Free Digital Scrapbook Photo Frame Elements

Posted on January 25th, 2012 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Free Downloads, Site Information.

Hi Digital Computer Scrapbook Fans,

Had to let you know that I just uploaded 6 brand new Digi-Scrap page photo frame elements. They are a nice sea side or sea shell design set and a wonderful Floral or Flower themed photo frame set.

Get them now at: www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com

Perfect additions to the Valentines Day themed digital scrapbooking paper set downloads that we just added a few days ago.

Oh, and for the kids… we just added a wonderful collection of School Valentines Day card printables. Print them on card stock and cut them out, the guidlines are already included for you to make it really simple. Even your kids could cut them out with safety scissors.

See you there: www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com

Kathy and Wes

www.MyPrincessCrafts.com

Largest Digital Scrapbook Membership on the Internet!

 

1 comment.

Free Kids / Children’s Valentines Day Printable Cards

Posted on January 20th, 2012 by wwaddell.
Categories: Free Downloads, Scrapbook Tips.

We just added 3 sets of Brand New Children’s School Printable Valentines… just in time for your kids Valentines Day party.

Colorful, cute and best of all, you can download and print all that you need.

Each page comes with 9 different valentines on it that you just print and cut out. With 6 different pages and 9 valentines for each page, that’s 54 different valentines so no one has to get the same one.

For our adults and teens, we also have some great photo Valentines Day Cards that you can add your own photo or artwork to to make just the perfect Valentines Day Keepsake.

Happy Valentines Day!

Kathy and Wes

www.FreeScrapbookTraining.com

www.Free-Stationery.com

 

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Scrapbook Photography 101 Part 2 of 3

Posted on November 16th, 2011 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Training.

Title:  Scrapbook Photography 101 Part 2

Author:  Wes Waddell

Article:  Scrapbook Photography 101 Part 2 Basic Photo Composition

Now that you have the basic photography equipment and a better understanding of your camera, its’ different modes and how they affect your images… it’s time to start learning how to best use this knowledge to take photos that are not only in focus, but tell the right story and fit into your scrapbook of memories.

Basic Scrapbook Photography Composition:

Anyone can easily, in just a few hours, learn to operate a camera, point it at something and take a clear, in focus image. But it takes lots and lots of practice to have that image composed so that it also tells the story, preserves the memory and fits onto your scrapbook page the way you need it to.

In all your standard photography courses, they teach you the basic principal of: Use all the available space!

For your scrapbooks… this is sometimes the totally WRONG ANSWER!

Yes, if you are going to print an image of your child’s smiling face and hang it on the wall, you want to get in closer and capture the face close up. The difference with the scrapbook or memory journal is that while you may want to have a close-up on the page, you are also going to be adding captions, journaling and other artwork that not only tells of your child’s wonderful smile, but that it’s their 1st birthday and they were smiling at grandma for the very first time.

Scrapbook Photo Technique: Take the close-up image, but also take one with grandma in the image and one of the child’s profile from the front of the ears forward on the very edge of the frame. (great to use as a scrapbook background) In short, think page background, and how you will tell the story on the page or page set. Then take the images needed for that one part of the story.

Photos of the birthday cake in the lower corner of the photo with a solid color wall or background and photos of the presents off to one side or along the bottom of the picture make wonderful scrapbook background images with plenty of empty space to fill with photos and journaling notes.

Landscapes are different:

When you travel or go on family outings, a lot of people take beautiful images of the landscapes and scenery.

The problems you run into as a scrapbook photographer is that these landscapes don’t make for good backgrounds in many cases because you will be covering much of it up with other photos and stories. And if you just put the images on the scrapbook page by themselves, they make for some very boring scrapbook page sets.

So, what do you do about it?

There are a couple of techniques that you can use to help jazz up your scrapbook scenery pages.

First, keep your family in the images but off to the side or near the bottom of the image and don’t be afraid to use the fill flash mode (if you have one) to highlight their faces. This keeps the story about them and that they were there.

Second, use the viewfinder and look at the image as if it were a background page. Imagine your images, titles and journaling over the top of the image you see. Now, move the camera around, turn it on end for portrait style and capture several images that work as backgrounds with the most important parts of the scenery around the sides of the photo.

Third, use a tree, some plants, a fence post or other close object to frame all or part of the image. Grandma and Grandpa holding hands and you shooting between them with just their shoulders, arms and hands framing the scenic is a really cool way to tie the family into the story.

Scrapbook Photography Tip: If your camera doesn’t have manual focus or it’s hard to use, then almost all cameras today allow you to point the camera somewhere else (like into the distance or at the sky), press the shutter button part way down so it activates the focus and light settings, then without releasing the shutter, point it where you want the photo taken and finish pressing the shutter. In this way you have the camera set to shoot a different setting than would be otherwise. You may need to practice this a bit, but it really works great at sunset and to place focus on other thanthe close up face or object.

Now it’s time again for the fun part… practice all these principles and techniques at the same time.

It’s not as easy as you might think! At least not at first anyhow.  Now you get an idea of why photographers take years to really learn their craft well.

This week’s assignment: Create 2 complete scrapbook pages using only your images and journaling/titles.

Go out in the morning or early afternoon with your friends or family. Take photos of backgrounds, people and nature.  Then, that evening go out again and take images in low light and of the sunset with someone as the focus of the story. Now, put the images onto your computer and using a digital scrapbook or photo editing program (you can print and do it by hand too, but that will cost you money for the prints and paper), create one page that tells the story of your morning and one page that tells the story of your evening. You can only use the images your took and titles/journaling boxes.

Show the results to family and friends that were not there and see if they understand the story and like what they see. After all, it’s only through the minds of others that we know we have told the complete story.

In Part 3, we’ll cover mood and some more tricks to make your photo’s look like a pro.

Until then, practice, practice, practice!

Wes Waddell

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I highly recommend princess crafts for all your scrapbooking

Posted on February 14th, 2010 by wwaddell.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Testimonial – no compensation of any kind.

Mrs Kathy,

Thank you for making scrapbooking a real enjoyment, I love the beautiful pages ya’ll make, they are awesome, and so easy to create beautiful scrapbooking pages for any occasion, I highly recommend princess crafts for all your scrapbooking projects. I have made four scrapbooks, one on each of my grandbabies in 3 days, totaling 100 pages, god bless ya’ll for all the hard work ya’ll do in making scrapbooking so enjoyable and fun.

Cindy Roderick,

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Printable Stickers and Photo Art

Posted on July 18th, 2009 by admin.
Categories: Site Information, Training.

Hi Scrapbook Friend,

Like we said in our newsletter… Lots has been added to our 8.5×11 and 12×12 members areas and to the no cost areas as well in the last month or two.

First off, Kathy has added New elements categories for you. 5 sets of Block Words and 12 sets of printable stickers photo art (both in their own new categories) have been added as of the end of June. Kathy has also added Added 6 new Patriotic sets and 6 new Summer scrapbook page sets.

Before I give you the link and you head off to check them out…

BIG NOTE: We will be replacing all the background, summer, spring, wedding and animal categories that are in the old gif format with new papers in our new updated png format. Look for those to start appearing next week and we’ll be totally done by the end of August. They won’t be exactly the same, so if you want the current designs… get them before they are gone!

Now, here’s the link to sign into your Members Home page to get the new sets: Digital Scrapbook Members Areas

Not a member yet… you can still see what’s new by checking out the thumbnail images at: www.PrincessCrafts.com for 8.5×11 and www.1-Computer-Scrapbook.com for the 12×12 digi-pages.

FREE for everyone…  Kathy has also added 3 new summer time digital stationeries (or digi-scrap backgrounds) to the stationery site at:

www.FREE-Stationery.com

For last month, we also added 6 new sets of Fathers Day or Dad’s Day scrapbook templates, 6 new two page layout sets for Spring – all in both 12×12 and 8.5×11 size formats.

We are also getting ready to put our prices back to normal instead of the almost 30% off that they are now.  We told you that we couldn’t afford to keep them that low forever!  So, if you want to save even more on your scrapbooks than you do already by getting unlimited access through a membership rather than paying for sets individually… do it now!

Before the price goes up again.

www.MyPrincessCrafts.com

Until next time,

Kathy & Wes

1 comment.

Simple Ideas to Entertain the Kids this Summer (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on June 25th, 2009 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Scrapbook Tips, Training.

2 Simple Ideas to Entertain the Kids this Summer (Part 2 of 2)

By: Wes Waddell 

We left off in part 1 with setting up the Digital Mystery Game and providing some basic ground rules and courtesies as needed.  We then sent our little spies, detectives and reporters out into their world to gather the data and photo evidence for their first story.  Now, it’s time to put on the final touches and to finish up the stories.

Playing the editor:

Your job in the game is not to criticize or take control, but to guide the children in their stories.  Yes, the younger they are the more help they’ll need; at least at first. But, you’ll also find that with just a little guidance, it won’t be long and they’ll be almost completing each story on their own.

When they first come back, have them explain a little about what they seen, what is on their notes (make sure they take notes… it’s very important later) and how the story unfolds.  Make sure that they have a beginning, a middle (the content that matches the title you first gave them) and a finish or ending.

If any of the parts are missing or it doesn’t match the story title, then your guidance as the editor is needed.  Ask them questions that lead them to the answers themselves. Ask why a photo is important or what could be added to better tell the complete story.  It’ doesn’t have to be perfect, just complete and thought out to the best of their abilities. 

If you see them begin to get frustrated, take a snack break or give them a clue that helps them out. Above all, keep it fun or it won’t last long.  You’ll also see that their stories and their capabilities will grow as they do more and more of them.  You’ll find a healthy helping of praise for what they do will go a long way in motivating them to go farther and do more.

Now, if needed, send them back out to gather the rest of the photo evidence and story notes.

The Final Story:

The fun doesn’t stop when the photos are all taken.  Now it’s time for them to draft the storybook scrapbook and show off the stories in a newsletter or website.

No, you don’t have to be a computer wiz to make this work, but if you do know how to assemble a basic web site or to create an online newsletter or blog, then you can show mom & dad or grandma and grandpa what the kids have been up to.

If you don’t know how to put the storybook scrapbooks or newsletters online, then just print the photos on card stock or photo papers and cut them out.  Then just get out the glue sticks, colored markers and stickers and let them create the stories the old fashioned way… by hand. 

We even take the digital storybook scrapbooks and print them out sometimes and then paste them to a large poster board in newspaper fashion with large photos of the kids by their stories.  Frame it in a poster frame and you have some really treasured memories to hang on the wall.

Kids and computers go well together and kids these days are using computers in school as young as 6 years old.  You can use any word processing program or digital scrapbook program to insert the photos and add the story text to.  Many of them will allow you to save the finished stories as a web page or upload to a blog. My 10 year old granddaughter is able to help her 7 year old sister to create beautiful storybook pages with Microsoft PowerPoint and Word.  I showed them how a couple of times and now I only have to help print the final stories after I review them.

That’s it, how far you take the game is up to you.  Create a whole summer storybook scrapbook or just have a few wonderful pages to frame and hang on your walls.  It’s fun, it keeps them busy and the memories they create are preserved for years to come.

It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Wes Waddell

www.PrincessCrafts.com
www.TwastheNightScrapbook.com

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