Wednesday, March 21, 2007

For those interested in digital scrapbooking...

This kit was just released today...

http://www.scrapartist.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=914


One of the designers (Michelle Coleman) is a HUGE favorite among many digital scrappers. Anyway, I'm letting some of you know because it was specifically designed for people just getting started in digital scrapping. It comes with 52 papers, 3 alphabets, a ton of elements (that's all the other stuff), and a 20 page tutorial on getting started using Adobe Photoshop. (FYI: Adobe Photoshop Elements is VERY similar to the full-fledged Photoshop and WAY cheaper. So if you have Elements, the booklet should still be completely helpful to you.)

And actually, if you go to Adobe's website (www.adobe.com I believe), you can download 1 month trial versions of both Photoshop Elements and/or Photoshop and play around a bit before deciding whether or not this sort of thing interests you. Also, there are a TON of free kits you can download from designers, so if anyone wants me to post those too, let me know and I'll throw you some links. :)


Here's a link to an online catalog of everything that comes in the kit...
http://www.scrapartist.com/StarterKitCatalog/KitCatP01.html


It's on sale right now for $25.50 (normally $30.00). That's not a bad price. Most digital scrapbooking kits run anywhere between $5 and $7 and don't have nearly as much stuff. I'd say the average kit has 6 or 7 papers (sometimes only 5) and some elements. Sometimes an alphabet, sometimes not. So generally speaking, this big kit's price is pretty decent.


I don't know if that seems like a lot of cash to throw into a kit if you've never digital scrapped before, but I wanted to let some of you know since you were asking me how/where to get started. The fact that this comes with the 20-page tutorial book is an added bonus for those who are SURE they want to start doing this kind of thing.

And since we're talking about digital scrapbooking anyway (LOL!), I thought I'd post some more layouts I got done the past two weeks or so.


Everything for this layout is by Jen Wilson.

Credits for this layout are right here.





8 comments:

Tink said...

I am in love with the idea of digital scrapbooking and all of your beautiful pages. I hooked up my computer last night and I'm going to try and find the Photoshop Elements disk I bought Hoop for Christmas. As soon as I have internet again I'll be ready to go!

Allison said...

KF: It depends. Since most scrappers scrap in squares (12x12" or 8x8"), all papers in kits come in 12" x 12". You can certainly TRY to print it out as a 5x7, but you'll be going from a square to a rectangle, so you'll be cutting stuff out (kind of like when you crop a square area out of a standard 4x6" photo. KWIM?

Here's what I do with mine. I scrap them all at 12x12". Then I go into Photoshop and change the size of the entire image (the whole layout) to 8x8" and print them out on standard matte 8.5 x 11" photo paper and trim them to the 8x8 size. 12x12, 8x8, and even 6x6 are common scrapping sizes, so you can find a ton of albums made to hold those sizes. A handful of people scrap at 8.5 x 11, but that size isn't nearly as popular.

I also upload to Shutterfly and get bound books made. Shutterfly now practically caters to scrapbookers. You can go into their photo book section and download a template to use before uploading your layouts to make sure that no text or anything will be accidentally cut off when the book is bound. Rumor has it they plan on rolling out a ton of other things specifically geared towards digital scrapbookers.

So I'm not sure if I answered your question or not. Basically, when you're done with a layout and merge all of the layers together (that will make more sense once you get started... LOL!), you save the layout as a .jpg. So you can certainly go in as if it was a photo and crop out any portion of that .jpg you want to at any size you want to, but obviously, you'll be cutting stuff out of the layout.

Allison said...

Tink (and others), I need to warn you... you WILL become addicted. You will NOT leave your computer unless absolutely necessary. I promise. LOL! It's just so much fun to play around. And once you get a handle on the whole thing, it's a BLAST trying to get all artsy and do things you could only possibly do on a computer (like the way I blended the photo of Grace's hand painting into my background paper). I can't wait for you guys to get started! WOOHOO!

Allison said...

KF: I've been thinking about this for the past two hours now (LOL!), and if you REALLY wanted to crop a and print a layout at 5x7, what you could do is shrink the whole layout down to 7x7 and crop from there. That way, you'd at least get the whole layout in one direction (either length or width), but you'd lose 2" the other way. As long as there's nothing "important" on those 2", you'd be OK. :)

Melly said...

Now I know what to ask for for my birthday! WOOO HOOO!

Beautiful pages, beautiful girls...

september said...

Those layouts are beautiful...and definitely inspiring. Thanks for the tip on the kit!

Allison said...

Kelly, I didn't buy the kit. LOL! I'd LIKE to have the kit. But I buy so much other stuff that $25.00 was just a leetle too much to spend. I mean I've got GBs and GBs of scrapping stuff, and frankly, I'll probably never use half of it (if not more). And every time I sit to do a layout, 99.9% of the time, I use almost all Jen Wilson stuff anyway, so... LOL!

I forgot SP was releasing stuff today. Cool!

geenalyn said...

your pages are gorgeous Alien....if i had the patience to sit down and teach myself how to do the digital stuff i'd be all over that kit...