Digital Scrapbooking Review with Clare

Clare has very kindly given us a review on Digital Scrapbooking, looks interesting to me, hope you all like it too.

HERE'S a link to Clares blog so you can take a look at more of her work.

I have been scrapbooking special events and holidays for 4 years now but have always stuck to traditional techniques. I was going to add the name of the software to my birthday list but in the end couldn’t wait until September…….what a surprise NOT!!!! I bought my Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 (DSA for short) on Create and Craft when it was the Pick of the Week.

Here is a review:

DSA is a fantastic piece of software which can be used not only for scrapbooking your special memories but you can also make you own cards too! If you are new to scrapbooking and don’t have much room for craft stash then this software is the perfect solution. There are digi kits which are photographic quality. They consist of backgrounds, frames, embellishments, materials, alphabets and some layouts. Just like rummaging through your craft stash you pick out what you want to use from your digi kit and what is great is that each kit is already coordinated which means a lot less messing about match colours, etc.

You can choose you page size 12 x 12, 8 x 8, A4 or set your own custom size. Then it is very much drag and drop. Start with your background. Add a photo frame and what is fabulous is that when you drag your photo into the frame it snaps in place. Next choose you embellishments (brads, buttons, bows, flowers, etc) and again it is all drag and drop. There are some lovely decorative alphabets which you can use for journaling. If you are a beginner or you need a layout in a hurry there are some pre-designed layouts which you can load and just drag/drop your photo into place.

I have to say that I have only been using this for 3 weeks now and I know there are so many things that I need to learn. There is also a very powerful photo editing feature but I haven’t even got that far yet.

My favourite feature is the paint brush tool. You can select the brush and then select an element to add to your page. These include stitching, ribbons, glitter, rose petals and frayed edges.

What is also great is that Serif have created a special forum called Daisy Trails and you can upload you work. There is a wonderful gallery of work and even better there are loads of video tutorials explaining how to do different things. This is very helpful and so you would never need to panic. If you need to know something there is quite a busy forum where you can post your questions too.

I have only just scratched the surface in this review and if you want to see more then here is a link to a video which describes many of the features. There are so many digi kits out there to buy and also loads of freebies too, that you wouldn’t need to worry about missing out on your craft stash shopping, it could still continue but in digital form!! They are quite affordable too.

I have to say if you already scrapbook you will love this software and I want to try hybrid scrapping now which combines digital and traditional scrapbooking. WATCH THIS SPACE!

I would definitely give it 10/10 and recommend it to anyone for wants to give scrapbooking a go. If you have never done scrapbooking before it would be a great place to start and if you are into your digital photography it is a must.

It costs about £30.00. You don’t need to be a computer geek either! I should also say if you want to dabble first there is a free compact version which you can download but it doesn't have all the feature of DSA2.

I MUST ATTACH A HEALTH WARNING TO THE SOFTWARE…………IT HAS VERY ADDICTIVE PROPERTIES AND YOU WILL JUST WANT TO KEEP PLAYING/CREATING!!

SO DEFINATELY IDEAL FOR US CRAFT MAD FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Clare.