completely clueless and need help!

[dkarls2]

Hello!

I just came across this site this morning and love it already. I absolutely love looking at all the scrapbook pages and I want to do this SO BAD! My problem is I'm completely clueless on how to start. I do have paintshop point 8 or something like that. My disk is buried somewhere and I need to find it. I began scrapbooking when my first son was born, ten years ago. After baby three came along, I just couldn't do it anymore. I loved working on them, but just don't have the time and a few years back we got a digital camera so I have tons of photos online that I can use. I'm so excited and need help starting.

My biggest worry is the price. Do you really have to pay for each page you want? (remember clueless here) I thought maybe I could find some program that I could just download pages or maybe buy a program that comes with a lot of decorated sheets.

I have looked at so many pages here and I'm wondering how in the world you write letters over pictures and all that fun stuff.

If anyone is up to the challenge of giving me my first lesson I would greatly appreciate it. :)

Wendy

[Stacey Jewell Stahl]

Wendy! Welcome and you can start your first lesson in our tutorial section - Digital Scrapbooking 101. Create a paper-style page and a graphic-style one, and don't forget to download some gifts from us in the Freebie Gallery. PSP8 is a great program and you'll find that if you find a program with it's own graphics that you may not be able to use our freebies or kits that you like. :)

You'll have gobs of questions, I suspect, so please ask them in the PSP software forum! I used PSP8 and now have PSPX. :)

[dkarls2]

I just looked at some of your pictures and all I have to say is....wow! They are so neat. Thanks for helping me, I'm off to start learning. :)

[DSanchez]

Wendy, if you can't find your disk, I believe you can go to the corel website and download PSP for a free 30 trial. This of course will give you plenty of time to find your own disk and uninstall the trial and put yours in. There are some great tutorials here to teach you how to do backgrounds and stuff on your own with no need to purchase anything to start, there is also alot of great stuff in the freebie section. But I'm sure the more you play the more you will create your own stuff that you will want to add to your layouts. If you still want or need to buy stuff they have some great kits, alphas, and elements at decent prices in the shop here.

If I remember correctly you can go to www.download.com and run a search for Paint Shop Pro and it will give you the link for the trial download.

PSP 9 is what I use and even after a year I am still learning new stuff all the time, I warn you now you will be hooked, lol.

Have fun and post any other questions you might have someone here will always try to answer and/or point you in the right direction :)

[loonyhiker]

I just joined this group a week ago and I've learned so much already. I've never done any of these either so I'm learning too. I printed out the tutorial and followed each step. I constantly have to refer to some steps when I'm making a new layout so that is why I printed it. I also like looking at the layouts that people put in the gallery for ideas, inspiration. I can decide what I like or don't like or what seems appealing to me etc. I had to force myself to just do one and see how it comes out because I've read the tutorials and researched this topic so much but just had to bite the bullet and...do it! Glad to see another newbie here!

[Starling]

You are doing two things absolutely right.

You printed out the tutorial. That is the way to go. When I am learning something new I always print out the tutorial because I am going to need to pay attention to some of those steps and I never know which ones they are.

You actually DID the tutorials. You have now gotten through the hardest thing you will ever do in digital scrapping. Congratualtions. And I really do mean what I just said. I once told someone who had gotten up the courage to hit the Enter key on a computer at work that she had done the hardest thing she ever would do in learning how to use the computer, and I meant it that time too. Taking that first step and actually DOING SOMETHING really is the hardest thing you ever will do.