On Saturday, I hosted a coffee hour chat as part of Designer Digitals 1st Quarter Sale-a-bration. It's always fun to chat (albeit very, very quickly!) a bit about scrapbooking and about what makes me love this hobby the way I do.
I always come back to the same thing: scrapbooking saves my life. I don't mean to make it sound all dramatic and schmaltzy, but it really does offer up this singular opportunity to document and save the stuff that makes me who I am.
Do I scrapbook with great frequency? No. Do I take a gazillion pictures? Well, yes, I suppose that I do, but when I train my scrapbooking eye on any given topic, I emerge with the main thing I went in for: a story to remember.
Simple and focused, I save a little bit of my life one scrapbook page at a time.
Today, I'm giving you a template (both in 8.5 x 11 and 12 x 12 sizes) and challenging you to save a bit of your life.
One photo. One story. Just find someone in your life who is amazing to serve as your subject.
It's probably not too hard to come up with just one. Me? I live with three of them and every day, I could probably come up with a story to tell, just like the story of Cole's renewed passion for all things Titanic.
My goals as a scrapbooker don't revolve around frequency or quantity. I just want to put a bit of this life down on record. And it's not just for the kids, or because it's what Moms are supposed to do. I do this for me. I do this for the creative freedom that comes from telling my stories. Our stories. From this, goodness and gratitude inevitably flow.
This template is designed for use in Photoshop Elements and Photoshop. (It won't work with any other photo imaging program.) The base template looks like this:
Included with this package is a beefed-up step-by-step PDF instruction sheet to help some of you less seasoned designers use the template. Here is the download: (The files are zipped and you will need to unzip them in order to use them. Simply click on the link and the download should automatically begin.)
As you know, I combine the best of digital and real world scrapbooking in my approach. For example, the layout at the start of this post is purely digital and 12 x 12. Most of my albums are 8.5 x 11, so, I turned off the background layer, printed it out on a piece of 8.5 x 11 photo paper, trimmed it out and mounted it onto a piece of kraft cardstock. It looks like this:
Digital to hybrid, just like that. And why not just keep it purely digital? Well, let's just say I like to pull out my adhesive and feel the love.
Any way you choose to work with this template is up to you. For those of you who are relatively new to digital, this will give you an idea of how my Designer Digital templates work.
Here is a quick video tutorial to show you how I created the 12 x 12 digital page, and then how I turned it into an 8.5 x 11 page. (Note: for you 8.5 x 11 scrapbookers, the process still applies, but you can just start with your preferred size of template. The core image area on both templates is the same size. Also, to watch the video in a larger size, simply click on the link below the video.)
Digital Scrapbooking Tutorial from Cathy Zielske on Vimeo.
If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll be checking them throughout the day.
Just wanted to share a bit of life-saving love with you today. Enjoy the template.
It's just my way of saying thank you for hanging out at my blog from time to time. I do so appreciate you.
xoxo,
DIGITAL PAGE SUPPLIES: Krafty No. 7 Paper Pack • Spot Dots No. 13 Paper Pack (altered) • Ethan Solids Paper Pack • Just Linens, No. 1 Paper Pack • Stitched by Anna No. 1 • Avenir font
