Tradigital Me

I've succumbed to the dark side of late. The draw of digital scrapbooking was too heavy. My christmas gift of an upgrade to PaintShop Pro 9 is what triggered it. So all blame must be placed fairly on my MATH's shouders, as he gave me it. And of course, being the good giftee as I am, I had to start using it properly, to show my thankfullness for the upgrade - and to ensure future gifts arrive as required.

Here comes an admission I won't be quoted on - my entry into the obsessional world of scrapbooking many moons ago was not because of my need to preserve my heritage or family memories (as all other good scrapbookers claim faithfully). I just picked up scrapbooking because I like to make things with paste and paper. It harkens back to my childhood carefree days of creating paper mache puppets or coil-ringed lop-sided clay ashtrays. I like to create. Scrapbooking was a natural progression from rubber stamping, the odd card making, and a foray into cross-stitching. Scrapbooking allowed me to do all that, and also smear my fingers with PVA glue-a-plenty and spend a happy few minutes pulling the glue-skin off. It also made a good excuse for a better camera.

Due to my need to "play with hands" I baulked at the whole digital thing for over a year. How could that be creating? I wondered. Besides, I work fultime in the IT industry - going home and sitting for another few hours in front of a computer monitor was not an appealing (or healthy) thought.

However, RSI be damned, the call came this new year. First, an upgrade of my image application, then the temptation of a lovely and locally produced digital kit, and my fall into the digi-darkness was secured.

I made my first digital layout. It took the same time I would have taken to do a normal one - ie. hours and hours and hours - but I was reasonably happy with the layering, and composition and choice of the elements on my page. I put it up on an online gallery, and got lots of praise for it. Not bad, for my first attempt. I still wasn't hooked completely, though. It didn't appear to be creating anything when I was just using supplied elements put together by somebody else. The online gallery praise pointed out that it was me that had designed the layout - but still I was concerned about the lack of feeling like I had actually created something.

My second attempt saw me trying to create. I taught myself blending and making a background from the photo background. I sought and learnt the creation of a tube from an element. I made an ethereal and magical layout out of very few pre-purchased digi-elements. Proudly, I put that one up on the gallery too. Less praise this time - they didn't realise the effort. In fact, I doubt they even knew that the photo I used was only half the size of the layout, and the rest of the background had been created by me. By me, I tell you!

People think digital is easy, and they think it's cheap. Nope to both of those. Downloadable kits are not that cheap - the fallacy comes from the ability to reuse those elements. But realistically - are we really going to re-use that background paper again on another layout? And if you've seen (and collected) one set of digital alpha typewriter keys, then you've seen (and purchased) them all. But if another typewritter key set comes in another kit? Well, I guess I might be able to tell the difference which one I'm using...

Did the move into digital stop my hand-creations? NO, I managed to spend a day doing up a mini album thankyou gift for the neighbours. And re-found my enjoyment in that by-hand process again. Sometimes you lose that joy. Digital scrapbooking gave me the needed oomph to understand it, recognise it, and refurnish my pleasure from the process.

I've created a third full digital layout now. And downloaded enough kits to do many others. Kit and element collecting can be as much a compulsive shopping obsession as the real life stash-seducers. Ah, but digital shopping is so much more easily hidden from the MATH. He can see my shelves of papers and un-used eyelet pots. But he has no idea where my digis are kept on the hard-drive.

So, I'm not a digital diva, nor a paste and paper scrapbooker anymore. I'm a mutant mix of both, and wear my badge proudly. "Hello, my name is ..........., and I'm a Tradigitalist".