Daunting Digital Debate

I tried really, really hard to get into digital scrap booking. Every thing from the quick and easy picaboo (where you can only use their templates for design) to the mid-level Heritage Makers (I paid for a month’s membership to try it out. If you get the basic free membership you aren’t allowed to upload ANY of your own digital kits). I stopped before getting into the whole advanced photoshope (mainly because I didn’t have the money to invest in the good software). I know that it’s a million times cheaper for supplies (one purchase of a kit for under $10 that you can reuse over and over) and that it’s no mess as it’s all on your computer, but I just couldn’t get into it.

I made an honest effort, found some super cute stuff online, but I got frustrated with various programs. It takes so much time to do what you want (to cut shapes and manipulate objects etc) whereas when I have actual paper it’s fast and easy to cut what I want quickly. Obviously, cropping, matting and creating actual layouts overall take less time and sure the typing instead of handwriting looks neater, but it just seems to lack the heart.

I like paper scrap books; I always have! Even when I was 14 and elected the historian in our Explorer Post (now currently called “venturing”) I got really into it. Normally people would slap pictures into clear plastic sheets and be done with it, but my mom and I would go down to the stationary store and find cute paper and stickers for the “album”. Back then scrapbooking wasn’t really the “in” thing to do and so I was excited to find themed coordinating paper.

Now scrapbooking ultra hip and trendy and you can find supplies everywhere. Not that I’m complaining, but I think a log of people out there focus more on the layouts then the actual “scraps” that go into scrapbooking. Sure your page is huge and glittery and has 50 different design elements, but where’s your picture? Oh wait…there it is. It’s a wallet size! I know you know what I’m talking about. I wouldn’t classify myself as a scrapping snob, but I’ve been doing this for 12+ years and consider myself a true artist in this form.

Plus my embellishments aren’t all store bought and faux. A lot of what I put into my albums are ACTUAL memorabilia! The program and ticket stub from “the Vagina monologues”, the feather and pretty leaf I found on our last camping trip, The pressed flower from the first bouquet of flowers my boyfriend bought along with the ribbon that was tied around the vase. In a recent baby book I made, I found found a picture of the baby in her mom's favorite one-sie and put it into the scrapbook along with a fabric swatch from the actual one-se shown in the picture. You can't do that with digital scrapbooks.

A few years back I was helping my mom sort through my great aunt’s stuff. We found her old diary that had old newspaper clippings, cards and other wonderful things! It was like living history to see the old soap ad on the other side of some magazine article, marvel at the date on the newspaper and so on. If you have digital, your future possessors of your album, won’t feel the heart and soul of the album. They can’t feel the paper or pick up actual items you’ve pasted in.

I guess it’s the same principles of working with your hands like carpenters. Maybe I’m old fashioned. Even at a younger age (before I knew what scrapbooking was) I had an old spiral bound cardboard book I used to keep cartoon clippings of fairy tales from the newspaper in along with other stuff I thought was cool at the time, some original artwork, birthday cards (from now deceased realitives) and other odds and ends. Once again, you can’t do that with digital! Sure you can scan all that stuff in, but it’s not the same. It’s not an original, just a boring digital copy. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for digital scrapbooking, but it just seems so impersonal.

For now, I’m going to stick with my mounds of paper, spools of ribbon, faux flowers, brads, tags and everything else that makes a scrapbook homemade! Sure it's messier, costs more overall, and takes more time, but that's half the fun!