Blurb

I don't know if anyone has noticed that I've been backdating my blog posts and including more pictures lately. It's because I've discovered digital scrapbooking!!

I looked into it in the past, but it seemed so expensive for true digital scrapbooking where you purchase the software, designs, and pay to print the book. And the photo website books just seemed like such a long process of uploading photos, organizing the book, and waiting on the internet (snapfish is crazy slow these days).

I found www.blurb.com when I was surfing the web. It has a free software called Booksmart that you download to your computer. This software will import your blog - all your text and pictures - and then you can edit it as little or as much as you want before you upload it back to blurb to order your book. I just got my first book. It was four months, which ended up being 100 pages. I spent only $35 (I had a 20% off coupon with free shipping). That is a really good deal!! You know, I love a good deal. I don't think I could print 4 photos per page for that amount, plus buy the scrapbook supplies.

I also found www.shabbyprincess.com, which has free digital scrapbook supplies like paper, buttons, ribbons, stitching, etc. that co-ordinates. You download it to your computer and upload it to the Booksmart software to add to your pages (it's really like adding another picture, but it is a picture of a scrapbook embellishment).

My favorite thing is that I don't have to mess up my house, dragging out all my scrapbook stuff. That's the real reason that I am so behind. I could find the time, but it just takes twice as long because I'm overwhelmed with not having a mess around that the girls will bother.

For those of you still reading and interested, I made some screen shots (oh, that word takes me back to stuff I did when I did the kind of work that you have to report on your taxes - I probably said that word 100 times a day).

1. This is where I'm working on a page. The top left is some layouts. The bottom left shows some green and yellow papers I used on another page. The right is the two page layout I made. The word "CRAWL" is actually five small picture boxes with letters from the shabbyprincess (SP) embelishments.


2. This is in Preview Book mode. I added ribbons on the top left photos and there is stitching on the top right. The stitching is just a long skinny photo box with a picture of stitching from SP (part of the picture ends up being invisible, so it looks like you've sewn over what is underneath on the page).

3. Here's where I'm editing a layout. To put digital scrapbook paper as your page background, you right click on an image box and select SET AS BACKGROUND (I did it the hard way, manually enlarging the box for several pages before I picked up on the option). Notice there are image boxes in the top left with buttons in them.

4. Here's a PREVIEW BOOK image of that page.

5. In the lower left you'll see all my blog entries listed. I can add pages from them as I choose. The scroll bar along the bottom shows the other pages in my book.

Okay, I'll end my post there. I've gotten really good feedback from my friends that have seen my first book, so I thought I'd share. This isn't anything I am selling or can make a profit from. I don't even think there's a way you can put me as a referral. Just sharing the info.

If anyone is interested, I'm happy to sit down and show you my tricks. Or make a suggestion and I can do some tutorial blog posts on getting started.