My Evolution to Digital

I started scrapping in the late '90s while still in high school. I wanted to get all my baby pictures out of those old magnetic page protectors and into something acid free. My pictures were already starting to fade and I was only 16! I started for about a month using 8.5"x11" size and quickly changed to 12"x12" size - going back and redoing all the pages I'd done up to that point.

please disregard the dust!

From then on, my friends and I would get together every few weeks and scrap the latest events...dances, football games, etc. Since we were still film shooters, we didn't have a whole bunch of images to choose from so it was quite easy to stay "caught up". In college, I was the historian for an Institute committee and so I scrapbooked all our activities, and my own two. This is when I switched back to 8.5"x11". When we got married I inherited Troy's books that his mom and sister had made. Both were 8.5"x11" traditional.

Sadly, after being married, I didn't take many pictures...until I got a digital camera. Then I was really focusing on my professional images rather than family ones...until Ben was born. Then I started going crazy! For his 6 months of life I have over 10 GB of images!!! This is when I decided to go digital. Our house was still in the process of being remodeled (which it still is) and working on the computer just seemed easier. Plus I had already been doing this "digital scrapbooking" for my photography business. So that's how I ended up here, as a digital scrapbooker.

Comparing Different Albums:

Here's a sampling of some of the different albums I've made - you can see the difference in size and width. From Top to Bottom.

Mini Album for Troy: I made Troy a mini album as a wedding gift - "Ten Thing I Love About You". Its an 8"x8" Creative Memories album with 11 pages (2 sides each) and could expand to hold more.

I mixed some digital in with it...printed some pics from the web and used some type along with other elements. (Ask me how long it took to get all the calculator keys to create an equation - I was the 5th grade Krypto champ!)

Ben's First Year Album: I printed this 8.5"x8.5" photobook through Inkubook. Saying "first year" is misleading...this is his life in 2008 which is really only abotut 6 months of his life. It includes 27 pages (2 sided).

I love that I can create a cover as well.

I chose to go with the smaller size to make it easier to look through. The larger size (my HS album) is just so large and cumbersome to look through.

Our Trip to Brazil: We had so many pictures from this trip and I was so overwhelmed I knew I didn't want to scrapbook them...but I didn't want to forget what happened either. Here I settled on a simple photo sleeve album with some space for journaling. I love looking through this album and it was so easy to put together. Includes 50 pages with room for 4 pics each. I added some memorabilia too (tickets and such). This is definitely the easiest, albeit not the most creative, way to go.

My High School Album: 12x12 3 ring binder. Contains 24 sheet protectors (48 pages) and could hold maybe 1 or two more.

My Conclusion:
I've decided that digital scrapbooking is for me... at least for my chronological albums. I am, however, still excited about the idea of doing some hybrid/more traditional mini albums for events or trips.

♥Julliana