Tired of scrapbooking - any options for pages on Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.?

[~Shanna~]

Before I had DS, I really enjoyed scrapbooking. Now I find that it takes too much room, too much time and I don't even really like the final product. The main thing I like about scrapbooking vs. regular photo albums is the space to journal.

This morning, another mom at church mentioned the photobooks available on Snapfish and other sites. Is there something like this that I can do for individual pages? Or is going with the whole shabang of the photobook the only option? Do they have a way to do journaling in these books? She also mentioned some software where you can "scrapbook" on the computer, but I' confused about how a 12X12 page would get printed....

Any advice?

[~Shanna~]

Okay, so I found some of the digital scrapbooking threads here on MDC - but I still can't tell from Shutterfly or Snapfish how I design and print individual pages, as opposed to entire photobooks.

[zech13_9_goforgold]

I'm not an expert on Shutterfly/Snapfish, but the best I can tell, you can only print a full, complete photobook on their website. There are other websites (google it) that will print unbound pages individually. There are some printing companies that can print 12x12's (once again, google it.)

I believe by "computer scrapbooking" is actually called "digital scrapbooking." Here is a website with a bit of information on digital scrapbooking. As far as digital scrapbooking software, there are lots of diffenent options, depending on your scrapbooking and computer expertise (sp?). I suggest scrapbooking.com or googling "digital scrapbooking software."

I use Digital Scrapbook Artist, which is British (I'm not), but works well. I used to be a paper scrapbooker, but also grew tired of it (not sure why). I'm loving digital scrapbooking, though. I like that I can sit down and scrapbook for a few minutes or several hours. You might like it, especially with a new baby (?) in the house. You can then get those pages printed separately or bound into a photobook. You can also switch from 12x12 to 8.5x11 to 8x8 or anything else you might want. A few months ago, Scrapbook Etc mag. had a chart of different kinds of software compared.

As for journalling, you can either write with pen in your photo book, or add the journalling to your digital page as you go (in the software).

[lifeguard]

I use the digital scrapbooking software from Creative Memories. I love it so far. The 12x12 "pages" are printed out like one big picture. It costs me $2.50 for a 12x12 print at Costco here (Canada).

[faerywings]

Hi there! I am a lurker here, but thought I would pop in with my two cents

I am a digital scrapper and totally addicted to it! I love how easy it is to do. I also love how much more creative I can be as well. It is as much an artistic outlet as it is a memory keeping one.

I use ACDSee Photo Manager and Photo Editor to scrap with. PM keeps all of my photos and supplies organized. Photo Editor is what I use to create my page. It is similar to PSE but way easier. I can bang out a LO in less than a half hour (that is if I am not experiencing scrap-block heheh!)

You can check out acdsee.com for free trials of the software, plus some tutorials.
I also have some tutorials on my blog: here is one that I wrote for a LO I did
http://faerywings.wordpress.com/2009...o-editor-2008/

[deputy465]

Sounds like you need Digital Scrapbooking. I have been scrapbooking since high school, and once baby#3 came, it was just impossible to pull all my stuff out of the closet (our house does not have an office/scrapbook room!).

I use Creative Memories software, which is SUPER easy to use. You can do ALL the things that you would with paper and embellishments, and its actually EASIER. No ruining a whole piece of paper, you just click the undo button. Best of all, all the kits you buy can be reused (I have saved SO much money!!!!!!!). You can print pages through Creative Memories and while they are great quality, they are just too costly for me. Costco supposedly prints them for cheap (someone told me they could do 12x36 prints for a little over $1 and then you just have to cut the pages apart).

Now that I've been doing this awhile, I just invested in Photoshop. Awesome software, but I would not suggest it for beginners. It's been quite a challenge to learn how to use it.

[New]

Microsoft photo editor instead of photoshop - cheaper by far.

[deputy465]

You can buy older version of Photoshop Elements on Ebay for quite cheap. The newer versions have a few more options but basically they are the same. I bought my version 4 on Ebay. Version 7 sells for arund $70 at Sam's Club.