Digi scrapbooking Digital freebies

One of the best parts of scrapbooking is shopping for supplies! In fact, I have a lot of traditional paper scrapbooking friends who have gathered hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of scrapbooking paper, embellishments, alphabet stickers, stamps and more. I've been scrapbooking since my son was born in 1997, so I've amassed a good amount of traditional supplies myself, and managed to create a huge number of large 12 x 12 traditional paper scrapbooks. The space all of these required, along with the problem that traditional paper scrapbooks cannot be copied or shared easily led me to consider digital scrapbooking. Especially when I saw the great deals at Shutterfly and Winkflash for photo books, I realized I could save a lot of money by printing my books there rather than having to print photos, buy supplies and also buy scrapbooks to put the finished pages in. However, I wondered whether I could afford to shop for a whole new set of supplies. Luckily, my search online led me to realize that I could collect digital scrapbooking elements for free all over the place! In fact, one of the best parts about digital scrapbooking is that when I don't have time to actually scrap, I can get a quick "fix" by just browsing for supplies and downloading them for free, rather than going to the store and spending money on supplies I didn't really have time to use. If those free supplies end up not getting put into layouts, I'm only out a few minutes of my time. Those mountains of traditional supplies add up not only in money lost, but also cabinet space. I've been happily digitally scrapping now for five years and know I won't go back to 12 x 12 traditional books again. Instead, I fill my urge to touch that paper with mini theme books, like my License Plate Scrapbook. When I want to finish a book fast, I also use Smilebox to make a photo book. However, when I want to indulge in some real scrapbooking, I open up my Adobe Photoshop Elements and use those wonderful free digital scrapbooking supplies I've collected. After reviewing hundreds of sites, I've discovered that these are the very best:

• Scrapgirls: Inspiring daily newsletter with a freebee every day

http://www.scrapgirls.com/

Hands down, the best digital scrapbooking site is Scrapgirls. Not only do they have top-notch quality digital papers, embellishments, styles, templates, pages and even kits available, they offer a daily newsletter which always has at least one freebie. The week's freebies can also be found on the website. Be careful though because freebies are generally only available for a short time. However, the free E-Book for getting starte in digital scrapbooking is always available along with one excellent kit which gives you all the digital papers, embellishments and alphas to make your first layouts (what I used in my first layouts!). Moreover, they have a great online University and tutorials to help you learn how to digitally scrapbook and continually learn new techniques. Recently, they have included a short tutorial in most of their newsletters too. The newsletters also give many examples of digital scrapbooking pages in many different styles. They provide product links at the bottom of the examples which is generally the easiest way to find products you like. For people who want to do scrap-for-hire, Scrapgirls also offers a limited selection of products that you are welcome to use to make layouts that you sell to other people. As a full-service site, Scrapgirls has a gallery, an online forum and many contests, chats and scrap events. However, the element which makes Scrapgirls stand out the most is the daily muses by RO, the founder and CEO of Scrapgirls. Ro is a deeply caring person who lovingly and transparently shares her life events, struggles and spiritual insights. Because Ro is such a humble person who is so willing to pour out her life story to help others, the Scrapgirls site is more than just a great fund of digital scrapbooking inspiration. It is also a site which gives life encouragement and inspiration. Even if you are not interested in digital scrapbooking, you may enjoy reading the daily newsletter and getting inspiration from looking at the great layouts. Any serious scrapper, digital or not, should sign up for the Scrapgirls daily newsletter and enjoy the great layouts as well as this online community of people dedicated to sharing thier lives through scap art.

• Scrapmatters: Great online community with excellent quality products and regular freebies

http://shop.scrapmatters.com/freebies/

Scrapmatters is a very comprehensive site online scrapbooking community. Scrapmatters.com offers a store with high quality designs digital scrapmaking designs from many different designers. It also has a forum for questions and a place you can post your pages. There are also challenges that you can join. They have a blog and chat room for people to get more involved. People at Scrapmatters really want to help you have a great digital scrapbooking experience, so you will be glad if you join. If you sign up, they will send you a weekly newsletter of what is new in the shop. One fun feature of Scrapmatters is that they will have multiple designers work from a single pallet of colors in order to come up with a kit. While you can build up a great set of digital scrapbooking materials through collecting all the freebies at this site and others, most serious scrappers also love to buy a few items. The designs at Scrapmatters are contemporary and follow a lot of the trends in paper scrapping. Scrapmatters is definitely a site to watch!

• Digital Freebies: Once a week mini-kit as well as cheap access to previous Friday Freebies

http://digitalfreebies.com/the-friday-freebie/

Digital Freebies by Retrodiva offers the Friday Freebie on their website and by weekly newsletter. Digital Freebies is definitely a smaller operation than other sites and seems to be the creation of just one young designer named Tracy. However, what Digtal Freebies offers each week is different: a co-ordinated mini kit ready for you to put together to make a page. Sometimes, she even offers easy pages that are ready for you to put your pictures into and print. Retrodiva designs are unique and tend to be quite contemporary with interesting color combinations. What I have discovered as I've built my digital collection is that Retrodiva designs are often ones I use over and over because the colors and designs match things I actually want to scrap and go together with papers from other collections so well. Digital Freebies actually does offer some things for sale in her shop also, and these are very reasonably priced and she also frequently has sales. She also does have a gallery for uploading layouts. Although Digital Freebies is not a full-service digital scrapbooking website, it has some unique features that make it worth joining.

Warning: I've had one report that someone who joined her paid subscription program was not able to get Tracy to stop her subscription in spite of numerous attempts to contact her. I have only bought from her boutique and not subscribed to her freebie archive, so I have no personal experience with that, but wanted to make sure you knew this complaint.

• Shabby Princess: Fabulous Designs and Many Full Kit Downloads

http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp

Wow! Shabby Princess offers no less than 25 full kits for free download! These are beautiful kits with digital papers, embelishments, alphas, frames and more. Each one can be used for multiple layouts. One of the kits I've used more than almost anything else in my digital scrapbooking collection is "Spontaneous Delight." What makes me coming back to this kit is the gorgeous colors of blue and green, as well as the way the striped papers seem to match a lot of other parts of my collection. I've also found their "Holiday Magic" and "Seasonal Sampler" to be some of the most beautiful and widely useful of the Christmas papers I've collected. In fact, I have several years of Christmas layouts and cards made from each of these. As their name implies, Shabby Princess tends to have products which are more in the romantic, shabby chic style. They also offer a "shoppe" with more products you can buy as well as a gallery, chat room and a new blog. You can sign up for their newsletter, as you can for other sites. Although it is more limited in scope than Scrapgirls, Shabby Princess does offer tutorials for scrapbooking in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. What is also helpful is that they give some instructions and support for hybrid scrapbooking, which uses digital techniques for photos and elements which are used in traditional paper scrapbooking.

• Dittersfreedoodles and more: Many free templates and digital scrapbooking supplies along with lots of links!

http://dittersfreedoodles.blogspot.com/

I originally found Dithersfreedoodles through her Totally Templates page which gives out all sorts of different templates to use in scrapbooking PNG files. I've downloaded many of these and used them in all sorts of layouts. She does request donations or perhaps buying something from her store, but offers many different items for free too. In addition, she gives links to a whole community of scrappers who offer freebies. Following these links has led me to some "Progressive Scrap Parties" where 40 to 50 scrappers will make a digital scrapbooking freebie using the same theme. You follow all the links to visit the blogs and stores of these scrappers and pick up the designs. Of course, this gives the stores a bit of publicity and traffic, so you may find a small store or freebie designer that really suits your style.

As you can see, the possibility of getting freebies for digital scrapbooking is almost endless. I gathered such an immense collection of supplies that I began to have trouble finding what I wanted and finally spent some time getting rid of supplies I wasn't really using. So have some fun visiting sites, gathering supplies for free and enjoying this addicting hobby!