Digital scrapbooking

Lately, I have been doing some digital scrapbooking. Not that this is entirely new to me, but I have learned several things lately, and thought I would share. First, as you know, I am a huge supporter of Creative Memories. I had made several albums using them, and was always happy with the free program. However, I had some problems with the last book I made, and couldn't get it to print. Finally, and this is over a year after I had completed the album, I found a number for CM, called and received another number for the tech department, sat on hold for about 7 minutes and finally talked with a wonderful guy, who understood my uncomputer saavy way of saying things and was able to help me answer all of my questions! Now, in the meantime, I had purchased the new Storybook Creator plus from Creative Memories and found it harder to use than the original FREE version that you can download by going to Creative Memories website. In fact, I became so frustrated one day, that I felt sick and had to give up on it! I decided to try another company! ( I know, *GASP!*) But Picabo turned out to be a big pain as well! I had to download all this stuff, and then I ended up not wanting it. It was a huge waste of time. I always get my pictures printed from Snapfish, an online company, and I'm usually pretty happy with them. I order them and they get shipped right to me. I like that. So, I noticed they had a sale on scrapbooks and decided to make one of my family summer. We saw so many family members this summer, and I wanted a book for myself to remember it. One night, when I had insomnia from my pregnancy, I went on and completed a whole album! I found it very easy to use. it was very simple, there just weren't a whole lot of options for backgrounds and layouts. But when I ordered it and got 40 % off, I was excited. (You have to watch for the sales, they aren't going on all the time. But you can always create a book and wait for a sale. Just be aware that although they do not tell you you can only order one at the sale price, that has been the case, at least I've heard that is. I personally didn't try it.) The book came so quickly that I was amazed. Compared to CM, it was much quicker. I was pleased with the result, although the pictures are a bit grainy, you get what you pay for! After receiving this album, I really wanted to get back to CM, if only so that I could return the product if I couldn't get it to work. After calling the CM tech, finally geting to order the album I'd made for my cousin a year ago, and having it shipped straight to him, (that was a nice feature and saved me paying shipping twice) I started to work on an album for Princess Camp. One thing I like about CM over the others is that I have more room for writing. I never felt like I had enough room for journalling with Snapfish, and often it really wrote small, too small to read on the computer screen. Sometimes you can enlarge your font, but not always, and at times you lose a lot of the words by enlarging it as much as you'd like.
So, that's where I am now, creating an album about Princess Camp via CM. I like that I'll be able to send my album to the other princess' moms when it's done. Then they can decide if they want one, too! I still have to figure out how to add on the second disk from the Storybook plus, but I'm getting there!

As for traditional scrapbooking, I decided to take over my daughter's desk for a bit and leave my scrapbooking supplies out. I have done a few pages and my problem there is that I have laid out all the pages, but have consistantly forgotten things I want to include (8x10 pictures, a program...) and end up having to reconfigure everything. Fortunately, I do this on paper with a pencil so that I can fix my mistakes. Whew! It's hard feeling this much pressure to get things done before the baby arrives! I haven't even mentioned the quilt and afgan I'm making!
Scrap Happy, I know I am!