Digital Scrapbooking Business - Going Beyond the Screen

A digital scrapbooking business certainly has a number of advantages over traditional scrapbooking in terms of ease of start-up and range of potential customers. After all, once you've got a site set up to spread the word about your work, and a few digital scrapbook samples to show, you could be pulling in clients from anywhere in the world!

What's more, you can send the same scrapbook to any number of people for the same cost a sending it to one. So for example every guest at a wedding could have a copy of the digital wedding scrapbook. Something that would be extremely time consuming and hugely expensive to do traditionally.

But is the digital scrapbook, whether viewed on screen or printed out, a bit lacking in depth? Is there a certain lack of texture? Is it missing something when you pick it up?

If you, or clients of your digital scrapbooking business, feel that this is the case then the solution is what's become known as hybrid scrapbooking and, as you might guess, it's a combination of the two styles.

How far you want to take the mix is up to you but hybrid scrapbooking gives you the opportunity to use the best of both worlds.

Elements which are best handled by a computer - like things which are repetitive, or journalling (adding the text) are quicker and in many cases neater when produced on your computer. Likewise photos if you have to produce a number of scrapbooks.

Personal keepsakes like ribbons or other materials can be added once the digital element is printed out.

A cover for your scrapbook could be made using expensive textured paper or card, stamped or otherwise embellished to make it feel special but the inside pages could be created digitally and therefore much more cheaply.

So when you're thinking of ways to promote your digital scrapbooking business try thinking "outside the box" sometimes - or perhaps that should be "beyond the screen"!

You'll find lots more free professional information and a wealth of scrapbook resources at Digital Scrapbooking Business where you can also download a valuable free report from well known scrapbooking teacher Dawn Stegall. If you're thinking about making money from scrapbooking you don't want to ignore help like this!

Digital Scrapbooking Business - 5 Minutes to Success!

If you are considering your own digital scrapbooking business as a way to get out of the rat race and make a good living working from home then I'm about to give you the 5 minute secret to your success.

That's about how long it will take you to read this piece - possibly less - and in a nutshell it contains everything you need to know to take your scrapbook business to any level you like.

Oh, and it'll cost you less than fifty dollars to start.

Ready?

OK, first thing you're going to need is to get yourself on the internet. Go get a proper dot com domain name so you look like a pro. Under ten dollars for a whole year.

Next you need some hosting for a blog or website. Get professional hosting, not free. This is a digital scrapbooking business you're running - emphasis on the word business. You don't want to look like an amateur. Depending on the deal this can cost you between six and nine dollars a month.

I'd recommend a blog rather than a traditional website and I'd recommend WordPress. It gets in the search engines quicker, it's easier to run and more customer friendly. WordPress is free and has a huge number of themes so you can customize its appearance and plug-ins to extend it's abilities. It can do virtually anything your scrapbook business needs.

If you don't have Word or a page-layout program get a copy of OpenOffice (free) so you can create sample digital scrapbooks. Save them as PDF format so that you can offer them as free downloads from your blog.

Now subscribe to a mailing list/autoresponder management service so that you can collect names and email addresses of visitors to your blog. This is absolutely vital and can dramatically increase your income. Your free digital scrapbook download should be offered in exchange for their details. This will cost you just under twenty dollars a month and will repay that investment over and over again.

Depending on your precise scrapbooking business model, find a couple of affiliate programs that you can promote alongside your own business for additional income. Any reputable scrapbook affiliate program will be free to join.

Finally promote your digital scrapbooking business via your blog posts and article marketing. Both free and extremely effective.

Is our five minutes up?

OK, you might think this article is a bit tongue in cheek, and clearly there's a lot more flesh to put on these bones, but the above really is all you need to create the framework for your own digital scrapbooking business. Building it from part-time pennies to substantial full-time money is just a question of putting in a bit of effort.

Over the next few weeks I'll be expanding on each element to give you the bigger picture, and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have. You'll find lots more free professional information and a wealth of scrapbook resources at Digital Scrapbooking Business where you can also download a valuable free report from well known scrapbooking teacher Dawn Stegall. If you're thinking about making money from scrapbooking you don't want to ignore help like this!

Digital Scrapbooking For the Ages

For most kids who have grown up with the internet, mastering the art of the digital scrapbook can be easily accomplished with a little assistance. That idea can be a difficult idea to fathom for adults, considering some of us are still learning how to properly save a JPEG.

For kids, working on computers and with the internet is nothing new - in fact, it's practically ingrained within their DNA. Helping them create fun digital scrapbooks on the computer is an excellent way for your child to continue to master the internet and to create some fun art projects to boot.

Get Focused

Help your child understand why he is creating a digital scrapbook in the first place to help him want to see the project through. Create a list of questions for your child such as Who, Where and Why? These questions can help the child start thinking about the purpose behind the digital scrapbook.

Who? Who is going in the scrapbook? Grandma? Daddy? Friends from school?

Where? Where should the scrapbook be located in time and space? Is it in a magical forest? New York City? At the North Pole? These ideas can help your child start categorizing to create the...

Why? Why are you making the digital scrapbook? Is it to show to friends, bring to show and tell? Give as a present to Daddy? Once your child understands the why, it will be easier for him to focus and not get overwhelmed by the hundreds of digital scrapbooking ideas and colorful digital scrapbooking layouts.

Shop Around

Once you know your child's theme, go through the paid and free scrapbooking sites on your own and pick out the scrapbook pages that match up with the theme your child has picked. Bookmark several of these pages and let your child pick out one to three choices, depending on the aptitude of your child.

Searching for these types of pieces ahead of time solves many common problems. Typically, when confronted with the hundreds of websites and pieces to choose from, a child will get overwhelmed or too excited, wanting to download and purchase everything. Then the project becomes about fighting over downloads rather than making the project you were planning on.

Find Tutorials

Depending on the age of your child, pull up some of the easy to understand tutorials found on many of the digital scrapbooking sites. These can help guide your child through simple to understand activities, such as cropping a photo to fit into a layout.

However, use your teaching wisely. Boring your child to tears will defeat the fun. Sometimes, the best way to teach is to talk your child through where to click on the keyboard and let him pick it up as he goes.

As with anything, patience is key. When you work on a digital scrapbook with your child, start small and be encouraging. Don't be surprised if he has a knack for it and ultimately, ends up teaching you new tricks.

Marie Perrow is a scrapbooking queen extraordinaire. She has been scrapbooking since she was 5. Her scrapbooking are gaining immense Find out more about her scrapbook layout, scrapbooking tools and scrapbook here.

Digital Scrapbooking Business - Vital Tools of the Trade?

Your digital scrapbooking business has many advantages over traditional scrapbooking when you're just starting out, not least of which is the low investment required.

For a start, you don't need a garage full of scrapbook supplies like papers, punches, stamps, ribbons, binders... the list can seem almost endless!

Aside from your computer - which you've already got or how would you be here - there is very little extra you need. A printer is useful but it could be argued that even this isn't absolutely necessary - you can always take your files to any of the high street print and copy companies who'd be more than happy to do it for you. In fact if you're looking for nice big prints it's probably a more economical option than getting your own large format printer anyway.

But then as a digital scrapbooking business you might frequently send out your work as files only.

A scanner can be useful, and they're remarkably low cost these days. Make sure you buy good quality though. You'll often want to scan something quite small and then enlarge it so you need a high resolution original or it will look all pixelated and broken when it's blown up.

It's a useful tool to have, but not vital. There are plenty of online picture galleries where you can probably find something suitable for your scrapbook layouts.

A blog or website could be considered a vital digital scrapbooking tool - and it is undeniably important that you have one but that's another subject really. It's not a "tool" in this context.

About the only thing you can't do without is some digital scrapbooking software. You may already have a photo editing program but if you don't it is a necessity. What's more they do much more than just edit photos. Adobe Photoshop is the graphics industry standard and you won't find a pro studio anywhere without a copy. It's abilities are quite astonishing.

However, it is rather expensive. For well under a hundred dollars you can get it's baby brother, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and this has become the program of choice for digital scrapbookers. A lot of people do use Corel Paint Shop Pro, but I think Elements has become number one. Certainly there are a huge number of free tutorials available for it.

The only thing Photoshop Elements can't do is put together your digital scrapbook pages. It handles one page at a time. It's a simple job to import these into OpenOffice (a free program a bit like MS Office, but free) and from there create a multi-page PDF which you can either send over the internet or get printed up.

And that's about it. Even starting completely from scratch you've got a fully tooled digital scrapbooking business for a couple of hundred dollars - less if you leave the scanner until later!

If you're investigating ways to start your own digital scrapbooking business you'll find lots more free professional information and a wealth of scrapbook resources at Digital Scrapbooking Businesswhere you can also download a valuable free report from well known scrapbooking teacher Dawn Stegall. If you're thinking about making money from scrapbooking you don't want to ignore help like this!

Digital Scrapbooking Business - A Whole World of Opportunities!

A digital scrapbooking business overcomes the one drawback of making a living from traditional scrapbooking, that of geographical reach. What I mean is, however successful your scrapbooking business is there's a limit to the distance you'll be prepared to travel to find new customers.

For many people that won't be a problem. As we've already seen, there are ample ways to diversify how you make money from scrapbooking. For some though, the customer-facing aspect is too much of a challenge. For those people, digital scrapbooking is definitely the answer!

Think about the benefits. Even if you have no experience at the moment, you already have a lot of what you need. You have a computer and a connection to the internet so that's the two most important digital scrapbook "tools" sorted. You might need a little extra software and you'll need a blog or website to promote yourself, but both of those require remarkably low investment.

I know what a lot of you will say, "but what about learning the software"?

People can, understandably, have a bit of a phobia about how difficult a new program can be to learn and it is kind of necessary for your digital scrapbooking business! The good news is, not only is the software well known but a number of websites and blogs offer some degree of free tuition. If you need more help, for just a few dollars a week there are also full and comprehensive training courses available including online videos so you can actually see what you need to do.

But is it really worth the trouble learning digital scrapbooking software?

Well if you want that whole world of opportunities mentioned in the title, yes. A digital scrapbooking business has no geographical boundaries. You can make scrapbooks for people in the next town, the next state, or the other side of the world. There are no travel expenses to hold you back so your creative ability can just as easily be sold in Arkansas, Aberdeen or Australia!

Want to build your own digital scrapbooking business? I've got lots more free professional information and a wealth of scrapbook resources at Digital Scrapbooking Business where you can also download a valuable free report from well known scrapbooking teacher Dawn Stegall. If you're thinking about making money from scrapbooking you don't want to ignore help like this!