When we made the decision to sell our home, move into 39 feet and travel this beautiful country, one of my thoughts was how would I incorporate my crafty side, and where would I store an entire office space full of crafts?
Well, the short answer is, I couldn’t!
But photography and scrapbooking my memories was a huge part of my life. I wasn’t willing to give that up. After a bit of tedious research and realizing that I could no longer store a home office size amount of stuff, I turned to digital scrapbooking. Check out these pictures of my home office/craft room. I certainly had amazing space. I had resisted this idea for years. I loved sitting down with all my papers, and ribbons and punches, and scissors and the other millions of tools and such that I had. How could going digital be just as rewarding as that? Well, in all honesty, it’s not. But I have embraced this digital craft. And it gives me the creative outlet I need. I think my true passion is photography, so this is just helping me with the story telling around the photos, with a little color. Letting go of all my years of collecting wasn’t as hard as I thought because I was lucky enough to pass it on to my daughter, Krista, who loves to makes cards, and crafty things too. I knew it would be appreciated and used, and loved. I had spent many years owning my own scrapbook business, and spent another 6 or 7 years on magazine design teams where I would be contracted to make certain pages based on themes and supplies they sent to me. So not everything I owned was purchased. So much of it was given to me from the design teams I was on.
What program do I use to create my pages? I use a program called Keynote that came free on my Mac. Probably not the best program and certainly not a huge amount of options to be creative, but it works for me. I’m sure there are many options and programs you can use.
Where do I get my embellishments? Oh the possibilities are endless out there. You can purchase more digital scrapbooking supplies than I think you can real supplies. For me, purchasing digital scrabooking packages wasn’t high on my list of needs. We live inside a pretty “looked after” budget. So I use all free stuff. Sometimes I download the free item – say a certain patterned paper I want to use – and then change the color of it to better match what I’m going to be using it for. And there are tons of options!
Another option to try is be to join classes or meet-ups in whatever area you’re in. Not only do you get to meet new people, but you’ll share supplies, and ideas and usually leave with the items you’ve made and not the mounds of stuff it took to make those items.
Just because you’re in a small space, doesn’t mean you have to give up your crafts. There are so many options out there today with all the technology we have.
Keep Crafting!
I too had a LARGE amount of scrapbooking materials. They are currently stored for when we finally settle down in a couple of years. I don’t have a Mac so I will need to find a program that will work with Windows. If you run across one that folks have used and liked, let me know. Thanks
Mary, I will definitely do some research for you if you need me to. It’s not the same, but it is a way to keep your scrapbooking going.
Wow, I never even thought of the digital scrapbooking , I will definitely look into this. I used to sell scrapbooking supplies and I have way more paper than I will ever use but I’m sure gonna try. I am excited now about crafting again. I managed to get a small portion of my crafts in the rv, the rest is in storage. The cricut definitely made the cut….can’t wait to get started.
It’s different, but it’s definitely satisfying never the less! Can’t wait to see what you come up with. Keep in touch! I’d love to see it!