I used to hate January, I got the blues as all the holiday lights and decorations came down. As the weather grew colder, I felt colder inside too!
However, once I saw how wonderful January could be, my outlook went from depressing blue to happy, bright yellow.
Here is how : Starting in October, everything gets so hectic for me and goes straight through until the end of December. One of the things that stresses me out is that I get lots of photos over the holidays and I really don’t have time to organize them and scrap them while life is so nuts! In fact, I am lucky to even get them off my digital camera and onto my computer!
So, one year it occurred to me not to stress about it… to just save all the fun of digital scrapbooking these special memories during a month that isn’t so busy and stressful- January! Yes, January is now my month to spend being creative. I get to scrap all those digital photos that came in the crazy (but fun) months before!
Once I made this my goal, January has been a helpful month- one that helps me get back on track, organized, and allowes me to get back to what I love to do- digitall scrap. It’s become such a relacing month, that I actually begin to really look forward to it!
First, I look over my photos and think of how I want to scrap them.
Next, I gather all the scrapbooking kits that I bought on sale or old kits I have on my computer. I see what I have and what I will need – if I need some more scrapbooking kits, then I buy a few more so that I will be ready to scrap. (See Digital Scrapbooks and More’s Scrap Shop for great scrapbooking kits and supplies!)
Then I cuddle up in front of my computer and open both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (I use them both, sometimes at the same time (yes, I know I am a bit crazy, but then again, I like different features in the two programs and use each program for what they do best. I have to confess, I use Elements the most and only switch to Photoshop for the fancy features that aren’t found in Elements!)
Once I have Elements or Photoshop open, I start combining my digital scrapbooking supplies with digital photos, add text, and start making all my great digital scrapbooking pages so that my family can remember the great memories we made together over the holidays.
Once I have made may digital scrapbooking pages, then I want to save them.
Next, I save my scrapbooking pages in several formats, certainly I would save it in a Photoshop file so that I could edit later, but I would probably save in the JPEG format so that I could upload to an online printing company to turn into an album or gift. I would also save it as a PDF so that I could email the page to friends and family too!
Then, once I had a my digital scrapbooking page saved, I would upload it to a online printing company – ike Snapfish.com – they would keep my scrap page ready until I want to create something with it. I like to look for discount coupons in my inbox, and once I get a good Snapfish discount, I make my purchase!
I will also use the month of January to organize my photos and burn them into photo CDs… but that is a topic for another blog article!
For now I am very happy that January is such a great month for me to get creative and caught up on my digital scrapbooking!
What a great way to start out the year!
Have a wonderful January and Happy Scrapping!
Cheri
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Helpful Resources for Digital Scrapbookers:
Want to learn how to save your digital scrapbooking pages in different formats and also want to learn about using an online printer to make albums, calendars and more? Then you need to check out our training that teaches about these topics — see “Saving and Printing Finished Digital Scrapbooking Pages and Projects – Lesson 6″ for Photoshop Elements — or See Lesson 5 for Photoshop
Need Digital Supplies for all your Digital Scrapbooking Projects? 
Then try out our great Digital Scrapbooking Kits, with digital papers, frames, embellishments and MORE! Try the “Let it Snow!” Scrapbooking Kit is a digital scrapbooking kit full of snowflakes for Winter Scrapbooking and was used to scrap the page in this article! Get other Digital Scrapbooking Supplies and Kits at the Scrap Shop!
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