Episode 99: Breaking the Rules

The Topic

Robin Carlton from Sweet Shoppe Designs joins us this week as we discuss how digital scrapbooking has changed over the years for us personally and as a community. Together, all of us have a combined 31 years of digital scrapbooking experience…that’s a lot! Come share your thoughts at https://thedigishow.com

Share a voicemail for our 100th show at https://thedigishow.com/talk

Joining the Discussion:

Robin Carlton
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph

Show Notes:

Share your ideas for our 100th episode in the form in the side bar of The Digi Show (titled “I’ve Been Wondering”).

  • Project Life vs. Pocket Scrapping

Picks of the Week:

Robin: Books By The Foot
Peppermint: Google Hangouts
Katie: Google Sketchup (videos • 3D warehouse)
Steph: Story

Sponsors:

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This entry was posted in Katie, Peppermint, Robin Carlton, Show Post, Steph. Bookmark the permalink.

27 Responses to Episode 99: Breaking the Rules

  1. Karen Poirier-Brode (Ladydoc) says:

    Congrats on the upcoming 100th show anniversary. You folk were some of my contact with “home” while I’ve been away (in truth, as I’m sitting in the Incheon airport in Korea, I’m not technically home yet) Internet was spotty in Myanmar and phone connection nonexistent and my husband is a rare responder to e-mail. So, you folk, my FB account and Paperclipping were my sometime link home. When I gave Peppermint a POTW you all said you loved me, LOL and I’m returning the favor. Love you. Always great discussions and thanks to you folk, Jessica Sprague and Debbie Hodge I’m actually doing more Digi scrapping – though not this past month! I think I’ll be using some multi photo templates and some pocket scrapping to deal with what must be thousands of photos that I took. I could have taken so many more, too! I have a few ideas for designing some papers and elements, too, as a result of my travels but that is likely to go on the back burner as I get into the hourly-burly of life when home. Just want to say thanks for always informative and often fun shows from some very friendly personalities. Still annoyed that I got behind on episodes and missed you in Anaheim. Maybe there will be a Digi scrap event in the future where Digi Show folk can meet. Fingers crossed! Have a great celebratory event!

    • Katie says:

      Thanks so much for your sweet comment! Nice to know we could go along with you on your travels. :)

  2. Kris Beauregard says:

    Pausing the show at 7:07 to say I AM SO EXCITED that you guys are considering the scrapoff! (although I initially was not thinking a competition so much as just seeing what you all do, but hey, whatever works!) Please oh please oh please!

  3. Anna Forrest says:

    Totally unrelated to the show – I have negatives of my wedding photos that I need to get scanned etc. Can anyone recommend a place that will do a quality job of this? I am petrified of putting those things in the mail and getting back cruddy results and/or damaged negatives!

    • Kris Beauregard says:

      I have used southtree.com to transfer VHS to DVD. I was pleased with the result. I have not had specific experience with them with negatives but I think that they would do a good job.

    • Lahni says:

      I don’t know if you’ve already sent them away but my brother bought a scanner that wasn’t too expensive that scans negatives. It did a beautiful job. It even cleans them up for you as it scans if you want it to. I can’t remember what it was called and he’s out of texting range right now but it’s definitely something to look in to.

  4. Leslie says:

    I started in Microsoft Digital Image Suite as well, and there are some effects in there that I miss using in PSE/PS. Katie, you have it on your Win7 machine and it still runs? I may have to reinstall it! :D

  5. LeeAndra says:

    re: Steph/Peppermint & the move from forums to social media

    To piggyback off what Peppermint was saying, I think that digital scrappers, specifically, have moved away from forums and to social media like Facebook because of the intense personal nature of the hobby that unites us. This is not just rock climbing or poker playing or cooking lessons, but sharing personal stories abt ourselves and our families. We get to know our fellow scrappers more deeply and more quickly than many other hobbyists do, and it’s a natural progression in friendship, online or otherwise, to want to take that relationship ‘to the next level’ by becoming Facebook friends. Social media goes hand-in-hand with digital scrappers’ expectations of instant gratification. We don’t have to wait for our scrapbook products, so why should we have to wait for our friends’ scrapbook layouts or stories? Along the same lines, the things many people share on Facebook are the same things that we share through our pages, so we (most of us, anyways, Steph ;)) feel comfortable with that amount and type of sharing. As memory-keepers, we obviously appreciate and value the relationships in our lives through our scrapbooks, so it would only follow that we would nurture our relationships outside our families with people who also share that value. Facebook (and other social media sites) is the easiest way to do this with the international community digital scrapping has become.

    Social media (and podcasts for that matter) are also a great way to maintain human interaction inside a hobby that is individual-centric and most often done alone at home. You don’t need a team to create a scrapbook page, but you form one via your social media connections, kwim? Working on CTs and uploading to galleries gets you that ‘human fix’ which is only made better once you integrate Facebook, Instagram, etc. into your daily routine. Scrapping becomes almost equal parts creation and sharing, and that is really cool, I think. Podcasts, specifically, are a neat way for us to experience fellow scrappers in a different way than through their layouts and social media posts. This hobby is obviously all visual, so it’s a nice change of pace to HEAR other scrappers and, most interestingly for me, hear a more off-the-cuff casual version of themselves. There is no ‘Ctrl+Alt+Delete’ or ‘Edit Post’ during a podcast! The industry has become so stream-lined in recent years with the creation of templates, actions, masks, etc. that it’s nice to have something that is not techy at all, where there is laughter and silence, where there could be the possibility of a recording error or a misspoken word or phrase, where there is human-ness amidst all the computers and programs and equipment that plugs me back in to why I do what I want with digital scrapping.

  6. LeeAndra says:

    ‘… why I do what I do with digital scrapping.’

    I wish there was a Edit Comment button here. LOL!

  7. Leslie says:

    Oh, also, I wanted to say that I love Google Sketch-Up. I use it quite often in my work to layout out architecture and I love doing fly-throughs of buildings. It’s amazing how something so fabulous can be so free!

  8. C Robin Sullivan says:

    Hi Girls, I love yours podcast! You make me laugh every show. I am a paper scrapper, but get a lot of good ideas from the three of you. Happy 100 show!! Keep up the great job you do. Thanks C.Robin

  9. Just a thumbs up for Google Hangouts. My son and I use it all the time (even though we are in the same house). He goes on one computer and watches his youtube videos like “the brick show” and I monitor what he is watching via screen share while I am in another room scrapbooking on my computer. You can put on crowns or mustaches and add a beach background, we have lots of fun.

    • Amy says:

      Carmen I LOVE this idea! How do I monitor another computer using screen share? Are there any hardware limitations? One of our computers is old but they are networked together using our router? I could really use this as my kids are getting bigger.

      • OK so I don’t really know the answers to your questions but I would say just try it. Google Hangouts is free you just need a gmail email address for each computer. My son uses an old laptop that has been replaced at my husbands office. You need to be able to go on the internet with each device. If you just want to screen share you may not even need a web cam, I will try to find out for you. I know we have gone on with really old computers and my mini tablet if that helps.

      • Peppermint says:

        I’ve only ever been able to access the screenshare button after initiating a video call, so I wonder if you don’t have a webcam if the software just locks you out of being able to make one? Once in the video call, though, there are a series of buttons down the left side that allow you to take photos (screencaps), share your screen and a couple of other things. I was so excited about the screenshare one I neglected to look at the other buttons.

  10. Amy says:

    I’m just listening to this show and had to stop and comment. YES ON THE SCRAPOFF!!! That would be amazing way to celebrate 100. My only request is that you make the video available to view/download after the event because with our family schedule right now, I’d surely miss the live event and have to watch at some oddball time. I bet you could even spend a whole show, or more, talking about different things that came up during the event. Amazing idea!

  11. Suzy says:

    Oh the memories! Thank you for taking me back to the beginning. That was really fun remembering different trends & how digi scrapping “used” to be. I agree with all your ideas on the move from forums to social media. I think it’s so much easier for us to share our lives & stay connected — especially because we want to share our lives in photos, & it’s so much easier to share those in social media. And thank you, Katie, for the reminder about Sketchup! We downloaded it for my son with autism, & then I forgot about it. :)

    • Katie says:

      Suzy – this program we participated in was specifically for people with autism. The instructor talked about what a great tool it has been for that population and what a fantastic way it is for them to express themselves. Really cool!

  12. Katie Scott says:

    Katie: You are right about trends going to digital about a year before they go to paper – I’ve realized this via this podcast and Debbie Hodge’s sites and Pinterest. I think the lesson for the paper scrappers is to look at the digital stores if you want to know what’s going to be trendy in paper. :) Katie Scott.

    P.S. I still love forums – and I’m so “over” facebook. I don’t really need my entire world on Facebook knowing how obsessed I am with scrapbooking. Get It Scrapped is a nice place to hang out for an open forum.

  13. Katie (sakura-panda) says:

    It seems to me that there were 51 episodes under Paperclipping so that *this* episode (#99) is your unofficial 150th. Just sayin’. :)

    Also, was this the first mention of the voice recordings? I’m a bit behind, so I know I’m too late for the 100th episode, but I feel bad that I didn’t notice it before. I don’t know that I would have called in — I don’t chat using my computer so it sounds awkward — but I would have at least considered it.

    (My fell-behind excuse is that I was adding podcasts from the Touring Plans network — as soon as I saw how far behind I had fallen, I decided I didn’t need those additional ones after all and I’m working to get caught up again.)

    I’m totally not interested in a scrapoff video that I’ll never watch, but would love to hear a discussion about it afterwards or even to listen to the audio of it, if one became available. I never watch online videos — not intentionally, but because I don’t remember that I have them to watch.

    On topic, I also started digital scrapbooking in 2005. I was active in several paper scrapbooking forums and one of them had a couple of newbie digital scrapbookers. I liked their layouts, but was not interested in adopting a similar style. I bought Printmaster because one of the digi-scrappers had said she had made her first digital layouts using that program and I thought it would an inexpensive way to try it out, but I was immediately frustated by the lack of layers. (I’d used Photoshop in college and knew about layers, but I did not acquire a version of it for myself back then in the digital dark ages of the mid-90s.)

    I heard about the new Photoshop Elements (Version 3), reworked from the ground up and much more powerful and user-friendly than previous versions. By now, I’d had my frustrating photobook experience and was willing to give it a try. I bought the software and started surfing the internet.

    I tend to seek out forums of experienced users whenever I aquire a new “toy” to find out all the tips and tricks that other people like to share. I have tried several times to find a digital scrapbooking community, but the ones I found didn’t “connect” with me for one reason or another and I never joined any.

    Robin’s comment about people not sitting at their keyboards as much anymore (and therefore not chatting as much) was an Ah-Ha! moment for me — the boards that I belong to that are the most active have either Forum Runner or Tapatalk App support and the most active participants often post from their phones with those apps. Maybe digi-scrap forums do not have enough chatter for me to get to know them!

    Anyway, because I never found a digital community where felt I could fit in comfortably, I have been posting (and chatting) on paper scrapbooking boards all these years and missed nearly all of the digital trends as they happened. It’s fascinating to listen to you all discuss “the way things used to be” and “Remember when”s and realize that even though I’ve been digi-scrapping for almost as long, I have no idea what you’re talking about! LOL

    I’m going to check out the Get It Scrapped forums, since they come so highly recommended here, the place where I’ve been getting my digi-scrap-community fix. Thanks!

    • steph says:

      Fun to hear your history in Digi scrap, Katie!

      Thanks for all of your kind words and yes, blame TouringPlans Network ;) haha!!

  14. mrshobbes says:

    Obviously I am catching up, haha! Just a quick note about Google Hangouts for Peppermint– for multiple (more than two) computers, there’s the main screen (which is probably yours) that is big and takes up like 50% of the monitor, and then the others in the hangout line up in the bottom.

    I’ve seen events done where Google Hangout is used as a livestreaming event, so you have a celebrity announce the event and there’s some random picking of who gets to be there on the call (so one of the little screens). For those who don’t get picked or anyone who just wants in on the event, it’s beamed through YouTube, so one can see all the screens and see how celebrities interact directly with the chosen fans.

    So really, I think the Scrap-Off could definitely happen! Just announce it as a livestreaming event and peeps will flock! :D (I’d love to be one of those who’re in on the call, though!) :p

  15. Rhadonda says:

    I just want to followup on a comment i had left previously about wanting more equal sharing or more from the guest and then i listened to this show. I think this show was so well balanced, you guys were even saying “let me give another a turn”. It was great. I love you each, I hope you heard my heart. This show was sooooo interesting to me. Being fairly new to the digi world i am so glad that people are over the taboos of using templates or anything that makes it more efficient. (I have a bunch of Katie’s!) Otherwise i wouldn’t be doing digital because that was the best way for me to learn. One of my first pages i tried was after watching a video by Steph. I am so glad for all the changes. And i am sure there are more to come with the ever changing technological world we live in. As far as the scrap off i totally loved watching those take place through Adobe Connect at Scrap Orchard, so much fun and learned a lot and connected by chatting on the sidelines. I love the Sweet Shoppe and Robin sounds awesome. I have enjoyed their Top 10 Videos. Peppermint always makes me smile and i love her honesty and insight. Great show!! I don’t see how you beautiful ladies do all that you do but thanks for doing that thing you do!