I always get a tiny bit jealous when I hear people talking about their digiversary. My journey into digital scrapbooking was a long process that I can track back to my earliest days in scrapbooking. Because of that I can’t pinpoint an exact date that it began.
I started scrapbooking when I was a teenager, putting my photos, memontos, and journaling in the yucky magnetic albums. I learned how to scrapbook as we know it today in 1994 when the second scrapbook store in Utah opened two minutes from my house. I thought I would share a bit of my journey with you…..don’t laugh!
I created this layout in 1994 by arranging clipart from the DJ-Inkers CDs in PowerPoint, coloring it in by hand, using an exacto knife around the to images at the top to tuck my photo under. I LOVED it!
Sometimes, I printed on COLORED paper and cut those out (the anchor and title).
In 1997, I upgraded to COLOR clipart and a COLOR printer. Still using PowerPoint to arrange images, print and then add my photos.
This was one of my very first all digital pages. I made it in 2003 using Microsoft PictureIt and a CK Clips and Fonts CD (they were way ahead of their time, the products were great quality).
I made this layout in 2004 when I switched to back to PowerPoint. I had a hard time understanding the layers in PictureIt and couldn’t find any resources for help. I understood PowerPoint and how I could create layouts with it (and my dad had bought me a magazine about crafting with your computer that had an article in it about scrapbooking with PowerPoint). The supplies were again from the CK Clips N Fonts CDs.
Later in 2004, I discovered Scrapbook Bytes by way of a special issue of Memory Makers Magazine all about computer scrapbooking. I started using PaintShopPro and created 12×12 papers for all of my layouts I had done in PowerPoint. I printed these layouts on my printer at home on 8.5×11 paper and trimmed them down to 8×8.
That’s when I was able to learn about the power of photo editing programs and my life was never the same! During May of 2004 and December 2004, I created 120 layouts and loved every minute of it! What about you? Do you have a digiversary or was it more of an evolution for you as well?
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I am a fairly new fan of your site and have not yet placed an order. I do some digital scrapbooking and am looking forward to learning more from your site! I hope I win so I can learn more!
Tomorrow… I am planning on beginning digi scrapping tomorrow. I have been reading Ali Edwards’ latest info (in some posts she guided me here, and I have been listening to paperclipping roundtable
) and Cathy Z’s latest info. I am excited to get started, just a bit overwhelmed as to where to start and what to start on…
Hi Jennifer! Just take it one layout at a time
It’s less overwhelming to think about just learning what you need/want for each layout to accomplish what you want than it is to think you need to learn ALL of PhotoShop at once! The tutorials section of the site is a great resource to get started with! 
http://thedailydigi.com/new
My “evolution” has been a lot like yours, though I still do paper scrapping as well as digi (I tend to do a combo, though not what many people would call “hybrid”). I could not point to a date and say “this is when I started”, either. I still have my old magneto album. LOL And my daughter’s “Trip Book” (all the places we took her when she was too small to remember) in a traditional Mark-Twain-era-style bound paper scrapbook. She has a second one now, as we filled the first around the time we moved to TX.
oh this is a great post…i haven’t looked at my old old old scrapbooks in ages! but i too started out with paper scrapping when i was in college long ago…hmmm…maybe i will go take a look at those books and reflect upon my own evolution
Mine was a more gradual evolution too. I saw a quick tutorial on using your computer to do a scrapbook page in 2003 just after I had my daughter. I thought it would be great to dress up the pictures I emailed to grandparents. My hubby told me about the photo-editing program his work used, and I used GIMP for several years (2003-2009) for editing photos and doing pages. I used paper and digi through those years, but never mixed the two. I have all digi pages (that I didn’t print many of) and all paper pages (that are still stacked up and not in albums, many without journaling). I think I was in denial about being a digi scrapper
Then in 2007 we moved. During the transition of selling our house, which took a year, I had a bag of paper supplies that I took with me and I also had access to a computer. So I was doing the majority as digi since 2007, still with GIMP. I finally upgraded to PSE 7 during the summer of 2009 and have loved it. I still have all of my paper stash, so I love using that for hybrid mini albums.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
OH MY GOODNESS – I remember my DJ Inkers books and cds, and those same CK products – and Power Point!! I used to do the same thing!! I also had Adobe Photodeluxe Home Edition (Versions 1 and 4), and one of the very first PSE editions, like a 2.0 or something!!
I still have several books of hand cut/colored layouts! In fact, I think I still have a DJ Inkers stationary book of *masters* for copying and coloring to make cute little sets – we used it to send a box of notecards to our troops in Iraq a few years ago!
I think I started merging my digi with my cut and paste when I got my first computer…in 1997 – between ’92 and ’97 it was all the cut and paste and photocopy type stuff
I did a bit of photo copying as well! How funny that we started so similarly!
I really enjoyed reading about your evolution into digiscrapping and seeing your earlier layouts. I too can’t pinpoint exactly when I moved to digiscrapping from paper – but now I’m all digi!
Fun! I love your layouts!
wow. you are An amazing scrapper. I enjoyed seeing your evolution.
more than an evolution i think it has been a journey out of necessity for me. i just ran out of space. 8×8 photobooks are a beautiful thing, plus i have my library of memories 8×8 binders that have sooooo much space left it’s unbelievable. i haven’t bought anything non-digi since last november except page protectors, binders and adhesives.
oh. and printing the pages.
for someone ocd like me it is awesome:)
Great article Steph! Made me think of my path to where I am today, digi-scrapping wise that is. My initial thought was…I started to scrapbook digitally last July. True, but I had been journaling by way of the computer for 9 years on my traditional pages. I think fate stepped in and gave me a nudge. An article by Jessica Sprague in (was it ‘Creating Keepsakes’ magazine a couple years ago about creating several smaller photos on a sheet of 4 x 6 photo paper really was an epiphany for me. I immediately thought, if I can create this why not a 12 x 12 layout. Big jump I know, but the mind works in mysterious ways!
I had somehow managed to purchase all three of her ‘Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking’ series without really being aware (fate again) and I read them over and over. Our daughter informed me we already owned a free copy of PSE 5.0 that came with her pen tablet and I was off to the races. In 2 months I created nearly 30 layouts. I had barely managed that in 9 years! Another swell aspect…I have been released from my self-imposed chronological mindset. That alone is worth it! Digital has been so freeing for me, I cannot begin to express my liberation from that time-ordered sequencing thing we do to ourselves! WAHOOOOO! Anyone contemplating the plunge, this is not for the young alone. I am 57 and intend to scrap digi and hybrid (too much stash) for as long as I am able. Jump in, the water’s wonderful!
I LOVE this!! I became free of chronological scrapping when I started digital scrapbooking as well!
I’m also happy to hear that you are an ‘older’ scrapper! Are you still using PSE5?
My daughter is laughing at me right now as I am giddy as a school girl that YOU commented on my comment. Wow! Yes, I am still ‘dancing with the one who brought me’, PSE5! Courtesy of my daughter, whom we lovingly call “Tech Support” (Computer Sci & English major), I also have CS3 on my computer. However, it scares me to death. I really need to take a deep breath and just try it. Several of the photo actions I recently purchased can only be used on the C series, so if I must, I must.
As an aside, I cannot start my day without first viewing TDD. Thank you for doing such a masterful job of continuing the site. Love it! Paperclipping episodes are such a hoot to listen to. Thank heavens for digital scrapbooking as I always have something to learn and for technology for the means to obtain that education. Keep up the wonderful work!
THANKS so much for all of the nice comments!!
When I made the move from PSE to CS, it was not easy! I finally just had to tell myself I was going to do layouts in CS for several weeks and NOT let myself open PSE. Now, as I look at doing more in PSE for the site, I’m probably going to have to do the same thing again!
I really enjoyed this article, Steph! Scrapping has very much been an evolution for me. I started with all paper back in 1999, with the goal of making my son a graduation album for graduation in 2000. Of course, then I was hooked. I gradually started using my computer more and more for scrapping, first some journaling and then titles printed very softly in gray so I could trace them. It felt like cheating! When the magazines first started printing digi layouts, I didn’t like it all, they looked too graphic to me. I also didn’t like the idea of yet another thing to make me sit at the computer. But gradually, I started getting drawn in. In 2007, I took a digital class through iVillage. This layout was one of the first ones I produced. Looks pretty graphic to me lol! I started out with PSE 2.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48115614@N02/4823767069/
I still like to paper scrap, but it’s really nice to sit next to my sweetie in the evenings while he watches TV and scrapbook at the same time.
THANKS for sharing your story Sharon! I loved reading it! PSE2 huh?!? Wow! Your first digi layout looks similar to the first one I did in PaintShopPro…haha!
Great post. I don’t have an exact digiversary. I started with Powerpoint, then moved to PaintShopPro, now I’m using Photoshop (or trying to).
It’s great seeing how your layouts, style, and technique change over time.
Thanks for sharing.
How funny that the programs you have used are the same as me!