Digital Scrapbooking Kit Ideas That Go Beyond the Page

Digital scrapbooking kit ideas do not have to stop at the 12 x 12 layout. Here are five things I have made recently with a single ArtPlay Palette — none of them a traditional scrapbook page.

I have been working on a run of projects over the last few weeks, and almost none of them ended up in an album. A birthday card. A sign for the snack bucket by my front door. A mood board. A collage for my Mum. Every one of them started with an ArtPlay Palette — the same papers, brushes and embellishments I would reach for on a layout.

That is the thing about a Palette. It is a colour story and a texture library, not a single-use kit. Once you stop thinking of it as “scrapbook page supplies” and start thinking of it as “art supplies,” the canvas size becomes the only thing that changes.

Quick Jump — Table of Contents

• → Create a Greeting Card
• → Get FotoInspired
• → Make Signs and Stationery
• → Create a Mood Board
• → All About Me
• → Final Thoughts

Idea 01

Create a Greeting Card

My sister and my Mum both have January birthdays, which means the card shop and I are well acquainted. Except I stopped going. A Palette does the job better, and the card ends up saying something a shelf card never could.

• → Create a new document (File > New) at the size you want.
• → Pick something that posts easily in a standard envelope — 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 inches both work.
• → Build the front with papers, brushes and embellishments from an ArtPlay Palette.
• → Personalise with a photo, a name, or a few words.
• → Print at home, or upload to a print service and have it posted for you.

5 x 7 Inch Birthday Card | ArtPlay Palette Halcyon

The same approach scales up. My Mum turned 70 and I could not be there, so I made her something to keep instead.

8 x 10 Digital Collage | ArtPlay Palette Sashay

• → Photos from across her whole life, blended with a Layer Mask and brushes using [aalogo] DigitalART.
• → No words on the composite — my Mum likes to print these, and clean beats busy on a wall.
• → A separate “70 Things About You” page printed alongside it. (I have removed most of the list here out of respect for her privacy.)

Anna’s Personal Opinion: The list is the part people cry over, not the collage. Ten things, fifty things, seventy things — the number matters far less than the fact that somebody sat down and thought about them for an hour.

Idea 02

Get FotoInspired

Document a day, a week, a month or a single event using photos, words and [aalogo] DigitalART supplies. FotoInspired is where a Palette earns its keep, because a template pack gives you the grid and the Palette gives you everything else — the paper behind the photos, the brushwork at the edges, the bits and pieces that keep it from looking like a spreadsheet.

If you have not come across this project before, the What is FotoInspired? post covers everything you need to know about documenting everyday photos this way.

Week 48 | ArtPlay Palette Halcyon, FotoInspired Template Pack No. 2L (7 & 8)

Idea 03

Make Signs and Stationery

I picked up the snack bucket idea from QBHome on Instagram over Christmas — apparently alongside every other house in my neighbourhood. A bucket by the door, a few treats, a little sign telling the delivery drivers to help themselves.

Then something happened. The snacks kept disappearing well after the holidays were over. So instead of packing the bucket away, I made a new sign and kept the whole thing going.

• → Design at print size — I work at 300ppi so the textures hold up on paper.
• → Save a flattened JPEG to a thumb drive.
• → Take it to FedEx Office or Office Max, print, and have it laminated. Weatherproof, and about the price of a coffee.

ArtPlay Palette Halcyon

ArtPlay Palette Silver Bells, MultiMedia Reindeer No. 2

Letterhead works the same way

A Palette-built header across the top of a letter turns the annual family round-up into something people actually keep. Build the artwork at the top third of a letter-size document, leave the rest white, and type straight into it.

ArtPlay Palette Tinselry, MultiMedia Holiday No. 5

Anna’s Personal Opinion: Lamination is the step people skip, and it is the step that makes a home-made sign stop looking home-made. Two dollars. Do it.

Idea 04

Create a Mood Board

Putting pen to paper has a way of making an intention stick. A digital layout built as a mood board does the same job — the words and images you want more of, sitting in one place where you will actually see them.

Mine lives as my desktop wallpaper. Of course you could print it, frame it, or set it as your phone lock screen instead. The point is that it is in front of you rather than filed away. If you want to see how I approach one of these start to finish, Rise walks through my thinking.

Good Vibes | ArtPlay Halcyon Collection

Idea 05

All About Me

I am rarely in the picture. Ella and Luke are far too busy photographing themselves, and most of the time it does not occur to Eric that his phone has a camera on it at all. Which means that in twenty years, my children will have thousands of photos of their childhood and almost none with their mother in them.

So I sorted it out myself. I learned how to use the iPhone self-timer, and you can too. Prop the phone somewhere, set the timer, walk into your own photo. It is simple, it takes ten seconds, and it has become a fun little addition to my memory keeping.

Then build the layout around it the way you would any other photo — Palette papers, a Layer Mask, a bit of brushwork at the edges so the photo sits inside the artwork rather than on top of it.

And So It Begins | ArtPlay Halcyon Collection

Anna’s Personal Opinion: I still do not love being in front of the camera. I have made peace with it anyway, because nobody looking back at these pages in thirty years is going to be assessing my hair.

Final Thoughts on Digital Scrapbooking Kit Ideas

Five projects. One Palette behind all of them. The only thing that changed each time was the document size and what I did with the finished file — post it, print it, laminate it, hang it, set it as wallpaper.

If you have Palettes sitting in a folder waiting for the right photo to come along, this is your permission to open one tonight and make something that has nothing to do with an album. In fact, that is usually where the best work comes from — the project with no rules attached to it.

What is your favourite way to use an ArtPlay Palette?

Tell me in the comments below, with a link if you have one. I am hoping you will give me a few ideas in return.