One of my favorite scrapbook sites is closing their digital art store. Polka Dot Potato has long been one of the premier digital scrapbook stores. But now they are shifting gears and focusing on their great print service – they print the BEST 12×12 prints ever, and they are priced right! In addition, they have some business to business ventures, plus graphic and web design. Boy! They are going to be busy!

So, even though we are so sad to see Polka Dot Potato close their digital scrapbook store, there are great savings to be had by all! Now through August 25, you can save 60% on your order, with a minimum purchase of $10. Plus, if you spend over $100 you will save an ADDITIONAL 15%! Incredible savings on incredible art! Click on the graphic below to enter the store and fill your cart!

Here it is, a brand new year. Have you made your resolutions yet? It seems we like to start the year resolving to eat better, exercise more, and be budget wise. But what are your scrapbook goals? Now, don’t laugh – I am serious! Do you have any scrapbook goals for 2010?

If you haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions that have the word ‘scrapbook’ in them, let me help you. The number one thing you should resolve to do this year is take more pictures!. Keep a small camera with you all the time, because you never know when the perfect shot will happen. There are wonderful compact cameras on the market that take excellent photos. So even though you might prefer to take pictures with your ‘nice’ camera, you will find that having a purse camera is very handy!

Next, get the pictures off the camera! So now that you have taken all these great photos, where are they? If you are like a lot of people they are still sitting on your memory card – in the camera. Upload the photos to your computer and then back them up. It is a good idea to have at least to back up copies of your photos and scrapbook pages. You never know when you might have hard drive failure.

Make a scrapbook plan. Set a goal for scrapbooking so many times per month, or finishing so many pages. Make it a realistic goal that you will be able to attain – we want success, not failure! One idea for the new year is to create a ‘year in review’ book. Start now and take photos and create a layout each month. At the end of the year you have a fun book that has all the highlights of the previous month. This type of book makes a great gift for grandparents too!

Make a photo book. Another fun gift for almost anyone is a professionally bound photo book. These books become treasured keepsakes and look wonderful – just like something you would pick up at a bookstore, but it is all about your family!  Learn how to make a photo book today!

Print your pages. As you finish your layouts – print them! Everyone loves to flip through a scrapbook and relive memories. Sure, you can look at the layouts on your computers, but having them in a book you can hold is wonderful. Polka Dot Potato does wonderful scrapbook printing, any size including 12×12. Their prices are great and the quality is fabulous!

Sit down and write your scrapbook goals for the coming year. When you get to next December you will be glad you did!

How many of us have looked at scrapbooks from the past and wondered who was in the photo and what were they doing? Why was Aunt Sally at Cape Cod in 1952?  Did she know someone there? How long did she visit? Was there a wedding or event, that may have had printed invitations? When we scrapbook we need to answer the who, what, where, & why’s of the future.

Who will end up with your scrapbooks in the future? You are preserving memories not only for your immediate family, but for your posterity as well.  By being descriptive in your journaling you are creating a history that will endear you to future generations.

• Tell the story behind the pictures. Where are you and why are you there? Why is Uncle Bob laughing so hard? Even if the story doesn’t seem interesting, it tells who you are. I cherish my grandmothers journal even though there is only one sentence per page. It tells of her everyday life and brings a human element that I can relate to now that I am a wife and mother.
• Journaling doesn’t need photos. Did a funny thing happen on your vacation that you don’t have photos for? Included that story in your journaling! You will remember the fun when you read it. There doesn’t need to be a photo for everything. Take a photo of grandpa and then journal stories about his childhood.
• Be creative! Don’t just put dates and names in a line under the photo. Journal around the photo or in a creative shape! Just make sure your writing is easy to read.
• Use fun fonts – but sparingly! There are a lot of fun fonts available and they are great for titles and some captions. But make sure your journaling is in an easy to read font. We want people to be able to enjoy the story – not be frustrated because they can’t read it!

Did you know you can have your own handwriting made into a font? You can do your journaling on the computer but still in your own handwriting! Many online digital scrapbook stores offer this service so check it out.

Scrapbooking is a great way to preserve our family memories and stories for our posterity. By journaling we let them know what kind of people we were and what we enjoyed. Don’t sugar coat it – show who you really are. Your future family will love you no matter what. Now get journaling!

If you asked a roomful of scrapbookers (at a crop of course!) why they scrapbook, you would get a wide variety of answers. To preserve memories, for a creative outlet, for their family, to make gifts, etc. What ever the reason, scrapbooking is here to stay!

Years ago a scrapbook was a large book with construction paper pages (or those magnetic sheets!). In this book, people would use rubber cement to paste photos, cards, etc., to keep them safe. But did the albums really keep these items safe? I am sure we have all come across a book like this only to find the photos either falling out of the book or stuck in so good you have to cut them out!

Now these early scrapbookers had good intentions and we are lucky to have these books. They just didn’t have the right tools then. But they still recognized the need to keep photos and memories for future generations.

The ‘scrapbook revolution’ started in the late 80′s to early 90′s. The scrapbook industry was taking off and the best ways to preserve pictures was the big thing. Everything because acid free and safe fro scrapbooking. Some scrapbookers even wore gloves as they worked to avoid transferring acids and oils from their skin to photos.

Now, scrapbooking has taken another turn as technology is playing a bigger part in our lives. Scrapbooking digitally is easy and fun, and the number of people digiscrapping is growing every day. Almost everyone owns a digital camera these days and it is so easy to take the photos straight from the camera right into a program that allows you to create beautiful scrapbook layouts. No more waiting for the film to be developed and then digging out your paper scrapping supplies. You can make a great digi layout in no time!

Whatever your reason for scrapbooking, you have many options for creating layouts. If you really love playing with paper – you can still use digital scrapbooking in your paper layouts. Hybrid scrapbook pages are a great way to combine digital & paper scrapping. I will cover hybrid layouts in a future post.

Digital scrapbooking is here to stay. It is fun, easy to do, and very inexpensive! Try it out – you will fall in love with Digital Scrapbooking!