Digital Scrapbooking

So I've had a ton of people recently ask me questions about Digital Scrapbooking. So since I am STILL without picture capability... Grrr... I'll answer some questions. But first I'll start of by telling you WHY I love Digital Scrapbooking SO much!
With paper scrapbooking you have to get everything out and it's a mess and with kids it's just impossible to do it during the day and nap-time is just too sacred to spend getting things out and making a mess and then putting it all away again before kids wake up! With Digital it's all on your computer so you just click SAVE and it's all there safe and sound away from sticky curious fingers! Also digital is so forgiving! You can use a picture over again and again in a million different pages to see how you like it best, or crop it or cut it out or whatever and you haven't ruined the picture! I also love that with digital you can match colors in the paper or frames or whatever exactly to the colors in the photo. You can also be totally in control of how big or small the picture is. You can add a bunch of pictures and make them all the exact same size, or blow one up HUGE and put it as a watermark in the background with other smaller pictures in front! I love that you only pay to print a finished page and you don't have to pay to print your pictures (doesn't everyone have digital cameras these days and have to print them all out before you can scrapbook them?) you don't have to pay for the scrapbook paper, or the scrapbook elements. You only pay for the finished product IF you want to print it! Anyway! I could go on and on but I won't! Here's some answers to your questions:
First of all, I use Adobe Photoshop to make my pages. For those of you that don't know much about Photoshop, it is not a scrapbook specific program. It can be used for photo editing and creating graphics or making scrapbook pages. It has a ton of tools that make scrapbooking so much fun! It takes a little bit to learn how to use it and that turns some people off to it. But if you are willing to take the time to learn how to use Photoshop then you can do a TON of great things. Plus I'll be able to help you if you have questions, I don't know how to use any other program for scrapbooking so I'd be useless to you!
I download free scrapbooking elements (papers/backgrounds, ribbons, frames, buttons, etc.) from a million different places. In fact it's been a really long time since I've downloaded anything new. Over the years I've been collecting things and then I customize them and use them over and over again in a million different ways. I'll change the color scheme or add a border, or a shadow or make a frame out of the background paper or turn a background into a slice and add some things to make it look like ribbon and on and on and on. And because everything that you download is saved on your computer you can use it again and again. There are a TON of digital scrapbooking materials that are available online to buy also, and you can find some SUPER cute stuff! But there is so much free stuff out there that you don't really NEED to buy anything if you just want to try it out and see how you like it. Here's a list of sites to check for free downloads. Some are blogs of people who design digital scrapbooking elements and they often post freebies on their blog. Most of them you just click on the picture and it will prompt you on how to download them. Also just so you know, some of theses sites like you to create an account with them. It's free and they don't send you any junk, unless you ask for their newsletter or whatever. And it gives you access to tons of great galleries of digital scrapbookers so you can get ideas.
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp
http://www.oscraps.com/
http://www.feifeistuff.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com
http://www.cottagearts.net/samples.html
http://www.scrapfx.com/extra/freebies/
Here's some from Kelly Laing's blog list:
http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
http://vicki20.blogspot.com/
http://gingerscraps.blogspot.com/
http://summertimedesigns.blogspot.com/
http://irenealexeeva.blogspot.com/
http://audraslittlescraps.blogspot.com/
I also am a member at Scrapbook.com and the link to my gallery is: http://www.scrapbook.com/places/BZmommy I LOVE this place because I can browse other people's galleries and find great ideas and they usually will but a list of what materials they used to make their pages and what fonts they used and things like that. Then you can save your list of favorites so you can come back to them later as you need ideas. I also LOVE the feedback. People can post comments on your pages and give you pointers and advice and the love and praise that we all thrive off of! It's free to sign up. They also have a "freebies" section where you can find some cool things. That link is: http://www.computerscrapbook.com/free-digital-scrapbooking.html
I also use a ton of cool fonts that I've downloaded (again for free) online. If you need help figuring out how to download and install new fonts, let me know and I'll help you out. Here are a bunch of great free font download sites to find some cool ones:
http://www.searchfreefonts.com/
http://www.dafont.com/
http://www.1001freefonts.com/
As far as printing goes I've only printed one book and it's not finished yet. I actually just printed my pages in an 8x8 size so that it'd fit on regular paper. Then I bought some good heavy photo paper and took it to Kinkos because they were having a $.49 color copy sale. So I printed each page for only $.49! Then I brought them home and cut them out and inserted them into 8x8 scrapbook sleeves and put them in a regular 8x8 scrapbook! So that was super cheap! I don't typically print my pages though. My kids get on the computer all the time and we look through the pages and I put them on my blog and my Scrapbook.com Gallery and my picasa web album to share them with family and such. I think I would like to print them all as soon as I finish a year or an event or something that I can put in a permanent book. Right now I'm still growing my collection!
There are a TON of places online where you can send your pages to be printed. Costco is one of them. They charge about $1.50 for an 8x8 print and $2.99 for a 12x12 print.
Here's a link to a place where you can print pages or order bound books of your pages. They charge only $.75 for an 8x8 and $.99 for a 12x12 print http://www.scrapbooksplease.com/
I also LOVE the Shutterfly books and I'm planning on making one when I finish all of my Hike Pages. They have templates where you can just insert your pictures into their pre-made pages or you can upload your saved scrapbook pages that YOU made and make a book that way. You can get a 20 page 8x8 book for $30. And it's a hard bound custom book with your title on the binding and a picture on the front and back cover if you want. A 20 page 12x12 book is $55. Here's their link: http://www.shutterfly.com/shop/Photo_Books/product_c18000 Shutterfly will also print individual pages but they are kind of pricey. An 8x8 print starts at $3.49 if you print less than 10 and it gets cheaper as you print more with them. If you print 100 or more pages they charge $2.79 per page.
Here's another link to a place that will print scrapbooks for you
http://www.sbtoshare.com/Digital.htm they charge only $1 per page and charge a $6 shipping and handling fee for each order. They look like they are a pretty good deal and good quality. They send free samples of each paper that they offer also, so you know exactly what your pages will look like finished.
Well that's all I can think of for now! Please feel free to ask any more questions and if you decide to use Photoshop to make your pages please feel free to ask for help anytime getting started or figuring things out!