Digital Scrapbooking Now

Home Based Business Ideas – Digital Scrapbooking

Many talented digital scrapbooking fanatics are wanting to work from home and get paid with their hobby. It is a good time to consider starting a business in which you can work from home in the digital scrapbooking field, due to the growth taking place in this industry.Starting a digital scrapbooking business may not be as hard as you think.

For those who don’t feel they are expert enough yet, keep on studying the online tutorials and lessons that are available. You’ll get better as you keep working on your skills. The main thing anyone needs to start a business is a passion – the skills can be gained, but passion is not something that can be learned.

Also, for any home business, there are things to learn about running a business, keeping track of financial accounts and budgeting. You also would need to be sure you have an up-to-date computer (PC or MAC is fine), and a high speed internet connection.

Next on the list of things to do to prepare for a home business as a scrapbook designer would be to decide if you will try to work for individuals you know or if you would like to try to find customers through the internet. For marketing yourself, you could look for clients locally, through schools, churches and other people you know. Making flyers, having a business card and coming up with a name for your business would be some of the first steps to take.

With the lower cost of internet websites and hosting, many digital scrapbook artists have websites. If you aren’t knowledgeable about creating a website, you can find many graphic designers and web designers who can help you get a website started – and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

The newest trend in websites is with the use of content management platforms, such as Wordpress. What is so great about these blog formats is that anyone can post information in them (no dependency on a web developer is needed). Again, you may need a web designer to help get your blog set up with customized banner artwork that uses your company logo. After a blog (such as a Wordpress blog) is created, the tools that are built in to write posts and upload or insert pictures is very easy to learn.

So, consider starting your own business – what can it hurt? If you want to buy a domain name, these days it only costs about 9 dollars a year. Hosting can cost as little as 5 dollars a month. Other options are to join some of the sites that offer a website where you can sell your products, such as digital scrapbook kits. Some of the sites I have seen for this are Etsy or Plumbdrop. These sites are growing quickly and many people who used to use Ebay to sell their products have branched out to other selling sites like these.

Basically, just don’t limit yourself. If you have a dream, pursue it! You really can do so much today with very little monetary investment. Mostly your time and interest will be what is needed to get started, keep going and to eventually make a digital scrapbooking business.

Is Digital Scrapbooking for You?

For those who are involved in digital scrapbooking, it’s no secret that it’s an addicting hobby. The numbers of people making traditional scrapbooks is growing every day. Now there are options to have more design control by making digital scrapbooks.

Digital scrapbooking is the best way to make your memory books if you want to create your own page designs and layouts usng your computer. They allow you to get creative and make custom scrapbooks or memory books.

What’s so great about it? Well, you don’t need to buy expensive paper or cardstock. And, you don’t have to use scissors and glue to paste in your photos. Another plus is that you’ll need far less materials and less storage space. There are very inexpensive digital scrapbook downloads you can buy and many people offer stuff for free, too. Using your digital photos (taken directly from your camera to your computer) you can place them on your digital pagees, crop them, re-size them, create collages and even change the colors. Then you can print them out and insert them into an album.

There are times when you may still want to use the traditional paper products or embellishments, stickers, ribbons, buttons, etc. and add them to your pages. This is called hybrid scrapbooking (when you use computerized images along with traditional (store-bought) elements. Be sure to use archival quality glue or adhesives when doing this.

What holds people back from doing digital scrapbooks or hybrid scrapbooking? Besides the time it takes to create your own backgrounds, the number one reason more people don’t do it is the technology learning curve involved with using scrapbooking or photo editing software.

If you think you are ready to take the plunge into making scrapbooks this way, here is what you need to start:

1 - A decent computer (desktop or laptop)

2 - Digital scrapbook software (page layout or photo editing software)

3 - Digital photos on your computer

4 - A color printer (an inkjet printer will work fine) and the appropriate paper and toner inks.

5 - Time and creativity!

Some recommendations for software: Page layout software used by digital scrappers: Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Designer Deluxe, and LumaPix FotoFusion. Memory Mixer, Bazzill Basics, and other software is made just for scrapbooks. Some photo editing software used by scrapbookers:  Adobe Photoshop Elements is really, really good. It isn’t too expensive, either. The full Adobe Photoshop is also used, as is Corel Photo Paint. ACADSee makes scrapbook and photo editing software, As I type this, there are probably some new ones. There will be more, you can bet on it, due to the popularity of this new way to create great looking scrapbooks.