Note: I had the privilege to share this article on the Scrapaneers’ Society website back in April, 2020 while sharing one of the 2-pg layouts that I had made for my daughter who is now a senior in high school. Because Scrapaneers is shutting down after 2021, I will no longer be writing my monthly heritage article and will continue my monthly articles here on my own It’s a Life Story site.
Due to several Scrapaneers’ Society members asking for a video tutorial, I have put together a 15 minute video that I hope better shows my workflow process! You can CLICK the title to go straight to it –> “My Digital Scrapping Workflow for that Paper Scrapbooking Experience.”<
I think that I have found my love for scrapbooking all over again, but now my struggles are that with the old-time scrapbooking events, we could share and get immediate feedback. I just made a few tweaks to one of my layouts I’ve completed these past couple weeks and I am just busting out of my seams to share with some friends… and so here I am!
My tendency when I am overwhelmed is to Stop. In. My. Tracks. I have taken a little break from my Grandparents’ Lifestory book that I have been working on so I could start on my youngest daughter’s books that have been sadly neglected. What I’m finding is that going back through and working on these past-year layouts seems very calming.
I hesitate to start out sharing with this particular layout because it does seem a bit “dark” with the black paper on the left, but that huge cat in the middle? She is our kitty that my daughter drew with white pencil on black paper. When I was thinking about how to do this whole layout, it just didn’t seem right to not blend her into a black background.
I’m using all Anna Aspnes Designs palettes, which I love, love, love…
Does anyone else use the Collections in Lightroom to pull together the photos you want to scrapbook? I had over 600 photos from my daughter’s Freshman high school year that I’m working through and once I got them all pulled into a single Freshman year Collection, I made sub-collections with the different pages or sections that I wanted to do. For example, this one was in the Art collection. Once I Ctrl-Clicked on the ones that I thought I would use in this layout, I clicked on the Survey View to see just those selections and once I was happy with my group of pictures, I went back to Grid view and went to Photo / Edit IN / Open in Layers in Photoshop and just like that I had my photos all pulled in to PS and ready to crop. This way I could also go back to LR and look at my photos again in Survey View to see them up close for picking and choosing which ones I wanted to use in my layout. AND… the best part is that having the photos in a Collection, I can then go in and move the photos around into the groupings that I want!
For some reason, this feels way more like the physical scrapbooking where I would lay out my photos and then go grab my materials. Why has it taken me this long to figure this out??? 🙂
This flower layout came together as I video-taped my workflow. I might not be the best video producer, but I do know that my process, or workflow, really does give me that comfortable feeling. I no longer sit down at my desk to start working on a layout and just stop from the overwhelm of having to find my products. They are all easily located AND easy to view. It is very calming and I find myself just leaving the layout open on my desktop for the next day so I can go back and look at it. Which, funny as it sounds, is also very similar to what I would do with my physical pages. I would leave them out on my scrapbooking table to be able to walk by and look at. Sometimes I would make a few changes and sometimes I would just look at it and smile… You know that feeling, right?
As with all my work lately, I use and totally enjoy Anna Aspnes Designs. If you do watch my video on my workflow, I would only ask that you be gentle with your comments towards the way the video was made and edited! I can confidently say that while I love the final video, it may not be for everyone. But, as I mention in the video, if someone finds even one thing that they can apply to their own workflow that brings them some calmness or happiness, then I am extremely happy to have taken the time to get this project done! Many thanks!
