community of digital scrapbookers), this will be an actually tackle-able task.
I've done one week's layout. (For those of you who may not know -- and I'm still learning -- the Project Life concept, from what I gather, roughly involves recording everyday life as well the bigger events. One way a lot of digital scrapbookers go about this is to record a layout of two side-by-side pages per week. Since I'm new and I wanted to actually get started as soon as possible, I went with this tried-and-true approach.) I'm not going to lie, there's a learning curve, but I think I've gotten to a point where I can practice and hone.
What do you think of my pages? What do you do with your photos? Who's a Project Life-er with tips to share?
I did a bit of digital scrapbooking after Sophia was born- I have a TON of stuff on my old computer- I'll see what I can send you :-)
ReplyDeleteI've been putting together a digital scrapbook every six months just to document my life (not quite as detailed as Project Life) but still!! Anyhow, it's definitely much faster, much easier, and much cheaper than other scrapbooking options. Plus, I like that the books take up a finite amount of space, and my guests aren't intimidated when I had them a book to take a peak at. (Usually people take a look at the 12 by 12 scrapbooks and shudder.)
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of having pictures easily accessible for later. It'll be easy for you to go through the albums with your kids later (like when they're my age and are like, Mommy, do you have pictures of that time Auntie Shua visited when Zeko was just born?) And if they're in some sort of reasonable order, you can date things by proximate pictures. (Speaking from my own experience....)
I feel like you have a good amount of text here. A lot of the pictures are self-explanatory, but you have a few key reminders so a person can figure out that it's the end of January, so it must be close to Valentine's Day. And Elora-belle folding washcloths isn't a new version of making mud pies but rather someone doing chores like asked.
Just some thoughts. I miss you a lot.
Pearl
I saw Week 3 before this and made a very positive comment there about your accomplishment! If it's "tackle-able," then why not "reproduce-ability"? Just asking ....
ReplyDeleteTrend always goes toward truncating words. "Reproducabilty" is much more of a common word, so much more in our vocabulary, that it's acceptable to write it this way. "Tackle-able" is a bit more "made up," definitely not in everyday vocabulary or usage so I wouldn't say it's formally acceptable to write "tacklable" -- no one would even recognize it. And that's my professional opinion. ;)
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