Digital vs Paper Scrapbooking

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Digital vs Paper Scrapbooking

Hello, I am somewhat new here. I work a lot, so I try to visit as often as I can. I think my bumper sticker should read... I'd rather be paper crafting! lol

I was just wondering, as a digital scrap-booker, do you ever print your creations out on 12 x 12 paper? not many people have such printers, or are your dimensions mostly letter sized? Do you prefer 12x12 because you can fit more photos on that size? Thank you for any comments, have a great day and stay safe.

The great thing about digital is you can print it out at any size you need. Some people do get prints made at 12x12 size, both of finished layouts or as a photo book. I prefer to print my finished layouts in a photo book of 10x10 inches. Others will crop to whatever size they prefer.

I have printed several books in 8x8". I think I would love 10x10", but not all book printing companies offer that size. I did print one book at 12x12", but I found it to be too large for my taste. It's a good coffee table size book, but hard to store on a shelf because it really stuck out further than anything else on any of my bookshelves and just didn't look good. Hope this helps! : )

It depends on what you want to do. What kind of things are you looking to scrapbook? Concerts? Sports? School? Vacation? Baby?

I have a non-traditional scrapbook in the sense that I have a year long personal project called the Happiness Box. I collect notes for the year, then open it on 1/1, then I scrapbook the contents as I collect new contents for a new year in year journal. Those scrapbooks go year by year, 12x12 and are in a binder scrapbook because it's so huge. Usually those are just one page each with different notes, photos, and stickers.

When I scrapbook vacations, sometimes I'll go 8x8 or 12x12. These are often spreads with journaling and photos. When I was still a student, I made my own yearbook one year and scrapbooked on 8.5x11 paper. I wanted it to resemble an actual yearbook, but it was my own creative take.

Your Happiness Box sounds like such a fun idea!

I had a 12x12 printer at one time and loved it! I used to create shapes in PSE and then print on the paper and then cut out the tag or whatever. But I really HATE fussy cutting, so that didn't last very long! What I do now is make most of my pages 8x8 and send them to Persnickety to print.

I used to paper scrap and had 88 albums completed - and all were 12 x 12. When I started digi scrapping I digitized all my pages - first doing it myself first scanning in four pieces and stitching in photoshop. Didn't take long to run out of steam doing that so I sent them off and for $1.00 a page, got them scanned professionally. There were enough pages to fill 26 digi albums - 60-110 pages each. Spent a fortune, but I didn't have room for 88 traditional scrapbooks that no one ever picked up and looked at. I pulled the embellishments off the pages, scanned them, made pngs of them and use them over and over!

Now I just digi scrap all 12 x 12. I travel more than I should (Or did until 2020) and always had a portable scanner with me on cruises.

I print all my albums with Shutterfly, and each are numbered and titled on the cover and spine. I'm currently working on Book 76 - "To The Holidays and Beyond" which started with Halloween 2020, went through Thanksgiving, going through Christmas and New Year's, and will include enough to bring it to about 100 pages. That will probably also include everyday stuff, a Beach trip in May and possibly go through our son's college graduation a few months ago. Then Book 77 isn't titled until I see what pictures I start with. Most likely it will be, "Life Is Better With Friends" I love to do my album titles after movie and song titles to, so the Title may be, "I get by with a little help from my friends".

Anxious to start traveling again and get going on Travel Scrapbooks - I enjoy those the most.

One thing I really want to do is do an album with just funny memories and stories. I scrap all our funny stories and I want to compile our funny stories and add more that I haven't done yet.

I couldn't ever get any of my printers to print color properly so I just sent my pages off to be printed. I did that until I realized that I was running out of room for chunky scrapbooks. Now I happily send everything to a print shop and have 10x10 bound books made. Best decision for me! I create a yearly album and usually a travel album. Last year, my hubby and I took quite a few weekend getaways and I made a book for those as well. However you decide to complete your scrapbooks, enjoy the journey!

I also came to this from years of paper scrapping. I prefer the 12x12 size because I have a strong tendency to cram as many photos on a page as possible, and bigger pages was pretty much the only way that worked with printed photos! So, being the paparazzi mom that I am, I still roll with that. I was getting my pages printed in the 12x12 size at Persnickety Prints and putting them in albums. But I’ve more recently started getting them printed through Blurb books. The albums are much slimmer, I’ve been happy with the quality so far, and they run sales often so it’s pretty reasonably priced for my 120+ page yearly albums.

I live where hurricanes and flooding typically occur, so I switched from paper to digital (and some hybrid) so I can have my memories backed up on the cloud and printed for everyone to look at. I also like how I can make as many copies of a book as I'd like, which is great for gifts and if I need to replace lost albums. I print my layouts in 12x12 or 10x10 sizes, depending on the type of album/book I am making through Persnickety Prints.

This is the best way to not lose things from damage from a storm. We weren't allowed to return home for almost 3 weeks from Hurricane Ida.

I like digital more then real atm.

Still have a lot of the stuff but digital became easier and more shareble.

I'm feeling the digital right now. After a few years of really enjoying hybrid scrapbooking, I feel that 2022 may be mostly digital.

I think I'm an oddball having begun with digital! I started digi over 10 years ago and then wanted to try Project Life with physical product. That may have been a mistake since I started buying too many supplies. Now I'm back to mostly digital.

Tell us more about the Happiness box...

I have printed my 12x12 pages 6x6. I have a 6x6 album I put them in.

That's true, and good to know. I guess any square configuration would work for sizing down. Thank you.

thank you all for your interesting replies, I appreciate that you took the time. I know what ya mean, digi is fun and a nice safe alternative for all that work, but hands on is still fun for me too. Wish you all the best, have a wonderful day and keep scrappin'... Leslie

Yes please tell us more!

I am in the minority…I don’t print my pages at all…I used to but now I don’t….too much money and too much space!

Your cruise idea to bring it with you is great idea! That would of been great when I went on my first and only (so far) cruise. I did buy the 1 x 12 cruise album and finished within a month of getting the pics back. Thank you

I like the idea of the cloud to be able to retrieve your photos and albums. They sure represent a lot of work, time, and of course memories of life. I am not fond of the 'cloud' but for that reason alone it would be a great place to store them. So glad you were able to go back to your home, too. Thank you

I create digital scrapbooking. Then I get tired of the computer, I start printing sheets. I make paper journals. Everything is falling apart, the mess is starting. I think so, wait, where's my digital scrapbooking? After a while everything starts again...:-)

Hi all! I do all physical scrapbooking and was wondering if all the images and patterns here are printable. I noticed that one of the tags is "printable" and it made me wonder if some aren't. TIA! smiley

Hi, Crystal. I may be wrong, but I believe when it says "printable" it means that the papers are home-printer-friendly, meaning the size is 8.5" X 11". Anything else under 8.5" X 11" (or 2550 pixels X 3300 pixels) is also home-printer-friendly. But even with larger elements and papers, you can always resize them to suit your needs.

I am also adapting from tradidional paper scrapbooking into digital and, although I am loving doing my pages, I am still trying to figure out how to make my Digital Layouts more palpable outside the screen.
If I make them in photoshop, in the 12x12 format, and 300dpi resolution, can I, at some point, put them as pages in printable albums? Does the quality come out ok?

Yes! 300 DPI is print quality, so you'll be able to print at whatever dimension you create in (12x12 for example).

i create my pages in a 12x12 format and then when they're finished i upload on to snapfish and print a hard copy 12x12 photobook. I have been impressed by their quality and its reasonably priced!