Dipping my Toe in the Digi World

One of my goals for this year was to try to have a go at Photoshop Elements. I have always felt that I was missing out, especially on the wonderful brushes and fonts that people use directly on their photos. I love the way they look, I love the way they jazz things up a bit.

So last week I bit the bullet. I downloaded my 30 day free trial of Photoshop Elements 8 and signed up for a digital scrapbooking class for beginners. It is a self-paced video class by the wonderful Jessica Sprague. She has done an amazing job with her lessons and I thoroughly recommend her. The class I am taking is 4 lessons, each lesson is split up into 7 tasks. Each task is slowly shown to you on a video screen of Photoshop, so you can actually see what she is clicking and when. She talks over the video to guide you and to explain everything that she is doing.

I am only half way through but I have got to say that I have been having a lot of fun.

This is my first ever digital layout, I have go to be honest with you and admit that it took me nearly 4 hours to complete - oh yay!! Took me quite a while to get the hang of this whole thing:

I then got the bug and started doing layouts left, right and centre. There are so many things that you get on the course, papers, embellishments, bonus packs. As I said, I have only done two of the lessons but already I have digi supplies coming out of my ears - so to speak!!

I have now completed 8 digi layouts, they are now taking me on average 20 mins!! Very pleased with that as 4hrs for one layout is slightly time consuming - takes me back to my quilting days!!

Here are some of those layouts:

Now to the big question....................am I converted? Will I give up traditional scrapbooking for it's cyber sister?? Well, No. I can totally see the attraction, it is easy, it is quick, it's not messy and everything can be done on your computer. You don't need to pre plan and print what photos you are going to use. You don't need to have all that clutter that this hobby seems to attract. Everything you need is nicely organised on your computer. But I would miss all that glue and glitter and shimmer spray and sequins and buttons and bling. I would miss that wonderful smell of the paper, that alluring plastic smell of epoxy stickers............OK, have I gone too far? Am I starting to sound weird??

I think you can happily mix the two. I am finding it a great way to scrap photos that I had sort of forgotten about. Also perfect for playing catch up, yes, I am talking about my baby albums, (will they ever be done???). I am enjoying my new little journey, I am loving the pages that I have created, I am loving learning new things and mostly I am loving the ability to be able to use fonts on my photographs. Also, there are so many FREE digi downloads. I think if 12 x 12 photos didn't cost $2.99 to get developed at Costco, you could pretty much digi scrapbook for free. Umm........I see happy husbands!!

Funnily enough Ali Edwards is doing a digi week on her blog. She is explaining a bit about all the different aspects of the digi world and how you can happily combine them all. It is definitely worth checking out.

I must be off now, Lesson 3 is calling me. Have a happy Tuesday.