Saturday

It really has to be a simple title because I have just had a few wines while we watched a movie. Its a sad thing when you realise that you are a little worse for wear before 7pm. We got Taken on box office as they give us a free movie a month and we thought we should remember to use them. I have to admit that I really enjoyed it. I dont think it got rave reviews but it was certainly gripping for us. Have finished the Sara Donati book.... gosh that was a nice read. Chicky book definitely but i enjoy those. Now i have started Vanished by Karen Robards. So far so good. But there is a lot on, with new stuff due out from my CTs so i have been very busy scrapbooking. Now i have Never offered a freebie. But I am very much hoping that in the next day or two to have a March desktop for you. I am pretty thrilled with it. For us it features Greg, because he insisted that as his birthday is in March, he was entitled to be on the desktop.
There is lots of other things going on, exciting things afoot, but of course as usual if i tell you i have to kill you. I am not certain how I could achieve that over the internet of course, so i better be keeping my secrets. However keep checking back in and we will see what turns up.

I did wonder if anyone else had an interest in learning how to do digital scrapbooking? I was thinking i might put some links up to resources and freebies to help anyone interested to get started. First things first. You will need a program. This is unavoidable. I am currently using Adobe CS3, although if you have thousands to spend CS4 is out. However I started with Elements and I loved it. It is really nice to use and is very simple. I probably moved up to CS because I wanted to create text paths so if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need to worry. There is a free program called GIMP. I know little about this except it is free and that ppl do use it. PSP is another option. All these programs have free trials which you can download for usually 30 days, so it is a good way to give it a try. Buying the previous release is often a lot cheaper than the newest version and the upgrade can still save you money.
The next thing to think about is storage. Because this is a memory hungry hobby. The thing I did wrong at the start was to organise my stuff badly, and even now I have a reasonable mess where there is lots of stuff from who knows where. When I started digital scrapbooking I had no intention of putting my pages on the net so I never thought of the importance of keeping track of who made what. Wrong. Start right and it keeps it simple. I am now using ACDSee to organise my scrapbooking gear so that i can keyword search. You can also use ACDSee to organise your photos once again with keyword search. If you start organising it makes life easier. My biggest first mistake was to put all my downloaded papers into a directory called papers. That makes it impossible to work out where you got them from. Just leave them in their kits with the designer info with them so that when you make your magnificent layout you can put the credits up with it. I also make a notepad file with a list of what i used and give it the same file name and keep it in the same directory. It just keeps things simple.
Scrapbooking kits come in zip or rar files. I use a program called win rar to unzip the files. Unzipped files are all put into a back up file because if i use the lot i will need these. Obviously everything you have needs to be backed up so if disaster strikes you have it all in another place. I personally swear by external hard drives and they are getting so cheap. I have a gorgeous little portable EHD which cost me less than $100 and has all my backups on it.
Ok so we have a program. Storage is organised. What next?
So here are some links that I have found useful
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/digital.asp
two peas has lots of free kits, galleries to look through, kits to buy and a section with tutorials.
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/
I am a big fan of the Shabby Princess stuff. Once again, tutorials, free kits, and more.. galleries, blog, shop. Lots of great stuff. Their free kits are absolutely gorgeous.
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/basics.shtml
Once again more freebies, more tutorials.
www.dafont.com.
I have to mention this site because i have used it so often. Once you start trying to make pages you need lots of new fonts. I save all the zip files in a folder (called font zips) so if i change computers or move my scrapbooking or format then i have them there already to reinstall).
Then there are the blogs... zillions of them with lovely little freebies.
http://digifree.blogspot.com/
http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/
http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/

I could go on for ever. But google search is way more efficient. Most of the blogs link to other blogs and other blogs and so on. There are so many templates out there that make it the easiest thing in the world to complete a layout. I forgot to mention scrapgirls. They also have great tutorials, i actually bought a series of video tutorials which were great.
If anyone finds this helpful, feel free to let me know...
So if you are ready to get going why don't you get your program, have a look at some tutorials and this week i will put up the desktop calendar which is one of the easiest things to personalise for yourself.
The only other thing i would say is the same thing we say about all computer stuff. Save. save. save. No point putting in heaps of work to lose it when the computer crashes.
Now.. just checking back.. yes.. i did make a new page to show off.


Just to give you an idea. This layout is made using a free kit from sweetblossom designs. too easy.