my first digi-baby

Back during those months when I was doing our wedding preps, I had noticed that scrapbooking has taken formal launch as more and more of scrapbooking items were made available specifically at national bookstore. Gone are the days when a scrapbook could be made literally out of “scrap.” The scrapbooking accessories I saw at the store had awakened this poorly developed artistic side of my brain and I had planned on starting this new hobby as soon as possible. Unfortunately though, something else had occupied my remaining few months in the Philippines that I wasn’t even able to shop for all the needed accessories before I left for Dubai. I was hoping to be able to pursue scrapbooking here but to my dismay, the shops I have gone to don’t have as much scrapbooking items as I had found at national bookstore and the few accessories available were not enough to inspire me to continue.Due to the nature of my job back in manila and the fact that my beloved ex-employer has the strictest policy on internet access, I felt I was always lagging behind in terms of the newest trend on the net. In fact, I have known blogging since 2004 but was only able to start my own site this year! During the past 3 months, though, the net has been my most frequented place (oh the joy of having net connection at home!), and during one of those many afternoons I spent googling, I realized I could still pursue my scrapping plan through digi-scrapping! I got super excited and went on to research more about this new rave but was discouraged when I found out I would need to buy accessories online. I am never a fan of online shopping basically because my first ever experience wasn’t reassuring at all—in 2002, I bought one year subscription to Harvard Business Review for my boss and ended up being charged twice! The double-charging was reversed after so many calls and emails and verification online (whew!). And that is why the first time I was introduced to digiscrapping I didn’t give it much thought.

Just recently I was organizing my files on the computer and realized that unprinted photos are piling up, taking too much space out of my C drive. This prompted me to revisit my interest on digiscrapping, besides, Nico was able to get us a copy of adobe photoshop. My first attempt was a bit discouraging as I was too intimidated by the many tools in photoshop. However, the free digital kits available online are simply enticing. I refused to allow the right side of my brain to be bequeathed to rust, thus, I carried on. My practice layout (below) is actually similar to the one I downloaded and this is because I chose to concentrate on learning how to use the photoshop tools rather than creating an original layout. The whole effort was exhausting especially when my PC runs too slow and since my wrist is oftentimes hurting. But the fact that I learned so much about photoshop by simply recreating this layout is enough to celebrate…there are tons of things to discover and I will carry on; I have only just begun.

CREDITS:
Fonts: Keyboard Plaque and Blue Vinyl’s ’60’s Chic font
Brushes by:
Shabby Princess
Brushes downloaded from:
www.misprintedtype.com

PS. I am half-wishing now I didn’t sign up for the job I recently took, hehehe