Hope you enjoy the video above with some Scrapbooking Ideas and Saving Tips!

The kids are finally in bed and hubby is being a “couch potato” and you finally have a few minutes to sit down and make a scrapbook page or two. Then your mind goes blank and you become extremely frustrated instead of excited. This has happened to me several times and so I have come up with a great plan that has helped me and I hope will help you also.

First, find an empty 3-ring binder around your home or go to the store and buy a cheap one. Then search the internet, or scrapbook magazines, or scrapbook ideas books. Whenever you come across a cute idea for a page layout, simply print it off or cut it out and add it to your 3-ring binder. Soon your scrapbooking idea book will be full of ideas.

Next time you go to sit down and are ready to create a page layout all you will need to do is pull out your handy-dandy scrapbooking ideas book and create, create, create! Scrapbooking ideas are not hard to find, especially on the internet, so get searching. Just “Google” the words “scrapbooking ideas” and you will be rewarded with 395,000 hits (last time I checked). Maybe you better go out and buy some more 3-ring binders!

I have a scrapbooking idea of my own that I would love to share with you. These ideas have helped me a lot during the 15 years that I have been scrapbooking. The first idea I have is to go online and go to your favorite scrapbooking sites and join their forums. When you join the forum, you can at that point ask questions and get great ideas from the other members of the forum. Also, a lot of these sites will have “Galleries” where they have uploaded their page layouts and you can get great inspiration from there. I have included the link below so that you can have instant access to one of these Galleries.

http://www.scrapbook.com/gallery/layout/0/-1.html

It can be frustrating at times to pull a page layout together, but one of my most important tips that I have is to keep it simple! Sometimes we get to caught up with all of the bling and forget that all we really need to tell the story is the photo and journaling. Scrapbooking ideas are a “dime a dozen” and we can have a lot of fun with them, but simplicity is the key!

Putting together a scrapbook is a fun way for you to capture your memories and milestones. You do not need fancy paper or embellishments. All you need to start with is friend or family members that enjoy the hobby, and then get scrapbooking ideas from them. Or you can look through idea books to find the style that you like. Scrapbooking classes are quite the rave these days. You can sign up for one if you feel like you need a boost for scrapbooking ideas. Spending time with family and friends or even strangers, will help you to get motivated and get going with some pages.

If you start to get overwhelmed just stop and take a breath and realize that it doesn’t have to be complicated to find scrapbooking ideas. Scrapbooking can be as simple or complex as you make it; it is purely up to you to decide what you want to accomplish. All you need to do is remember to “keep it simple” and create a scrapbook out of scrapbooking ideas that you have found. Keep a folder or a 3-ring binder full of ideas for scrapbook pages, how to make your own embellishments and really anything that will help you to get more scrapbooking ideas.

Scrapbooking is purely to savor your special moments with your family and friends. Any way you do it and like it will work. Don’t stress if you make a page that you don’t LOVE. Keep it! It shows your progress.

Digital or not to digital . . .

We just completed a new podcast on digital scrapbooking. Digital scrapbooking is the new scrapbooking craze and there are many benefits to scrapbooking digitally as opposed to the traditional way. We talk about this in the podcast and we also talk about how to get started and what are the best software programs to use.

Cheri will be putting together several digital scrapbook tutorials that will help you tremendously in getting started. They will be for a nominal fee, and will provide a wealth of information that it took her years to figure out on her own. Look for these great tutorials and happy digi scrapin’.

I have created some digital scrapbooking pages using the Memory Mixer software program. These are pictures of flowers that we took while we were in France. The flowers there were so beautiful.

Technorati Tags: Digital Scrapbooking Podcast, Digital Scrapbooking, Memory Mixer Software

First of all, you have to find a software program that will be easy for you to start with. I started with a program called Memory Mixer and then I found a program called HP Creative Scrapbook Assistant, and then I found a program called ScrapMaxi. Now, this might confuse you because I said to start with a program that will be easy for you to use. All three of these are easy and I wouldn’t recommend buying all three like I did, but I would check each one out and see which one fits your needs best.

The next thing you need to do is find some digital kits that you can purchase that will fit the needs of the type of scrapbook you will be working on. For instance, I am working on my new granddaughters’ scrapbooks and so I have been purchasing baby girl kits. With each of the software programs I mentioned above, you can purchase kits through each of their websites. Kits will generally run around $5-7 and each kit will come with background paper, embellishments, word art, alphas, etc. Everything you will need to create page layouts.

The final step is to create your page layouts and then print them out and bind them in a photo album. There are many ways to do this and I will do another article about this subject soon. The programs I have mentioned above offers you ways to print your album. For a minimal cost, you can even have them print and bind your album for you. Unless you have a great printer, this might be the way you want to go.

In a nutshell, this is the basics to get started digital scrapbooking. Of course, there is more to it, but at least you know enough to get started.

In future articles I will be telling you about a new way that I digital scrapbook. It is using the software program called Adobe PhotoShop Elements 6.0. This is more complex and I am fairly new at it, but the reason I like this is because you can import any digital image into this program, which means that you are not stuck using just one certain program and their products only. Like I said, this is a little more complex and I am glad that I started with the simpler programs I suggested above because I was able to learn using these easier programs. But now I have become adventurous in using my new Adobe PhotoShop Elements 6.0!

Make sure you listen to our next podcast where we will be talking about digital scrapbooking more extensively. Also make sure you take our poll at the right sidebar named “Do you Digital Scrapbook?”!

One of the most important projects you should do as you start scrapbooking is to get organized! In this episode we just scratch the surface of Scrapbook Organization.

Now, to organize the many supplies that you will use to create your pages. These supplies will be those freebies that you download off the internet, or the kits that you purchase from the many websites that offer great tools. You can look on the web for ideas to scrapbook organize your supplies, but I will tell you how I have become an effective scrapbook organizer.

Trust us, getting all of this organized will save you tons of time. Time you will need to scrapbook! You are on your way to becoming a great scrapbook organizer – keep going!

Here is a great article about getting your scrapbook area and storage organized:
www.simplify101.com/scrapbook-storage.php

Beginner Scrapbooking part 2 podcast continues with some great questions from beginner scrapbooker Lindsey Pierson.

Below are links to items that we talked about on the Podcast:

Scrapbook Photo Markers

Beginner Kit

Check out this great articles about Top Ten Must-Haves for Beginner Scrapbookers and article about acid-free products.

In episode #3 at ScrapbookTalkRadio.com the girls talk about Beginner Scrapbooking Supplies that will help you gain an understanding on scrapbooking supplies such as scissors, paper, albums, pens, etc.

Here are some of the things that the girls talked about with links to great savings:

Zig Writer-  Check out Ebay.com for great savings on these great pens.

Fiskars-  The Fiskars Scissors at Joann.com are priced at $10.07 or the Honeybee brand that Carli Nelson also spoke about is priced at $8.39!