An Introduction To Hybrid Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is now more popular than ever and hybrid scrapbooking is the latest phase. It combines traditional and digital elements that can be used to create even better scrapbooks design and layout.

When creating a hybrid scrapbook, it's important to strike a balance between traditional and digital. For example, you could doctor a couple of photos using photo editing software and add a bit of text. Then you can print and integrate that with what was your traditional scrapbook, but is now your hybrid scrapbook.

Or you could take the opposite approach and design your whole page layout on computer. Papers, backgrounds, textures, type and images can all be created digitally. All you need to do is print the layout, add a few physical embellishments and you've transformed digital into hybrid.

The choice is yours and, with this in mind, here are three hybrid scrapbooking benefits that can help you to create great scrapbooks.

Edit and enhance your photos

Digital scrapbooking gives you the chance to enhance your photos with tools that adjust and correct issues such as color balance and red-eye with effects that add style and pizzazz.

Impossible in traditional scrapbooking, editing photos in such detail is the ideal way to get the best of both worlds. You have a printed picture - enhanced with easy-to-use repair tools and effects - that produces great results in hybrid scrapbooks.

Add physical embellishments for a hands-on experience

Embellishments that you, your friends and family can physically feel are the best way to stay in touch, literally and figuratively, with the memories in your hybrid scrapbook.

In other words, they are a little bit more than just images. These personal elements, such as certificates, movie stubs or newspaper clippings are representations of parts of your life.

It is worth bearing in mind that the feel and overall experience conjured up by a traditional scrapbook can be much more rewarding than a digital alternative. It provides a more personalised journey into your memories, not just for you, but for any friends or family who handle it.

Online resources open up all sorts of possibilities

Resources such as images, fonts and backgrounds are at your disposal, both through digital software and online. This means that there are a lot more options available to you when it comes to embellishing or decorating your scrapbook.

Take typography for example. A hybrid scrapbook allows you to write notes or journal entries yourself, just as you would in the traditional manner. Handwritten messages are a lot more personal.

But it also enables you to access thousands of different fonts. You can then edit and apply effects to these fonts in the same way that you would to other elements, further enhancing your scrapbook's pages.

With the benefit of being able to edit your photos and draw upon the resources of the internet, you can enhance and transform your pages into great hybrid scrapbooks, while keeping in touch with the physical feel of the final product.

These are just three benefits of traditional and digital scrapbooking that, when combined, will help you to create your very own unique hybrid scrapbook.