Scrapbook Pages - First Venture

This was my first venture into My Digital Studio.   I've been taking some classes and learned a number of things since I did these classes, most notably the use of photo boxes and using the shadow effect so that the images would like more like 3-D. 

All non photo images and embellishments are Stampin' Up!

One of the things I've learned from looking at other people's scrapbooking is to take pictures and scrapbook the everyday things.  That is my objective.   I've just got to learn to take more pictures - there are a couple of times I've come home and wished I had taken pictures.  I am carrying the camera in my pocketbook now, so I am almost there.   Just gotta get it out of the pocketbook!  One of the people I took a lesson from does a scrapbook page just about every day - like before she goes to bed at night.  Of the little everyday things her kids do -- like one page was about the way her 3 year old pronounced different words or cute little things he said.   With My Digital Studio one doesn't have to get out supplies and adhesive, etc. and one doesn't have the storage challenges with all the scrapbooking supplies!  And if you wished, you could make multiple copies of a scrapbook page. Like I printed all these pages off for me.  I could go back and print Trey/Inga's for them and Candi/Mark's for them.  Or say I wanted to bring them into a photo album or calendar  I was doing later for them - I could just import these project pages into the new project. 

Trey's birthday above.  These were my first two pages.  I had earlier done these, with some help, in the traditional way of scrapbooking.  So I copied those traditional scrapbooking pages almost exactly.  The turquoise strip is digital grosgrain ribbon.    If I did these pages again, I would use drop shadow on all the pictures and the ribbon, punches, etc.   These were done before I learned that!

Candi's birthday.  The borders and bows and asterisks are embellishments in the standard program.  After I saved these pages as jpeg I altered the border on the first page and took the red and blue borders off so that just the blocked happy birthday border remained so that it matched the border on the second page.

I made my own borders around these pictures on Trey and Candi's birthdays.  Pages below - some I used the photo mat -- and you can determine size and color of mat, and some I did not mat at all. 

Snow - April 13, 2010.  I took pictures two times that morning - at about 8:30 and when the sun came out about 10:30.   I got into trying to take some "artistic" pictures - I had been reading the photography section on http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ .  The snowflakes are Stampin' Up! stamp images which I selected one of the Stampin' Up! colors.  One can also do a color match and match a color within one of the photos on the page.  The program uses whatever fonts you have on your computer when you type int he Text boxes.   I only have the standard fonts in Word and Wordperfect -- must go find some other fonts!

Christmas 2009.   I am putting this wording in here to separate the pictures.  I was trying to get the two page layout side by side, but the blog is not wide enough for that.  In the blog program, I had to go back and drop the right hand side page below the other one - otherwise it was 80% covered up when I looked at the actual blog entry.  Hopefully I get all the left and rights changed to top and bottom in my commentary here.  Above was was the lesson where I brought in a punch and filled it with designer series paper on the left.   The Merry Christmas and 2009 on the first picture are the ornaments on the second are exclusive Stampin' Up! images only available in this program.  As are the punch shapes on several of these pages. 

The "Daddy's Little Girl" picture on the top was a lesson I was working on where I brought in the oval punch and made it long and put it at the top and bottom of the picture and filled it with the same color as the sides.  That is how I got the curved top and bottom.  You gotta read the copy I put below the first picture of Candi and Earl dancing! 

Ok -- cross fingers, we're coming along pretty good here!  The brunch page above on the bottom is a lesson I was working on using the opacity button.   That's why you see the same photo but it gets lighter as I change the opacity.  Also notice the white stitching in the middle of the pink strip. 

Ok -- got Candi's wedding pages in here!  The punch on the bottom picture is filled with designer paper.  I've used a designer brad again to have something to put in what was a blank space in the top page.  I thought this background color matched Gail's dress pretty well.   I'm pretty sure I just used a standard SU! color rather than doing a color match. 

Notice the butterfly on Earl's beard in the top page!  I thought that was really cool!  And on my shirtsleeve in the middle of the bottom page.   I don't know if it will work, but try clicking on the picture and see if it will get bigger.  I tried it - it will get some bigger.  The buttons and the orange butterfly on the top page are Stampin' Up! elements in My Digital Studio.  You can bring in various punches and make them any color or any size you want.   You can bring in the buttons, one of a number of embellishments, and make them the color you want also.   You can change the size of the buttons a little, but if try to change too large, they will pixellate.  I've since learned how to position them better.  I was doing it by sight when I did these pages. 

And pictures of Trey and Inga's wedding.  She loved the shoe cake server (she likes shoes and she likes animal prints).  Trey had the groom's cake shaped like a laptop computer.  A challenge for the cake maker!    And picking up his cake after the rehearsal dinner was an adventure!  The cake maker lived way out in the middle of nowhere and we had to drive down several dirt roads to get there -- and back again with the cake.   Several VERY BUMPY dirt roads.  It's a miracle the cake stayed in one piece!   The topper on the wedding cake was the same topper that Inga's mom and dad had.  The heart is a punch I brought in, made the size I wanted it, and filled with red "cardstock." 

Notice Inga's wedding boots in the bottom page. 
And that's my first 20 digital scrapbooking pages!    Now to get inspired and do some more!

The satin ribbon/knot on the top picture is a digital download I bought and added to the program.  (There are a lot of elements (stamps, embellishments, designer paper, etc.) that come with the basic program and then one can buy add-on downloads of stamps, embellishments, designer paper, etc. at very reasonable costs.)  The heart above on the right side is the same punch used earlier, just used smaller. 

A great difference between My Digital Studio and making photo albums with other digital photo album programs is that one can use the stamps and embellishments (ribbon, buttons, hardware, eyelets, brads, etc.) to make the presentation more scrapbook like. 

One can also prepare the project in Multi-Media -- then you could have it printed as a bound photo album or as in my case, scrapbook 12 x 12" pages.   In Multi-Media you could also have your project  look like a photo album and one could "flip" the pages, but you could add narration, background music, and video  and burn it to a DVD and share it that way.  (Must have separate DVD Video Authoring Software to create a DVD video from individual movie files.)  I haven't played with the MultiMedia part yet -- I'm still learning the program - but I'm also looking back at some of my notes.

I can also save the scrapbook pages I did above (which I created in the photo album section) as jpeg photos and share them that way.   I sent Inga and Candi emails and attached the pictures of their wedding pages.  And that is how I was able to upload them to this blog. 

There are four sections -- photo albums (or scrapbook pages if you prefer to have them printed that way), cards, calendars, and multi-media.  There are five different sizes of photo albums from which to choose, 5 different sizes of cards, and 2 sizes of calendars.

All these pages came together pretty quickly.  I started on Friday morning and finished them and sent them to be printed at noon on Monday. And I did not work on them Friday night nor Saturday night nor Sunday morning.   I set all these layouts up from scratch.   The program does have already designed templates - complete templates with all the designer paper, embellishments, etc.  or  just plain photo layouts.   So if one is not into designing from scratch, one can use the already set up designs.   You can tell the program to place all the pictures in a project -- or you can determine where each picture goes.  Also -- if I particularly like some of the photo layouts I've done (if I use photo boxes which I've now learned to do), I can save the layouts I've done also as a template.