Hey there, scrappers! As we say goodbye to winter and welcome spring, it is the perfect time to learn something new!

I love learning about new techniques and tools that will help me in my scrapping journey, and this time of year seems like the perfect time to break out of my scrapping rut and try something new. So, I decided to peruse The Digital Press Blog for some new ideas.

If you haven’t checked out any of the site’s amazing Tutorial Tuesday posts in a while, you are missing out! There are some really fantastic posts with techniques from color editing, to photography, to hybrid projects, and more. I am blown away by the awesome ideas shared in these posts. So, I decided to highlight a few fabulous tutorials that you might be able to incorporate into your next project or layout.

Photography Tips

First, if you’re hoping to improve your photography skills now that the weather is nicer and you can get outside with your camera… TDP creative team members Farrah and Chloe have both shared great tutorials recently.

Check out…

• Chloe’s post Intentional Blur in Photography — great for the outdoor photos you might be wishing to capture this spring.
• Farrah’s tutorial Playing with Color to Change the Mood of Your Photos, which will have you adjusting color in your own images in no time!

Here’s an image I created using Farrah’s color tutorial….

I don’t usually use selective color with my photos, but I am working on a layout about my son Will’s favorite stuffed animal. I love this photo because it captures how he is always carrying “Raffi” (his giraffe) around, however, the colors and background were quite distracting. By using selective color, I was able to eliminate the conflicting colors and put the focus on his favorite toy.

Scrapping Techniques

If learning a new scrapping technique is on your to-do list, The Digital Press Blog has you covered with a few really great recent articles by team members Pallavi and Biancka.

Check out…

• Pallavi’s Wave Shadowing Tutorial. I had never used this method of shadowing prior to reading her tutorial, but when I tried it out I was really impressed!
• In Tutorial Tuesday: Using the Layer Mask, Biancka shares a tip about using layer masks to work with shadows.

Hybrid How-To’s

Finally, The Digital Press blog is also overflowing with hybrid goodness. A lot of us digital scrappers get nervous when we see/hear the word “hybrid” because it looks… well, just so complicated and difficult! But some of these recent articles really simplify the process and make it seem like an attainable goal for anyone!

Check out…

• Alina’s recent post Prettify Your Pantry, in which she uses hybrid techniques to organize and beautify her pantry while up-cycling containers that she already had laying around the house!
• Tanya shared some adorable mini Easter baskets in her tutorial. I think these would be really cute as party favors, too, decorated with festive paper and embellishments!

With all these amazing ideas and tutorials on the blog, you are sure to find something new to learn!

And to give you an incentive to give one of them a try… I am hosting a challenge over in the The Digital Press Forum, in which you can use one of our fabulous Tutorial Tuesday posts to create your own project. I hope you will come check it out, play along, and earn some TDP challenge points! Happy learning and happy scrapping!

About the Author  Katie is a member of the creative team here at The Digital Press. She lives in central Florida with her husband and their four sweet-but-crazy boys. When she’s not dodging Nerf bullets or trying to dig out from under a never-ending pile of laundry, she enjoys photography, cooking, going to Disney World with her family… and, of course, digital scrapbooking.

I’m sure I’m not the only memory-keeper out there that loves to scrap the ‘big’ stuff in life. You know what I mean…  the vacations, the birthdays, the celebrations, the weddings, and the holidays. There are obviously many reasons to document those “big” moments, and they definitely have an important place in our scrapbooks.  In fact, going through photos of those “big” events at a later date conjures so many memories and wonderful feelings. Anyone else feel the same?

But… what about the “small” things?

So much of our lives are made up of the little everyday moments. Someday, we’ll love remembering those moments, too.

I’m talking about the moments, activities, and feelings that happen during the course of a “normal” day. I’ve really been contemplating this idea lately — the question of “who on earth would want to know what happens during my typical day?” But then I think to the future… I think of my kids growing up to become adults, and looking through the scrapbooks that I put my heart and soul into creating. I think of them reminiscing about vacations we enjoyed, celebrations we happily celebrated, and proms that they attended. I also think of them looking through these scrapbooks and thinking about our everyday life. I want them to see and remember all the facets of our lives… from the “boring” to the exciting. I want them to know ME. I want them to see how I spent my Saturdays (because, let’s face it, they are a little clueless when it comes to what goes into running a household!). Scrapbooking is about documenting our lives, and what a great way to share those memories, even the little things.

Here’s a layout I recently created that shows what a “normal” Saturday in our life looks like through my eyes (created with Talkative Templates by Scotty Girl Design and Daily | Scrapbook Kit by Little Lamm & Co.)…

If you need some ideas on the “little” things that you may want to document… just think about what makes up your life each day. You may be so annoyed about the toys on the floor… but, before you know it, there won’t be toys on the floor. Capture them while they’re a part of your story! How about that pile of dirty laundry? Think of how blessed you are that you are and your family are clothed and warm. Think of sharing a meal with your family… the smiles, the food, the conversation. Don’t you always want to remember how it feels right now? What about that wonderful glass of wine that is so deserved after a very long day… take a photo of it and document why it is so deserved! There are so many little moments during the course of our day that all add up to create our lives… and we don’t want to forget these “little” things, because they’re really not that little. We want to capture them, so they can live on and reflect our real lives…. that’s the legacy we want to leave. Our REAL lives.

Here’s another great example of capturing the “little” things… this lovely pocket-style page was created by the very talented Farrah of TDP’s creative team (using Daily | Photoshop Templates, Daily | Scrapbook Kit, and Daily | Pocket Cards and Printables by Little Lamm & Co.)…

I have one more fantastic “everyday life” layout to share with you… this one, created by Amie, another one of the wonderfully-inspiring TDP creative team members (she created this with the Project Twenty Sixteen | March Kit by Wishing Well Creations and Talkative Templates by Scotty Girl Design)…

Hopefully this post has given you some ideas about ways to use the “everyday moments” in life to help you capture your real life when you scrapbook. It is such an important part of leaving our legacy!

And now… are you ready to capture your own everyday moments? Head over to The Digital Press’s challenge forum, because I have a related challenge waiting for you!

About the Author  Heidi Nicole is happily married to an amazing man, a step mama to 2 wonderful kiddos, and mama to 3 sweet and sassy furbabies. She’s a radiation therapist by day, and creator of pretty things by night (she’s pretty confident that she’s hit super hero status, but refuses to wear a cape). She loves cats and huskies, coffee, audio books, Friends reruns, St. Louis Blues hockey, cooking, baking, and traveling. Oh, and wine… she really likes wine. She lives a normal and happy life, and enjoys all the absolutely extraordinary people she gets to share it with on a daily basis!

One of my favorite things about scrapbooking is that it allows me to capture the history of my life in ways that would never be documented otherwise. I have always loved knowing about the history of the people in my life, so I’m making an effort to include my story and the story of those who came before me in our family scrapbooks. We’ve likely all heard the old adage about those who don’t know history being doomed to repeat it… and, well, I think understanding where we come from and what we’ve experienced makes our lives more rich and nuanced! Take the time to include history in your scrapbooks, and you will be rewarded in many ways!

There are so many different ways to include your personal history in your scrapbook pages. The most common way is to scrapbook about the people, places and events from your family’s history. One idea is tell stories from the past that don’t have photos associated with them. You can tell about how an event in history affected your family like I did with the layout below about Pearl Harbor…

Another thing to remember is that you can still scrapbook photos that you don’t have a lot of information about; you can always talk about why a photo is special to you, or about questions you have or different things you wonder about as you look at the photo. For the layout below, I don’t have a lot of information about the photo… but I decided to journal about what I notice when looking at it, and what it means to me.

Not all pages about history have to be hundreds of years old, however. Telling stories about your own childhood will also allow you to capture your personal history. Your family will love learning about you as a child! Here is a layout that I created about my childhood and one of our adventures…

It can be rewarding to take the time to make sure that you’re including your history in your pages. It’s a great way to get in touch with your roots and help you figure out what you can learn from the past.

Now it is your turn to capture history. Come on over to the forum and join our weekly scrapbooking challenge! I can’t wait to see the pages you create about YOUR personal history!

About the Author  Amy lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband of 14 years and their 11 year old boy/girl twins. Their 20 year old daughter is in the midst of her third year at West Virginia University! Amy has been scrapbooking since the early 1990s, but discovered digital scrapbooking in 2005 when her twins were born and has primarily scrapped digitally since that time. She is passionate about telling her family’s stories and documenting their life together! Amy is a huge reader (mostly literary fiction), and is a pop culture junkie! She also LOVES all things beauty & makeup!