As you may have noticed, I love to take pictures (I've mentioned that once or twice, I believe?), I love, Love, LOVE Photoshop, and I love to scrapbook. You may also have noticed from time to time that I post scrapbook pages I've made and the like. You'd think with my love of all things digital, I would have a ton of scrapbooks weighing down my bookshelves over here, but the truth? I am such a darn perfectionist about it that it takes me a good 4 hours to do a layout. Sometimes more. I've mentioned that before too. I rarely, if ever print my layouts because I would like to wait and have them printed in a book all together, but because I am so stinkin' slow to make them, I never get enough done to print the books. And I have posted pretty much every digital page I have ever made. That's just how few of them there really are.
I really should just print them page by page and fill up binders as I go. I'm currently in the process of letting go of my desire for bound books and moving in that direction. Spending some time with a friend (Hi Effie!) while our daughters played a couple weeks ago is finally giving me the push to let go and just print. She had these beautiful traditional scrapbooks she made of her daughter's first year. I was melting looking at them. I can't even say I have regular scrapbooks lining my shelves. Supplies, yes. Scrapbooks? Not so much. It's a sad truth.
Anyway, so looking at her books made me determined to complete an album I've been working on since January. Last year I jumped on the Project 365 (photo-a-day) bandwagon. I didn't actually take a picture every day, but I took enough to more than make up for days where a picture of my feet was all I was going to come up with. But was I ever going to get those into layouts like I dream of? Of course not. So I got realistic and spent January choosing seven pictures from each week and I spent February putting together the very simple and already done for me Digital Project Life book by my long time beloved scrapbooker: Becky Higgins. There's an awesome traditional scrapbook version too, and I really wanted to do that, but I decided to just be honest with myself and take the easy route instead.
So now I have completed an entire year worth of scrapbooking in two months! Is it exactly how I would want to do it myself? Not really. Did I miss the total and utter control Photoshop allows me? Abosolutely. But in less than two weeks, I will have in my hands a complete book that the girls can go through over and over again to their hearts content, like they do with the Disney album I made. You know, while the memories are still fresh. There's something to be said for that. And I know they won't care if the program wouldn't let me size and line up some of the photos EXACTLY how I wanted them or any of the other small complaints I have.Overall, I highly recommend it. I may do it again this year, which will allow me to get back to working on the girls' baby album that I have put off so long because I want it to be absolutely *perfect*, and because I may or may not have been utterly exhausted for the first few years of their life.
Update: Oooh fun! They just emailed me a preview of my book! It's very hard to read the text at this size, but in case you're interested in making one, you can get an idea of what it looks like.
3 comments:
Thanks Amy, I think I may start working on a book for us! I am so not scrapbook friendly but wish I was so this could be a great meet-in-the-middle for us.
Cute book! Way to go!
Codi...It's great, especially if you're not really a scrapbooker. I bet you will love it. You can resize the square picture frames to fit wider or taller shots too. I didn't realize that at first, so just a tip for you. Also, they have two options for the digital version. One is the week by week version, they other is a shorter month overview style. I think I may do that one this year. I'll let you know what I think of the print quality when I get it, but I've only heard good things from other people! If you do it, let me know how you like it!
Cindy...I knew you could appreciate me being able to complete an entire scrapbook! The last one I actually filled was the very first one I made. You know, way back when we were into decorative scissors and creative lettering (like my laser light bowling page, if you remember it, with bowling pins in the letters). When I look at that scrapbook, I think more about making it with you than anything else! Remember our plans for our store? I still have that notebook.
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