Digital scrapbooking!

I did a short presentation on my digital scrapbooking, at the photographic club last night.  It was all part of a Craft Season – What I do with my photos.    Barbara had showed us some of her audiovisual presentations; Margaret had demonstrated card making; Ruth told us about the photobooks, calendars and cards she gets printed, not to mention the mugs she got for her grandkids with her photos of them on, and today I got my chance to do something on my scrapbooking. 

I’d always fancied doing something more than just arranging photos and sticking them in scrapbooks, but knew I was just not organised enough to take up the idea that was becoming more popular, an American import, of embellishing your scrapbook pages with fabric, ribbons, buttons, braid, etc.  It would cost a fair bit to buy papers, and card, and all the accoutrements - which you’d have to replace when they were used up - then you’d need to store them… No, no room for all that, and you know about my general inability to keep anything tidy…. but then I discovered you could do the whole thing digitally!

I had some very simple software  - none of your Photoshop stuff for me –which I began to experiment with, and my very first scrapbook page was this one of Fergus, my furry feline friend, sadly no longer with us.  I didn’t know at that time that you could buy kits or collect freebies, and made my own backgrounds with photographed wallpaper, patterned, textured, coloured…  It helped that I was working in a small shop selling wallpaper.  I’d take my camera with me to work, and when it was quiet, I’d leaf my way through the sample books taking photos.  I still don’t think my first efforts were dreadful!  In fact some I really like.  In this one the scene painted on the piece of wood is just a cropped rectangle of photo, but now I’d know how to cut round the shape, losing the four corners!  I’d rearrange the pictures and the text box too.

 

 

My blackbird is still a favourite, as are the  following two which were part of a competition entry!  I was getting bolder!

 

 

 

 

 

and then I discovered the website Digitalscrapbookplace, and that, as they say, was that!   I was hooked. There were so many beautiful kits you could buy for really very reasonable prices, to use over and over if you so wished – though generally I wanted a new kit for each new page.Since then, I have discovered many wonderful websites and designers,  and made friends with other scrappers around the world into the bargain!  I won’t show you the whole of last night’s presentation, you’ll be relieved to hear, but I hope you enjoy the next pages as well.  Many of my pages are of flowers, and wildlife,

but I made a series on the Ancestors, of which these are just a few,

 

and another on the relations,

from Canada (right),

  Australia, (below left) 

and NewZealand  (below).

 

There was an album of Friends,

 

 

 

 

and one of my travels which I must do more work on one of these days.  There’s lots to catch up on!

This was in France, right, and northwest Scotland, below.

 

 

 

I even have an album of pets – not all my own – for example Dinah belonged to my cousin Moira in Sutherland.

and this is a page from my Peebles album!

My mother was a good photographer and used to do lots of slide shows to groups.  Her last picture in many of these shows was of a sunset, so in the tradition…. here’s my last picture for today!

Talk again soon!