Digital Scrapbooking Day

Scrap Back Up Day is Today!

Announced in the Mini-Skinny from ScrapbookGraphics:

Today, we’re setting aside our digital scrapbooking to bring you some ideas that we hope will inspire you to develop a PLAN for backing up your precious computer data so that you can PROTECT it today and PRESERVE it for tomorrow.

...Check the SBG Blog [blog category link] throughout the day as people will be sharing horror stories, backup procedures, recovery tools, off-site storage and related topics.

Whether you scrap traditionally (with paper), hybrid (paper+digital), and/or digitally, chances are quite good you have memories of some type stored on your computer.  If you want to reminisce on those memories later, BACK THEM UP!  Kudos to SBG for the reminder.

Oh, look, the SBG girls also mentioned Digital Scrapbooking Day.  Once you back up your memories, you can use them to scrap something on Digital Scrapbooking Day!

Mixing Digital Photography, Scrapbooking and Journaling

By June Campbell

What a powerful mix when you combine digital photography, scrapbooking and journaling! But where do you stand on the great scrapbooking controversy? That’s the controversy around digital or computer generated journaling versus handwritten journaling.

Purists who take their scrapbooking very seriously argue that journaling must be done in your own handwriting, since it represents you and who you are. Others favor digital journaling. They point out that handwriting is sometimes less than exemplary and that the quality of the scrapbook is improved when the journaling is accomplished courtesy of a computer and printer. It's your call. There’s no right answer here.

However, it doesn’t have to be “either/or”. There is a third choice. Did you know that you can duplicate your own handwriting in a digital picture?  Yes, your own handwriting! Not just a fancy script font that looks a bit like your handwriting, but your own handwriting.

You will need an item called a Wacom art tablet. Check them out at http://www.wacom.com.  The tablets come in various sizes. A small 4” x 5” tablet with pen costs about $85 at Amazon and works quite nicely for our purposes. Once you become familiar with this item, you will use it regularly when editing  your digital photography.

Wacom tablets are computer peripherals. They resemble small writing pads that you attach to a computer port, or connect wirelessly if you have that capability. You will notice that a special pen comes with the tablet...

Idiotic Mistakes to Avoid When You're Learning Digital Photography

By Anna Williams

What Not to Do:

You take your memory card out of your camera, load your photos onto your laptop, and then put the card somewhere in your camera bag. thinking, “I’ll just put it in the camera after I answer this phone call.”  Then you forget all about it. The next day you see the photo opportunity you’ve been waiting for all week, you take several shots, and then you see the horrendous message: “No CF Card.”  Meanwhile, an enormous ugly cloud has moved in over the castle you are photographing and it stays there for the rest of the day.

What To Do:

Always, always, always put your CF card directly back into your camera after you have loaded your pictures!  

What Not to Do:

Well, this is obvious but not obvious enough for some people:  You put your batteries in your camera bag instead of directly into the camera.  You see the perfect shot, but by the time you’ve realized your battery isn’t in and you’ve finished fumbling around in your camera bag, it’s gone.

What To Do:   

Always put your battery back into your camera immediately after it has finished charging!

Why There's No National in Digital Scrapbooking Day

A couple of people have asked me this - why didn't you name it National Digital Scrapbooking Day?  Hmmm...good question...

To be honest, I'm afraid it wasn't a conscious decision - at least not on my part.  But now that I think of it, it was a great idea.  To give credit where credit is most definitely due, Digital Scrapbooking Day was the brainchild of Angie Pedersen who is co-coordinating the day with me. At any rate, we didn't really discuss calling it anything but DSD - or maybe she had figured all this out way before I did....:-) 

There is, of course, a National Scrapbooking Day (NSD) which has been around for a long time.  Since the advent of digital, NSD has been celebrated in both the paper and digital world.  So not having national in our name does cut down on the confusion. 

Then there is the international angle. Michelle Thompson, a digital scrapper and author of the enormously popular Scrapability blog pointed out that she was happy that we left national out of the name. After all, digital knows no geographic bounds and there are digiscrappers all over the world. Hopefully, the lack of the word national really tells it like it is - this is an international community and we have many (on line) friends all over the world.  How cool is that?  Okay..so maybe this is a little corny ...but I just think it amazing that we can bridge borders with digital scrapbooking. And that, hopefully, DSD is part of that.

--Susan

[cross-posted to Scrappin' Without Scraps]

To be honest, I'm afraid it wasn't a conscious decision - at least not on my part.  But now that I think of it, it was a great idea.  To give credit where credit is most definitely due, Digital Scrapbooking Day was the brainchild of Angie Pedersen who is co-coordinating the day with me. At any rate, we didn't really discuss calling it anything but DSD - or maybe she had figured all this out way before I did....:-) 

There is, of course, a National Scrapbooking Day (NSD) which has been around for a long time.  Since the advent of digital, NSD has been celebrated in both the paper and digital world.  So not having national in our name does cut down on the confusion. 

Then there is the international angle. Michelle Thompson, a digital scrapper and author of the enormously popular Scrapability blog pointed out that she was happy that we left national out of the name. After all, digital knows no geographic bounds and there are digiscrappers all over the world. Hopefully, the lack of the word national really tells it like it is - this is an international community and we have many (on line) friends all over the world.  How cool is that?  Okay..so maybe this is a little corny ...but I just think it amazing that we can bridge borders with digital scrapbooking. And that, hopefully, DSD is part of that.

--Susan