Free Digital Scrapbook Templates

Digital scrapbooking presents a unique way to capture special memories for posterity. Whether you are a computer veteran or a novice, you can create digital scrapbooks that go a step beyond conventional photo albums. You can add to the photos: small notes, embellishments, and stickers to tell the story more fully.
Free digital scrapbook templates can make the job easier for you. The scrapbooking paper, frames, titles - even embellishments or stickers are already placed for you. You don't need to find or prepare each element. Just slip your photographs into place, add a journaling note or caption, and you have finished pages. Free digital scrapbook templates are, in a sense, scrapbooking kits.
Free digital scrapbook templates are a great way to learn digital scrapbooking. They are also a great way to see, before you invest money, whether you enjoy digital scrapbooking. Templates show you what you can do, and take the work out of it.
These free digital scrapbook templates are often provided as samples, with themes that appeal to a large number of people. The hope is that you will enjoy your experience and return to the website to purchase more materials.
Understanding Free Digital Scrapbook Templates
Free digital scrapbook templates are nearly-finished scrapbook pages. Some call them pre-made pages, or pre-made layouts. To use free digital scrapbook templates, you follow a few easy steps.
1. Download your free digital scrapbook templates. They should be in "png" format. Many will be zipped to reduce size. Unzip your downloads, and place them in a computer folder.
2. Open the software program you will use with your free digital scrapbook templates. Many programs you may already have will work well. Microsoft Word, PhotoShop, and similar programs are good. You may have purchased digital scrapbooking software.
3. Scan photos for your digital scrapbook pages.
4. Open the free digital scrapbook template you want to use. Open photo files, and place your photos on the page. Crop photos, if necessary to fit the opening. Send them to the back layer, and slide them into place.
5. If the colors of the papers in your free digital scrapbook templates do not complement your photos, simply use your

paintbrush" tool to change the colors.
6. Add a small box on your page, and type in a note about memories that go with the photos. This "journaling" might be as short as a caption, or a paragraph that will help viewers understand the photos.
7. When you are satisfied with your page, flatten all layers, and save it as a new file.
8. Now you are ready to print. Use acid-free paper so your colors will remain bright and true for years. Print it as a page of a larger scrapbook. Or print your page as a scrapbook card.
9. Optionally, you may want to save your pages to a CD - or send a finished page to a friend or family member. You might even want to send your completed free digital scrapbook templates to a "print-on-demand" company to have them bound into a permanent book.
Free Digital Scrapbook Templates Changes
As mentioned above, you may want to make changes to your free digital scrapbook templates. At first, those changes may be as slight as changing the color of the scrapbooking paper. As you learn more about digital scrapbooking, the changes may take in other elements.
You may want to add digital charms to empty spots - or place charms across corners or edges of your photos. If you have a photo of a child receiving a skateboard for Christmas, you might want to place a couple of skateboarding embellishments on a page. These extras add a personal touch to the themes of free digital scrapbook pages.
Helpful tip: Even if you are a veteran scrapbooker, you will find free digital scrapbook templates a help in getting fresh ideas. Start with downloads of free digital scrapbook templates, and customize them to your creative satisfaction.



©2007, Anna Hart. Anna Hart invites you to read more of her articles about free digital scrapbook stuff at http://www.scrapbooking-for-fun.com. Anna is posting new articles regularly on that site. You won?t want to miss her recent articles on digital scrapbook free downloads.

Debunking the Myths About Digital Scrapbooks

Many traditional scrapbookers resist the temptation to experiment with digital scrapping because of some prevalent myths about going digital. This article will debunk these notions and explain the advantages of dipping your toes in the digital scrapping world.

Digital Myth #1.

To create digital scrapbooks, I need to be a computer guru and learn complicated software.

Fact.

Today's digital scrapbooking software is easier than ever to use- even for the amateur. Most programs offer free 30-day trial downloads, which is generally enough time to give it a try. And while it might take a little time to learn, you'll find that the endless array of beautiful, innovative scrapbook designs and photo collage frames is well worth the minimal effort.

Digital Myth #2.

My digital scrapbooks will look amateurish because I lack experience with them.

Fact.

Even the beginner digital scrapper can produce professional-looking photo collages with the wide variety of easy-to-use scrapbook designs and collage frames available today. Electronically edited photos are of higher quality, computer text is consistently straight, and computer font is always legible. Generally, digital scrapbook pages look more professional than traditional creations and boost the pride scrappers feel in their projects.

Digital Myth #3.

Digital scrapbooking is more expensive than traditional scrapbooking.

Fact.

By switching to digital scrapbook designs, you can actually save yourself money ... and time. If you already own a computer, all you need to buy is the scrapbook layout software and digital scrapbook kits, which are fairly inexpensive. The equivalent in paper, scissors, glue, embellishments and albums is far more expensive, and once you use them, they're gone. Digital scrapbook designs and collage frames, on the other hand, can be used indefinitely. Think of the money you'll save on gas driving to and from the craft stores, and the money you could save on gifts by giving personalized photo collages to friends and family.

Digital Myth #4.

Switching to digital scrapbook designs will limit my creativity.

Fact.

You can take your creativity to exciting new levels with the variety of digital scrapbook designs and collage frames available now. Choose any design you like and turn it into just about anything you want. You can mix and match or create your own unique styles. Adjust the colors, sizes, patterns, arrangements ... add audio and even video... your options are limitless.

Digital Myth #5.

I don't have time to learn how to make digital scrapbooks.

Fact.

Today's digital scrapbooking software programs are so user-friendly and intuitive that they make learning them a breeze. Once you get the hang of it, digital scrapbooking is a great timesaver. Correcting mistakes, editing, moving items around and revising are much easier and quicker to do digitally than they are by hand. You can size and resize your backgrounds and photo collage frames with a few simple mouse clicks and create beautiful keepsakes in no time.

Digital Myth #6.

I need to own a digital camera to create digital scrapbooks.

Fact.

Even if you only have a film camera, you can still create digital scrapbooks by scanning your images onto a computer or having your film images put on a CD. And you can finally put to use those electronic photos your friends and family members have e-mailed to you. Of course, with today's digital camera prices going down all the time, you may find you'd like to buy a digital camera anyway!

Digital Myth #7.

If I move to digital scrapbooks, I'll have to give up the traditional art of scrapbooking and the social and bonding aspects that come with joining my friends and family in making scrapbooks.

Fact.

On the contrary, digital scrapbooking broadens social circles. Many digital scrappers get together to share their digital resources and knowledge about editing programs. They go to scrapbook conventions and meet others in online digital scrapbooking chat rooms. Plus, you can take advantage of the digital scrapbook's ability to help you keep in touch with faraway friends and relatives via e-mail, Web sites and easily printed copies of scrapbook pages that you can mail to them. You can also burn them to CDs and DVDs.

Of course, you can still make traditional albums and consider integrating your digital scrapbook designs into them. And as you learn new techniques and tricks digitally, you're apt to spark your creativity with traditional scrapbooking.

You don't need to become an expert digital scrapbooker overnight. Start out small by making a simple digital photo album, then work your way up to a full-fledged scrapbook. Happy scrapping!

Digital scrapbooking diva Sasha Byers explores the world of documenting memories digitally, providing insight and ideas on how to create digital photo collages and scrapbooks. She offers tips on scrapbooking important events, travels and major life periods such as childhood, school athletics and a child's transition out of the nest. She also debunks common myths about digital scrapbooking and addresses frequent questions on this popular new hobby. Sasha's blogs provide answers, tips and digital scrapbooking ideas to help you create sharper, more attractive scrapbooks in half the time.
Connect with other photo collage enthusiasts at the Artopia Photo Collage Maker Community.
Share your scrapbook pages and download others at the Artopia Photo Collage Maker Community.

Free Digital Scrapbooking Themes

If you are a digital scrapbooking beginner, you probably have many questions. You like the idea of digital scrapbooking, but you don't want to sink a lot of money into it until you know whether it will be rewarding.

Definition of Digital Scrapbooking

Digital scrapbooking is the act of creating images, photos, journaling, and extra "touches" to preserve your memories in digital instead of physical form. Scrapbooking software is available free on the Internet, or you can use a standard Microsoft Word program.

Digital Scrapbooking Themes

Scrapbooking looks most professional when the entire publication has a theme. A digital scrapbooking theme helps you focus on one style, rather than have each page different. Once you have a central theme, you can set themes for individual pages. These should follow the main theme, but in smaller pieces. For example, an main vacation theme might have page themes of transportation, hotel, beach, restaurants, and activities. You can get free digital scrapbooking themes for both overall and individual pages.

Free Digital Scrapbooking Theme Kits

Free digital scrapbooking themes are available in kits at several Internet websites. You might combine similar themes, or use the elements for your own theme. For example, downloading two or three free digital scrapbooking theme kits that are focused on sports would give you elements to complete several coordinated, but different pages in a sports-themed work.

DIY Digital Scrapbooking Themes

Your status as a digital scrapbooking beginner does not mean you cannot approach digital scrapbooking themes as do-it-yourself projects. If you are willing to invest a little creativity, you will find an abundance of free digital scrapbooking themes on the Internet. One website gives the digital scrapbooking beginner many hints in their descriptions of themes for sale. Consider three of them.

1. Memories of school days will be placed on backgrounds specifically designed for school. Stop and think. What kind of background fits the description? Imagine back-to-school advertising. Pencils, books, backpacks, apples, desks, and alphabets spring to mind. With very little work, you can create your own backgrounds for free digital scrapbooking themes on school days.

Picture a page with a faded school building background. A large school bus sits in front of the building. A child's kindergarten photo fills one window. Friends' photos fill two more windows. A note about the first day of school is "tacked" to the page with a small, bright backpack graphic. Another page theme might begin with a background of alphabet letters or "spelling words" written in script and arranged at angles. Great for showing off a perfect spelling test, or photos of the spelling bee. The same letters, or bright trophies, could be added as embellishments. In a matter of moments, you have two free digital scrapbooking themes for school memories. Each is do-it-yourself. Each fits the mood you are trying to create.

2. A 50th wedding anniversary scrapbook might have a nostalgic, antique theme. Close your eyes and picture antique things. Imagine an antique store or a trunk of old clothing and faded letters. Lavender, satin ribbons, old lace, and antiqued paper come to mind. With imagination, you can create your own backgrounds for free digital scrapbooking themes on old memories.

A large photograph of a county fair, faded and antiqued, would make a great background page for photos of the dating couple and a ticket stub or two. Cotton candy or carousel horse embellishments could spice up the page. If it's a 2-page spread, a piece of an old love letter can be the journaling. Colorful photo mats in candy-striping will carry out the couple's happy feelings. A second page theme might be antique cars, a faded background of vehicle graphics setting the stage for photos of the couple's first car, or every car they ever owned. On a third page, clipart or photos of ornate mirrors could be repeated on a faded background. A single, enlarged mirror frame could frame the main wedding photo. Smaller mirrors, lace and ribbon elements could complete the theme. With a few minutes of thought, you have three free digital scrapbooking themes for your 50th wedding anniversary scrapbook.

3. If you want a digital scrapbook cowboy hat theme, begin by thinking of symbols you connect with that idea. Your background might be rodeo scenes, a desert, or the colors of the outdoors. You might make a page that looks like the inside of a stable. Hang rope on a board in the stable, and set a pair of cowboy boots on the floor. Scatter straw at the bottom. Then add your photos, tacked in place with small cowboy hat graphics. Be sure one photo shows the subject in a cowboy hat. Add rope letters to spell out a caption such as "Ride 'em, Cowboy!" A "scrap" of torn paper with the date, name, and a comment would be appropriate journaling so that future generations can fully appreciate the occasion. You have just given yourself another free digital scrapbooking theme.

Gleaning Digital Scrapbooking Themes

Another source of free digital scrapbooking themes is the website postings of those who are eager to share their own work. These are easily found by doing an online search. If you have a basic theme in mind, you can often glean themes for individual pages from the examples offered.

Scrapbook stores and magazines offer many themes, some digital. If you are creative, you can adapt non-digital themes with a little practice.

Final Tips on Digital Scrapbooking Themes

Wherever you get your digital scrapbooking themes, keep in mind that backgrounds should always complement the colors in the photographs that will go on each page. Journaling adds great interest. If you don't know what to write, think: who, what, where, when, why, and how. "Elements" are extra decorative objects added to the page. Scrapbook Bytes offers many free, downloadable elements.

© 2007, Anna Hart. Anna Hart invites you to read more of her articles about paper and digital scrapbooking themes at http://www.scrapbooking-for-fun.com Anna is posting new articles every week on that site. You won?t want to miss her recent article on free digital scrapbooking frames.

Digital Scrapbook Flourishes

A digital scrapbook is an exciting project. With minimal mess, you can gather photos and memories into an electronic scrapbook. From there, you can share individual pages or the entire digital scrapbook via e-mail. You can save the digital scrapbook on CD. You can print your digital scrapbook - as many copies as you desire.

Digital scrapbook flourishes make your work look professional. Well-placed and limited in number, digital scrapbook flourishes can soften sharp corners and add feeling to any page.

Define Digital Scrapbook Flourishes

Digital scrapbook flourishes are decorative touches added to photos on the page of a digital scrapbook project.

As in writing, a flourish is an ornamental embellishment, added to make the page showier. Such embellishments appeared frequently in Victorian writing, but are now reserved for things such as certificates where calligraphy appears.

A digital scrapbook flourish might be a sweeping stem of flowers placed across the corner of a photo. It could be a circular "doodle" of intricately interwoven lines. Sometimes, digital scrapbook flourishes take a free art form, flowing loops of color or black sweeping onto the photo from opposite corners.

Brushes or Rubber Stamps

The forerunners of digital scrapbook flourishes are done with "brushes" in conventional scrapbooking. The term "brushes" can be misleading, however, as no artist's or painter's brush is involved. These decorative touches are added with rubber stamps in conventional scrapbooking.

Since digital scrapbooking is done solely on the computer, the "brushes" or "rubber stamps" may be previously created designs placed on the electronic page atop the photo. Another way of producing digital scrapbook flourishes is to use a digital brush to doodle or swirl a design onto the finished page.

Advantages of Digital Scrapbook Flourishes

Many advantages can be gained through the use of digital scrapbook flourishes. A page that is other wise little more than a simple photo album page gains interest, and tells a more complete story through the addition of flourishes. How do flourishes accomplish that?

1. Digital scrapbook flourishes give cohesiveness to a page. For example, a page that features two similar photos can look bare if the two photos sit alone on the background. Look at what a digital scrapbook flourish can do. A flourish can sweep between the photos, crossing one corner of each, and tying them together. A flourish can be echoed from one photo to the next. Place identical flourishes across matching corners to show the photos' relationship. A few small flourishes can flow between the photos, overlapping each photo slightly at one or two spots. All of these, and more, are ways to pull page elements together with digital scrapbook flourishes.

2. Digital scrapbook flourishes can also be used to convey emotion. A photo of a young girl, just home from her first dance, can become wistful and nostalgic if a spray of flowers floats across one corner. A photo of a boy's first baseball game recalls his excitement when a flourish of a trophy is added.

3. Finally, a digital scrapbook flourish can simply make a dull page showy. Think of an official royal decree. It would carry as much power on a plain piece of paper, provided it had the proper seal. But a flourish or two makes it showy - gives it importance. Digital scrapbook flourishes can do the same for your electronic page.

Sources for Digital Scrapbook Flourishes

The best source for digital scrapbook flourishes may be your own skill and a good computer graphics program. If you are comfortable with using such a program, and know your way around it, you can find many built-in flourishes, as well as tools to create your own flourishes.

If you do it yourself, you can create digital scrapbook flourishes from a bit of your digital scrapbook paper design. Simple capture the flower or design element you want for a flourish and "clean" it, removing unwanted background colors. Place the finished flourish on your page and see how well it ties in with the background. Change its color, if desired, for more contrast.

Most digital scrapbook software includes flourishes and embellishments. If you are using such a program, look for "brushes" or "stamps" to use.

Websites that retail digital scrapbook supplies will also have digital scrapbook flourishes. Look at their samples to get ideas. Purchase packages of digital scrapbook flourishes from them.

Helpful tip: When you come across a term such as "flourishes" in your digital scrapbook work, pursue it until you understand it. Understanding the "technical talk" is a big part of making a great digital scrapbook.

©2007, Anna Hart. Anna Hart invites you to read more of her articles about digital scrapbooking at http://www.scrapbooking-for-fun.com. Anna is posting new articles regularly on that site. You won?t want to miss her recent review of digital scrapbook software.

Digital Scrapbooking For Dummies

Get creative with graphic elements

Tackle photo techniques at any level

Ready to preserve your memories digitally? This interactive reference explains the basics of this fast, versatile new hobby, giving you the lowdown on the equipment and programs you need to create beautiful pages. You also get expert tips on digital photography, graphic design, scanning, journaling, filters, and fonts.

Discover how to

• Create a digital layout from scratch
• Select the best software
• Use popular scrapbook styles
• Digitize traditional photos
• Get the kids involved
• Share your scrapbook online

Price: $19.99

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