Scrapbook-Keepsakes.com

When the craft of scrapbooking began, you needed to buy tons and tons of stickers, tape, glue and pretty papers just to stick on the first photo of your kids. Well now days, more and more frugal and happy scrappers are taking full advantage of the technology available to them. With digital cameras and the internet, scrapbooking has become a hobby that anyone can do, and without a huge amount of expense. There is a world of free images, clip art, fonts, borders etc. that can be downloaded or saved to your computer and printed out for your scrapbooks.

To find the wealth of scrapbooking freebies out there online, just do a simple Google search for ‘free scrapbook graphics’ or ‘free clip art’. There are many other search terms to use that will reveal to you the different scrapbooking freebies you can find. You can get entire scrapbook themes with all of the free matching clip art, borders and fonts that you can use in just about any scrapbook.

Here are a few tips and ideas of the scrapbooking freebies you can find online:

Clipart makes scrapbooking easier and fun. The internet offers various original clipart graphics for any theme or occasion like holidays, music, religion, animals, people, sports, and more. Most often, the graphics will be cropped to fit any scrapbook pattern. A crafter can select from many designs that are usually grouped by themes to make searching easier.

Scrapbook enthusiasts love to journal in their creations. There are tons of cool and interesting fonts available online that make the art of scrapbook journaling even more fun. These wonderful, unique fonts are very often designed by other scrapbookers and come in an array of colors, styles and sizes. Implementing different fonts can bring out the creativity in anyone.

You can also find different photographs and pictures online to add to your scrapbook theme. Often, photographs and pictures will be animated, making them perfect for different occasions like weddings, birthdays and holidays.

Avid scrapbookers will tell you how much they love to add vintage graphics and images to their scrapbook pages. You can easily download free vintages clipart images depicting different people, times and places in history. Vintage advertising art or greeting cards are a popular downloadable scrapbook item, along with public domain book art.

Take advantage of all the internet has to offer you for your scrapbooking projects. Many of the items mentioned above are available free, while some are for sale. Regardless, the items can be just what you need to make your pages unique and beautiful. You will not only save money by using free clipart and then tweaking it on Adobe Photoshop to make your own, but you’ll save time by shopping or acquiring items online in the comfort of your home.

Have fun creating the perfect scrapbook!

Creating a beautiful digital scrapbooking layout is easy! There are only 3 elements needed to create a basic layout a piece of background paper, at least one photo, and some journaling.  

We could stop here but we’re not going to…. Next we’ll add some word art.

 

Then, last but not least, let’s add a flourish.

Now you have a finished digital scrapbook layout ready to print, post in an online gallery, or send by email.

Just like with traditional scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking layouts can be clean and simple or they can include everything but the kitchen sink (without getting bulky). Whatever style suits your personality is possible with digital scrapbooking. The wonderful thing about creating scrapbook layouts digitally is that either style is possible with the same photograph.

Digital Scrapbook Design Elements: 

Alphabets

Background Paper

Custom Shapes

Digital Stamps and Brushes

Embellishments

Fonts, Fonts, Fonts!

Frames

Journaling Spots

Overlays

Quick Pages

Tags

Templates

Text Trails & Shapes

Word Art

and much more…

 

You’ll need a photo editing program to create digital scrapbook layouts.

Which software should I use?

A quick Internet search for scrapbooking and software will provide you with a long list of software programs. Our designers use Adobe® Photoshop and recommend Adobe® Photoshop Elements as an excellent choice. The software you choose will be based on several considerations: 

Computer operating system requirements – make sure your system will run the software you select! Some software can require up to 700MB of hard disk space and require an up-to-date operating system like Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OS X. Computer knowledge – some programs have a steeper learning curve than others. If you have limited computer experience, you might want a program that will “hold your hand” through basic editing tasks. The best programs have two levels to accommodate both beginner and advanced users. Style of scrapbooking – if you see yourself designing your own embellishments then you might want to consider purchasing a software program with high flexibility. But don’t panic, there are PLENTY of digital goodies in our store for those of you who just want to get to it! Templates – You may just want to get on with putting your layouts together. Most of the software programs will come with some templates. The more popular ones will also have additional templates available through third party vendors like those in our online store. Tutorials – Again, the more popular software programs will have more tutorials available. Heart2Heart Designs supports Photoshop Elements with instructional written and video tutorials. Flexibility – It’s all about the tools. The more features the program has the more flexible it will be. But don’t ignore the learning curve! File Format Support – Be sure the program supports a wide range of graphic file formats. At the very least it should allow you to import and export JPEG and PNG files. Web Integration – Many of the new programs let you save your work in a web compatible format. Making them easy to post online or email to friends and family. Price – this isn’t always the first consideration! Do some research so you only have to purchase the software once. Until, of course, the next upgrade is available.

 

You can download the layered PSD file used in this article here.