A Finished Crafting Project - Raider's Scrapbook

Background on the Project

I have finally "finished" a scrapbook I have been working on for a while. I started it a couple years ago, and it took me a while to get to finishing it since I wasn't quite ready until now. It is a scrapbook of the best dog in the world: Raider. We got him when I was twelve years old and he passed away last summer. He was my best friend, and followed me everywhere. He was my 'consistent' friend, since we moved a lot while we had him. We actually adopted him when he was three months old in Dayton, Ohio at SICSA (the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals). He was a lab/dalmatian mix with the loyalty and cuddliness of a lab and the playfulness of a Dalmatian. As my uncle would say: the best of both worlds.

I did put together small photo albums for my parents and sisters of Raider for Christmas, but I wanted something with a bit more sentiment added. Those albums had more photos of him in them, but this scrapbook has more of me in it.

I did each page separately, and at different times. This is why the scrapbook does not have a running theme. The only thing that connects the pages is Raider himself. I wanted it this way so that if one of my parents or siblings liked one page in particular they could possibly frame it. Otherwise, they can be printed off and put in a book.

Digital Scrapbooking (if you want to skip this part, just scroll down to see my scrapbook pages!)

Yes, I did say printed! I am a digital scrapbooker. Although I do love 'real' paper crafts, I feel that I am better at the digital scrapbooks. I enjoy making cards by hand along with painting, etc. The digital scrapbooking allows me to have a TON of options and keeps them all organized and much less messy. The items also take up a lot less space. BUT, my absolute favorite part of digital scrapbooking is that I can give more than one person the pages, so if I make it for somebody I can also keep a copy for myself! I know, it is kind of cheating ;)

I created this scrapbook using Serif's CraftArtist program. It is a very extensive program and I highly recommend it for those with some digital art experience already. It almost gives too many options sometimes for editing, etc. So, if you want to get the full extent of the program I would recommend making sure you are ready for it! It does have 'autofill' layouts, etc. for beginners too. This makes it so you could also 'learn as you go' with additional features.

I recently bought the Stampin' Up digital program: My Digital Studio or "MDS." I haven't gotten to test it out with any projects yet but it does seem simpler. I also am still working on figuring out how to use the 'objects' I have for one program with the other. They both have their own folders and organizers for the materials, so I'll have to figure out how to access the other from each program. I'll let you know when I finish a project using the new program and tell you what I like about each!

The Raider Scrapbook

(Click on each page to view it larger)

I plan on printing one copy for myself initially and then making any 'tweaks' that I feel it needs before printing copies for the rest of my family. They can view the initial project version here, though!