Digital Scrapbooking Made Easy: 3 Creative Ways to Use the Skosh Collection

The Skosh collection is a colorful collage-style collection of digital papers, transfers, stamps, and transparencies for memory-keeping, storytelling, and digital scrapbook pages.

The elements are delivered in .jpg, .png, .abr, and .psd formats for use in Adobe Photoshop, Elements, Paint Shop Pro, and Affinity Photo.

This scrapbook kit is perfect for telling stories, documenting moments, and sharing memories of the in-between liminal spaces between a little and a lot, truth and falsehoods, love and dislike – the place where life happens. There’s something powerful about a skosh of intention.  Think photo projects with themes of spring, summer, landscapes, hopes and dreams, outdoor photography, travel adventures, and more.

3 digital scrapbooking ideas and techniques for you to try:

1. Digital Art Journaling

The Story

Start a new photo book project where your photos, words, and digital scrapbook supplies come together in a joyful blend of art journaling and playful collage.

The Artistry

• Start by choosing a canvas size you’d like to work with—I’m experimenting with an 8 X 10 inch page size.
• Use Photoshop’s one-click extraction tool to simply isolate an object from its photo background.
• Then, drag and drop your “extracted” photos with your Skosh Digital Scrapbook Collection supplies, layering them one at a time to gently build your artwork.

🖍️ Pro Tips

• Add PaperTextures on new layers using a mid-gray color, placing them gently over your artwork.
• Then choose a blending mode from the Layers Panel to give the page more depth and a subtle sense of dimension.

Why It Works

When you layer and play with digital scrapbooking supplies, your page begins to tell its own visual story—often inspiring new ideas along the way.

2. Ancestry Storytelling

The Story

Bring your heritage photos and stories to life by placing and “blending” them (softening and removing the hard edges) into the design using a simple clipping mask, then decorating your page with the bright, colorful flower elements from the Skosh Digital Scrapbook Collection.

The Artistry

Create Your Foundation

Build a clean, simple foundation to start creating your memory-keeping page.

1. Start a new page
   Go to File > New and create a blank page sized 12 × 12 inches at 300 PPI. This gives you a standard scrapbook page size that works well for printing.

2. Add a background paper
   Open a solid paper from the ArtPlay Palette Skosh digital scrapbook kit. Using the Move Tool, click and drag the paper onto your new page to create a simple background for your design

3. Place a clipping mask
   Open a clipping mask and drag it onto the page using the same Move Tool. Place it above the background paper so it’s ready for adding photos or textures later.

Blend Your Photo Using a Clipping Mask

Just like that, your photo blends cleanly inside the mask shapes—no trimming, precision, or fancy techniques required!

1. Add your photo
   Open your heritage photo and drag it onto the page so it sits above the clipping mask. In the Layers Panel, you should now see four layers: the background, the solid paper, the clipping mask, and the photo.

2. Check the photo placement
   Click on the photo layer to make sure it’s selected. Resize or move the photo so it completely covers the mask shape underneath—this ensures you will not see any of the underlying mask layer after the photo has been clipped and attached.

3. Create the clipping mask
   Go to Layer > Create Clipping Mask. You’ll notice the photo layer shifts slightly to the right in the Layers Panel. On your page, the photo will now fit neatly inside and take on the shape of the mask.

Embellish Your Blended Photo

1. Add decorative layers
   Choose a few transfers or overlays from the ArtPlay Palette Skosh digital scrapbook kit. These are soft, see-through elements that add color and texture. Place them on the page and stack them lightly on top of each other.

2. Tuck them behind the photo
   In the Layers Panel, move these decorative layers so they sit between the solid paper and the clipping mask. This allows them to peek out from behind your photo and gently frame the image.

3. Add words and meaning
   Use the Type Tool to add a title or a few lines of text. This is where you capture the story, memory, or feeling you want to remember.

🖍️ Pro Tip

Add a few dimensional elements—like the Butterfly Notions—to bring your page to life. Finish by adding a soft drop shadow (Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow) to give your elements a little lift and depth.

Why It Works

Clipping masks do the hard work for you, helping your photos blend smoothly into your page with just one simple step.

The Story

Use a predesigned Artsy Layered Template as a blueprint to create a quick and easy digital memory-keeping page layout from the Skosh Digital Scrapbook Collection.

A digital scrapbooking template is a ready-made page file you open in Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Affinity Photo. It’s made up of simple layers—usually neutral, gray shapes, placeholders, and text—that show you where to put your photos, memories, and digital scrapbook supplies. You customize the template by adding your own photos, recoloring the layers, and clipping papers or textures to the shapes.

Think of a digital scrapbooking template like an old-school overhead projector.
The template is made up of stacked layers—like clear transparencies—each one serving a simple purpose. One layer might hold a photo shape, another a paper or color, and another the words. When you customize the layers, everything automatically lines up for you. You just clip your photos and digital supplies to the different shape layers, swap out elements, or change colors. The structure does the heavy lifting, so you can focus on sharing your stories.

Open the Template:

• Go to File> Open to bring the artsy template PSD file into your workspace.
• Ensure Window> Layers is checked so you can view all digital scrapbook template layers in the Layers Panel.

Use and modify a digital scrapbook template:

• Add your photos
  Use the Move Tool to highlight the photo and mask layers in the Layers panel. Place your photo above the mask shape layer, then use a clipping mask so your photo ‘clips down’ to assume the shape of the mask.

• Change colors and papers
  The gray shapes can also be customized with digital papers from ArtPlay Palette Skosh. You can also recolor them by highlighting the layer and Color> Fill ( with the “Preserve Transparency” checked)

• Swap or remove elements
  Don’t like something? Hide it (click the eye icon to the left of the layer thumbnail in the Layers Panel) or delete it (by dragging it to the trash can/bin icon in the Layers Panel). Want more space? Move elements and shapes around. Templates provide the ultimate flexibility and customization in simple scrapbook page design.

Personalize with your memories or storytelling:

• Edit the text
  Click into the text layers using the Type Tool, then type your own words—dates, thoughts, or short journaling. You can also remove the text entirely if you prefer a photo-focused page.

• Make it yours
  Adjust only what feels good. You don’t need to change everything. Even a few simple swaps—photos, colors, and words—create a page that’s personal and meaningful.

🖍️ Pro Tip

• You can also use digital scrapbooking templates as building blocks in your own page designs. For example, you might drag and drop a set of photo frames from one template and place them into a different layout to highlight new photos. You can reuse textures, shapes, or text boxes you like, saving time and giving you a helpful starting point instead of designing everything from scratch.

Why It Works

Templates give you an easy way to warm up and get started with digital scrapbooking—no blank page required.

What You Need to Know

The Skosh Digital Scrapbook Collection is a bright, collage-style kit designed to help you tell meaningful stories through photos, words, and creative play. This post shares three simple, approachable ways to use the collection—art journaling, ancestry storytelling, and templates—so you can ease into digital scrapbooking without feeling overwhelmed. Whether you enjoy layering textures, blending heritage photos, or starting with a ready-made template, each idea shows how Skosh can help you warm up creatively, experiment with new tools, and turn everyday moments into pages that feel personal, expressive, and full of life.