Gotta Pixel is having a BIG one day sale - 50% off EVERYTHING - and it only lasts today. So, if you are in the mood for some digital scrapbooking stuff at a great bargain, head over to Gotta Pixel today (June 24, 2008)

If you are a digital scrapbooker you have gotta love the Shabby Princess. What cute, cute digi kits she has over there. I just love them. And you just have to get on her mailing list so you can get notified when she sends out a link to a free digital scrapbooking kit, like this one:

That’s right. Free. No strings attached and it is beee-u-ti-ful! Well, gotta go so I can get mine downloaded. Hurry over, she won’t leave it up forever.

Remember, get on her mail list while you’re there.

I have discovered the wonder of online photo albums! I’ve investigated Flickr before, but it hasn’t really caught me. Something just didn’t “fit” me. A couple days ago I tried Picasa Web Albums and it is safe to say I am HOOKED. I’ve already created two private albums to share with family and friends.

Over coffee this morning I was thinking about what else I can do with Picasa. A digital scrapbooking album came to mind. It is the perfect way to share my digi creations. Here’s my sample album:

Scrappin Cabinet Picasa Web Album

If you want to get your own Picasa Web Album (aka Digital Scrapbooking Web Album) you can get it free here.

So I woke up this morning and in that quiet few minutes where I was totally awake but kept laying there as if I were still sound asleep my mind turned to the new digital scrapbook kit I downloaded yesterday. Specifically I started thinking about organizing all my digi scrapping stuff.

And it occurred to me that this is going to be both easier and harder because it is HighTech.

First of all, I don’t need to buy any fancy organizing containers. Easier.
I can’t physically move stuff to put things together and see what I have. Harder.
I can put things in multiple places. Harder now, easier later.

Then I realized this is the best part of organizing things digitally. I can leave all my digital scrapbooking kits together in a folder so I can create quick, easy coordinated layouts. I can ALSO pull all the papers out and store them in a Paper folder. Also keep a copy of the embellishments in an Embellishments folder. Clearly, it will take much longer to do this up front, but later when I’m looking for things I will undoubtedly find what I’m looking for so much easier.

Of course all this fun digi organizing will have to wait until the festive holiday parties are done, the food all eaten and the wrapping paper thrown out. Oh well, it will wait.

[This post also posted on my new blog for HighTechMoms - HighTechMomsClub.com.]

In all the years I have been a scrapbooker I have pretty much gone along for the ride in terms of the supplies and tools. I’ve never once predicted a trend or even foreseen some of the cool things that have come our way.

Who knew that Sizzix would make die cutting so accessible to the masses? What about the Cricut? A personal scrapbooking computer that cuts anything in any size. I never saw that coming.

But today when I saw ProBlogger’s challenge to offer up a review or a prediction about what 2007 will bring in my niche I knew EXACTLY what to predict.

Here goes:

I believe that 2007 will bring news of a 12 x 12 Digital Photo Frame perfect for displaying digital scrapbookers’ creations. With one of those nifty 4GB SD cards and a digital scrapbooking frame like this a digital scrapbooker could display oodles and oodles of pages without taking up all that shelf space for scrapbook albums.

Anybody know of such a thing yet?
Does that sound as cool to anybody else as it does to me?

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Check out this totally fun little digital photo album you can create quickly and easily on your own printer. My mom thought it was so cute she sent me an email about it.

Since I have just been organizing and backing up my digital photos this past weekend I have been thinking about the monumental project of printing out what I want and then doing the big albums with them.

Maybe I should give this a try just to get my feet wet and feel like I made some progress.

Oh, I just thought of something. This would make an excellent teacher gift. Since you get three albums for $24.95 at the Scrap Your Trip store it would be possible to fit these into the budget pretty easily.

Let me know if you’ve done one of these. I’d love to hear how they turn out. When I do mine I’ll update you too.

OK, it is safe to say that alongside my husband (pictured here) that another true love of mine is digital scrapbooking. Last night I thought I would break into some of the free scrapbooking kits I have recently downloaded. In about 45 minutes I created this layout and I just love it.

Since I used a free kit, it cost me nothing because I have not yet printed it out. Plus I have nothing to clean up! And it was fun, fun, fun to do.

A downside I see to digi scrapping is a lack of organization and focus. So far, I have done a one page layout of a my daughter loving life in a huge snowfall and one picture of a dinner on our Alaskan cruise. But maybe the real focus is that I’ve chosen to digi scrap my husband and my daughter and that is focus enough.

Somehow I feel a bit freer to just “do stuff” in the digi side, instead of feeling compelled to get the photos into albums. Not that I plan to give up paper scrapping, but it is nicee to have this option too.

I used the Beach mini kit by Jackie Eckles in this layout.

I have figured out the fine art of getting free digital scrapbook kits. And, a fun art it is, I tell you. I compiled a list of 11 Places to Get Free Digital Scrapbooking Kits and thought you might appreciate it. (It took me more than a few hours to find all these sites and get this list organized - enjoy!)

When you go to these sites remember that one of the main reasons they are giving you free stuff is so that you will come back to their site when you decide to buy something. The best way to remember to do that is to sign up for their newsletters when you’re at these sites.

11 Places to Get Free Digital Scrapbooking Kits
Digital Scrapbooking Freebies List

1.
Digital Scrapbook Place
Weekly freebies, posted on Mondays. Register to get access to all freebies. Easy to find in the Freebie Gallery. Some freebies are associated with challenges. You do the challenge, submit your work and you receive the kit free. Lots of cool stuff free. THE best place to get free digital scrapbook stuff and also a great place to buy stuff too.

2.
ShabbyPrincess
Holy mother-load of freebie kits! Each month the Shabby Princess offers up a free digital scrapbooking kit. These are GIANT kits with tons of stuff in them and they are beautiful. Sign up for her newsletter too. The newsletter alone is so pretty you’ll get a scrappin “lift” just reading it.

3.
Designer Digitals
creative. innovative. fresh. digital.
Very cute digital scrapbook stuff! Don’t have to register to get it, but I highly recommend getting on Katie’s newsletter anyway.

4.
Scrapbook-Bytes
Tons of freebies. but they’re a bit hard to get to at first. You have to Register and then go to the Downloads area. Once there I recommend going to the Elements section. When you find a digital kit you like you’ll have to download a bunch of files to get the whole kit.

5.
DigiChick
You have to register to see the free kits in the Downloads section. Once there they are in the Designer Samples section of the forum. The coolest thing about DigiChick is their de-zine (a designers e-zine chock full of cool stuff). Wait, I just got it. Design. De-sign. De-zine. Oh, cute. The de-zine includes a free kit too!

6.
ScrapGirls
A smaller selection of freebies and not full kits. But very cute, fun stuff. Also have free digital tutorials. Their freebies change out often and the best way to stay up to date on them is subscribe to their newsletter. They will email you with the latest freebies.

7.
ScrapKitchen
Delicious designs for your digital appetite. Only one freebie kit at a time, but very easy to find, download and maneuver around the site. Her kits are very nice too.

8.
RAK Scraps
Each month they release a new free mega kit which is free to registered members. The pieces to the kit are released a few at a time and you must look through a thread in the forum to find the links. If you plan to participate in the forum anyway, this is probably worth it.

9.
GottaPixel
You do have to register and click on the email confirmation just to see the freebies, but they are cute and plentiful. Worth registering. They have daily downloads with kits broken up into daily pieces.

10.
Matter of Scrap
Cool stuff here, but only a couple Free Samples at a time. Worth registering and checking out the Boutique.

11.
Three Scrapateers
Have to register and come back every day for another free piece of the kit. Cute stuff though.

UPDATED TO ADD:

12.
Scrapbook-Elements
Another great place to get some free kits is Scrapbook Elements. The catch is that they give away their free stuff inside their newsletter. The good news is that the newsletter is full of great ideas and the freebies are plentiful. I highly recommend signing up for this newsletter! Well worth it.

Did I miss any great freebie digital scrapbooking kits? I would be happy to add any others if you know of them.

OK, it is official - I am now also a digital scrapbooker!

Thanks to Roberta D’Achille (my first favorite digital designer) for posting a comment here with a link to Scrapbook-Elements. After a visit there and a peek at her blog, I now have a wish list started at Scrapbook-Elements and have created an honest to goodness digital scrapbook layout!

TA-DAH!

I used the free digital scrapbooking kit - Snow Flakes Mini Kit - that Roberta so graciously shared on her blog. I figured that starting with a freebie would be the best way to go. After all, there was a slight chance I wouldn’t care for digi scrapping. (Yeah right!)

Oh boy, life is good…! [SMILE]