Step by Step – A Digital Scrapbook Page.

As promised by my previous post, I thought I’d just give you an incredibly basic step by step to show you how to get started doing a digital scrapbook page.

   (My very first digital scrapbook page).

Of course you have to own a design program like Photoshop.  (They are around 79 bucks at Costco, probably a lot less if you bought a year old one off eBay) I did a little research on other programs and I believe you can also do digital layout using Microsoft Word (any one out there use that program?) but I use Adobe Photoshop Elements so I will tell you what I know using that program. 

In Photoshop go to:
File> New>blank file

This shows you a box – enter height 12  and width 12 and resolution, 300
hit ENTER

Now you have your blank 12”x12” paper canvas to create your layout!!!


In regards to “papers” and “embellishments” there are actually lots of freebie sites and blogs to get you started. One of my favorite freebie and good deal site is Jessica Sprague.  Click for some of amazing free papers and embellishments!  She also offers great sale prices on Wednesdays on other paper packages.  WAY cheaper than buying this stuff at Michaels!  I use the Photoshop organizer to put all my miscellaneous  purchased and free embellishments in the system so I can easily find them when I am working on a page.

(some examples of my freebie or very inexpensive collection)

Now you just open (go to File>Open) whatever it is you want (paper, picture, embellishment) and drag (with the move tool)  that item onto your blank canvas!.  You do need to understand some basics of Photoshop but THANKS to blogs like CoffeeShopBlog and JessicaSprague.com you can get many tutorials on how to understand Photoshop better.  I followed Kira’s photo collage step by step tutorial for some of my first projects.  (Christmas cards, fancy collages etc) If you have already worked on photographs using Photoshop, making a basic digital scrapbook page should really be quite simple for you.
When you have completed your page save it twice – once in Photoshop and once in jpeg form.  Send your jpeg copy over to Costco to have it printed out for $2.99 a sheet.  Do you realize that means that you can print out a baby book for your child AND one for YOU to keep!  Did I mention I LOVE DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING!!!!!! 

ENJOY!!!  I hope your creative juices have been inspired!