NEWSLETTER
INSPIRATION
DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKINGHow have you developed as a digi-scrapper?
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Hello everyone. It’s Jenelle here today with an inspiration post that is sure to get you reminiscing!! I was recently browsing through some of my layouts on my computer’s hard drive and came across some of the very first digital layouts I had created. “Whoah” was my immediate response on opening them up to view full size… Not a ‘whoah’ in a good sense either, it was actually more of an embarrassed ‘whoah’!! I guess I had never realised how much I had grown as a digi-scrapper until I saw some of my very first creations. Then I fully embraced my ‘whoah’ (LOL!) and thought to myself, isn’t it great that I can literally see how my skills, techniques and scrapping style have grown over these past few years. And what a great journey it has been! Have you ever looked back at some of your first attempts at digi-scrapping? How has your style evolved? What new techniques have you learned along the way?
I asked myself these very questions (and also our gorgeous team here at the Shabby Shoppe) and we then set about re-creating some of our very first digital layouts, just to prove how much we’d all grown as a digi-scrappers. You’ll love seeing our ‘before’ and ‘after’ pages. I guess you could call it a digi-makeover!!!
Ok, so here’s one of my first attempts back in 2008, using a freebie kit from Shabby Princess and Carrie Stephens called Spontaneous Delight. I really liked the idea of blending photos on a layout, but I think I may have taken it a bit too far in one of my first attempts!!!
So after looking at this in more detail (basically I critiqued my whole layout) I’ve realised that I have now learned the following things:-
- That I’m not afraid to leave a bit of white space on a layout these days!! Creating a border around a page also makes it more visually appealing (plus I don’t lose part of my design when it is cropped at the print shop!)
- To use drop shadows accordingly. I think I just added the default drop shadow settings for every element (and font) on my page back then (that was if I actually remembered to use a drop shadow).
- To make sure the text/font is clear and readable. Now I make my titles/headings bigger and try to make them stand out more on my pages. Mixing up fonts adds more interest to a layout too.
- That a simple edit on my photos can make a big improvement (lighten images, get rid of shadows on faces, crop them, play around with levels/colour balance etc). Running a photo treatment over my images can also make a big difference and produces a really pleasing effect.
- To not stick with the one bold colour on a layout. I think I’ve used WAY too much green on this one and it is also probably the wrong shade of green for my photos. In re-doing this layout, I’ve focused more on the browns and tried to make my colours a little softer.
- That mixing photographs up a little creates an interesting layout. Instead of a whole page of blended photos, I’ve gone with a mix of one blended image and a series of framed images on my digi-makeover below. Having a mixture of colour and black and white photographs is another good effect I’ve learned.
So here is my new version of this layout. And I have to say that I am much happier with this one!
Next up is Kylie with her digi-makeover. It’s hard to believe that Kylie ever created a layout with minimal decoration/embellishment isn’t it? I’ve learned so much from Kylie about clustering and embellishing layouts and it was really interesting to read what she wrote about her ‘scrapping journey’. First though, here’s Kylie’s before and after layouts using one of SP’s free kits, called Moody Blues.
I love your re-worked version here Kylie – it just ‘oozes’ with your gorgeous clustering/layering style! Kylie also told me that she also tends to utilise more designer templates nowdays - “a great time saver and means I can just concentrate on adding my pics and building up my page with papers and elements.” Some other new tricks, that Kylie has learned over the last few years (and she added to her updated layout) are:-
-
re-colouring elements
-
adding text around a shape
-
varying my shadows for a bit more depth
-
using colour overlays
-
adding a stroke to photos to ‘frame’ them.
“I have also built up a huge collection of fonts now…so I love to play with different ones on a page. Also my journaling was non-existent back then. My story-telling has improved soooo much!…and, for me, knowing when to include it, and when not to, is much easier nowadays. It’s a personal thing!”
Thanks so much Kylie, it’s great to know that we are all growing together on this scrapping journey. Now, it’s on to the gorgeous Kim and her make-over of a Christmas card.
Love this Kim! Isn’t it amazing what a bit of photo editing can do to your images? What a difference here from Kim’s original photograph to the re-worked version. And I really love how Kim’s clustering style has evolved over the years too – I adore the way she ‘pulls a page together’ perfectly with her clever placement of elements and clustering. Kim also told me some of the ‘tricks’ she’s learned since then that she now uses, including:-
- to shadow layers to give the layout depth
- to add more layers of papers
- to cluster elements (“there really is a knack to doing this well, and although I don’t think I have it all figured out, I’ve learned a lot from seeing how other people do it”)
- how to make the ornament hanger look like it’s really hanging from the letter (layering part of it behind and part of it in front of the letter).
Thanks so much Kim! Next up, we have the very talented Rosy with her ‘old’ and ‘new’ layouts to share.
Thank you Rosy – I really love how your scrapping style has developed and how you really are the master of blending on a layout. I can always spot a Rosy layout from a thumbnail in the gallery! And I have to say that I’ve noticed that we have all zoomed in and cropped our photos on our re-worked versions. Something very simple to do, yet so very effective on all our final layouts. (We will be uploading our ‘updated’ layouts to the Shabby Artist gallery in the next few days with full credits for those who would like to take a closer look).
Well, that’s all from me for today. I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and that it has you thinking about the scrapping journey you have been on yourself. Why don’t you go back and have a look at one of your first digital layouts and see how far you’ve come in this ‘addictive’ craft of ours? We’d love to hear about the tips and techniques you’ve mastered along the way and how you think your style has evolved over time.
We’ll see you back here tomorrow when Kylie has the next instalment of project SCRAP templates to share with us all!
Apr 19, 2012 @ 17:45:53
This post was very interesting to see how the scrappers have evolved with their layouts. Yours and Rosey’s layouts were a vast improvement, but I liked Kylie’s first layout better than the second. I liked the clean simplistic look about it, but that is only because I am not much of a clustering or element type scrappper. I must admit though that I liked the card even though it was busy, the green frame around the red made a vast improvement as well as the shadows added.
“Creating a border around a page also makes it more visually appealing (plus I don’t lose part of my design when it is cropped at the print shop!)” I think this is a fabulous idea especially if wanting to print them for a photobook.
Apr 19, 2012 @ 13:34:12
Love this post! I started digital scrapping a couple of years ago, and some of my first layouts are pretty terrible! But I printed them and would never have the time to go back and fix them all…so I’ll try to live with the “evolution” of my style! (at least I’m getting better, not worse!) :)
Apr 19, 2012 @ 04:27:22
This was really fun. Love the idea of re-doing some of my earlier stuff… Now to find the time :) Thanks for the great post :)
Apr 18, 2012 @ 17:30:27
This was a great post, sure makes me think. Thanks for sharing.
Apr 18, 2012 @ 15:08:03
LOVED this post! I completely redid my oldest daughter’s one year book because my whole style and approach to scrapbooking had completely changed. I am so glad that I did. I enjoyed looking at all the changes from you guys and everything you had learned. Very inspirational!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 12:11:20
What a fun way to show updates and previous versions. It is amazing to see how the styles evolve. ~Kimberlee
Apr 18, 2012 @ 11:09:19
Great post! So fun to think of how we have all evolved and to focus on the specifics. That’s what I love about this hobby–there is always more to learn!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 10:19:51
This was definitely a fun walk down memory lane! I would love to redo a lot of layouts… but it seems like a much better idea right now just to keep going with the present. I’ll never have time to go back and redo it all, and then I would want to redo it again, as I’m sure my style will keep changing over time!! But it was GREAT to see how everyone starts somewhere and then learns as they go. Maybe it’s a little bit of encouragement to some who are just getting started?? Thanks, Jenelle!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 08:27:46
Such a fun post, Jenelle! You did a great job in putting it all together here!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 08:19:36
oh dear!! looking back is funny, but it really IS nice to see how far we’ve come!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 08:10:52
LOVED participating in this awesome post Jenelle!! So much fun! THANKS! xo
Apr 18, 2012 @ 07:50:15
This was a very fun post. I too look back at both paper and digital pages and think how embarrassing they are, how inept my work makes me look. However, they are also fun, because they remind me of how my abilities have gotten better and how my styles of scrapping have changed. (like the fact that I do completely digital pages now…).
Thanks for a neat post!
Apr 18, 2012 @ 06:35:15
Fun post idea! Love the makeovers.