As a little spinoff from ru's what to you miss post

[KristinCB]

What do you love about scrapbooking now? What is around now that wasn't before?

Also - if you care to share - how to you keep scrapbooking fresh and exciting especially if you've been doing it for years.

[jacinda]

For me, I like capturing the stories. Yes it's nice to scrap lots of photos (and I certainly do plenty of that), but when I look through my printed albums, it's the ones with stories that engage me the most.

My girls are at the end of their teenage years now, so if I'm not scrapping them, I keep things fresh by scrapping photos of my extended family's nieces & nephews. This Christmas my nephew and his wife got lots of gorgeous photos done of their kids, so I got to scrap them.

[Tree City]

I mean, this isn't "something" that's around now, but I know a LOT more about PS than I did when I started rofl, and I'm grateful for that!

[LynnZant]

More powerful hardware. I can open a lot more and do multiple pages at once. It was such a production and took forever to get one page done back in 2006, now I can get one done fairly quickly. Plus, kits have gotten completely stuffed with goodies which is great given storage space has come down in price.

[Brendazzle]

I love having more actual kits to play with. When I started, I had zero budget and basically only used freebies to scrap. I did my best but there's just something about having a bunch of coordinated options, all curated by a designer (or designers) with a vision in mind. And over the past decade, kits & bundles have gotten bigger, giving me even more details to fall in love with.

I think what keeps me excited to scrap is the storytelling. It's always been about my photos and words; everything else is just (gorgeous) set dressing. It's what people comment on the most. I also do better when I have challenges, both official and self-guided, to encourage, motivate, and inspire me.

I think the biggest thing that keeps me motivated is that I have a 7 year old who loves that I scrapbook. He'll ask me to take photos and make pages for him. It's so different from when I was mostly scrapping wildlife and adventures, although I still do that too.

[nietis]

I definitely love the more powerful hardware and software.
As for keeping scrapbooking exciting, I think this hobby has become a habit and a big part of life for me, that I feel like I miss something if I don't do it for some time. I have less of JHZ's photos, more of XYZ's, but I think (and hope) that, even when they grow up, my habit of taking photos won't die down.

[catgoddess]

100% agree with the others about the improvement in hardware/software. I also love the quality of new kits compared to past quality.

I try to keep my scrapping fresh by doing challenges when I have the time and working with different style kits.

[rach3975]

The kits are the best thing about scrapping now! The materials we have available to make pages with are stunning. Internet speeds make all aspects of scrapping more enjoyable--I remember the days of setting a kit to download over dial up before I went to sleep and hoping it wouldn't get interrupted. I also think that phones have changed my scrapping for the better. It's much more convenient to record everyday moments now compared to when my kids were little.

[AmieN1]

Lol yes- dial up downloading was terrible! I do love the technology aspect of today's world! I think with all the social media apps and such, I am able to not only use that as inspiration, but also as things to document in a 'currently' layout or even just able to get more info/pics/memes/media for fresh layouts!

[Stefanie]

So many good points made.
I love the speed of downloads, the quality of goodies to buy and use.
When my family look through my books, it's always the photos and the journaling that matter. I need to get more of the stories told.

[DawnMarch]

I have been doing hybrid scrapbooking in the last couple years - printing out digital designs from my favorite shops and creating with them. So, I appreciate that printers are much better now and also with the tank printers, the ink lasts forever so it's much less expensive.

[MamaBee]

Hmmm... I still very much love scrapbooking - it is my therapy, stress releaver. I love the variety of templates that are out now then when I was first starting. Also the kits and colors are better too.

I'm like many... kid is growing up and there is less new photos to scrapbook. So I keep challenging myself how I can certain themes and twist them to fit what I need. Also, going back into the vault of photos and reliving memories that need to be scrapped but haven't.

[StacyLynn]

I love that I can pick up anywhere and just start scrapping. On my desktop. laptop, and occasionally my ipad/iphone.
Love how fast the hardware/software is now, and downloading... also so many tutorials make learning something new fast and much easier than is used to be!

[nesser1981]

I love that I have nearly 20 years of memories sitting on one shelf. I often think about those that were big scrappers years ago but have have seemed to have left our hobby, what are they doing with their photos now? I can't even imagine it.

Personally, I love all of the templates that are available now, vs in 2006 when I started. I struggle with design when it comes to more than just 2 - 3 photos and after nearly 20 years of doing this, I've scrapped 1000s of photos and layouts, I need fresh ideas.

I think my process is a little more streamlined now, I'm not scrapping cutesy things that happen every day anymore like when the kids were little, but I still feel like I'm capturing our lives, and I hope my family will appreciate them more as they get older.

I also love how much more robust kits are now, I need a lot of elements.

[Cheryl Ashcraft]

What do you love about scrapbooking now? What is around now that wasn't before?

Like others have mentioned, the speed of computers and the internet is wonderful compared to 2008. I love having Google Photos and using it in conjunction with Lightroom. When I'm out and about, I can use my phone to share photos with others. The quality of the cell phone camera is another wonderful thing. I remember DYING to get a Nikon DSLR and lugging it everywhere. I now have a Sony mirrorless, but my phone is always near me and it's what I grab for everyday memories. Well, let's be honest, it's even what I use for bigger events as well.

Also - if you care to share - how to you keep scrapbooking fresh and exciting especially if you've been doing it for years.

I love to go through my layouts. I have them in Lightroom, so it's easy to scroll through them. Even old layouts can create a spark for a new layout . . . especially because they have some technique that I can improve upon. I also go through my scrapbook kits and lots of times the kits/collections will guide me. Either that or I'm using challenges to get me scrapping. I also love to look through my photos and see what speaks to me. I've never been a chronological scrapper, so I can hop around from year to year and always find something new to scrap. I've always been inspired by looking through Pinterest or design blogs for fashion or the home for layout composition ideas.

[lightwriter]

I've been out of the loop for a few years. Wow! There's a lot of designers here now. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes from when I stopped digi scrapping to now. I just hope I can remember how to do it. I'm upgrading my computer this weekend (since Adobe wants me to have AVX2 support.) I'm hoping to be up and running by the start of the new year.

[littlekiwi]

What do you love about scrapbooking now? What is around now that wasn't before?

I love the variety of styles & the ease of being able to experiment without it being unchangeable. Love the variety of products, the advancement of technology and community aspect of this hobby though that part has evolved with the rise in social media

Also - if you care to share - how to you keep scrapbooking fresh and exciting especially if you've been doing it for years.
Truthfully being on CT's has helped immensely with keeping it fresh. Challenges at sites also help when mojo is lacking as does having a Pinterest board or IG search for ideas.

[aussiegirl]

What do you love about scrapbooking now? What is around now that wasn't before? I love less mess with Digital Scrapbooking! I tried paper scrapping when my girls were little, and it was just so hard! Once I would get all my supplies out and tried to scrap, they would want attention. Digital is soooo much easier! It takes up less space and is easy to just save a layout to come back and work on it again later! I also love that having 4 girls, I can "reuse" layouts so that everyone can get the same one in their albums! I have a friend who paper scrapbooks and she makes 2 of the same pages for her boys (but I wondered if she makes a 3rd page to keep for herself...doesn't look like it!) I also love reusing supplies again and again!

Also - if you care to share - how to you keep scrapbooking fresh and exciting especially if you've been doing it for years. I have soooo many friends who I "met" through digi scrapping, who don't scrap anymore! To me that is soo sad! To keep it fresh and new, it helps to try new techniques sometimes (although I don't like to do it...if I am forced for a challenge, it helps!). It helps to look back through my photos sometimes to be reminded of memories that I forgot. It helps me to want to scrap those photos! It may sound weird, but going on vacation helps me WANT to scrap! Sometimes I will take a photo knowing I have a specific kit waiting for me back home to scrap that photo! Challenges keep me scrapping, but so does having specific trips or series of photos I know I need or what to scrap! Sometimes I scrap just for myself (not posting anywhere or even keeping track of credits!) This helps me be inspired to scrap again too! All this works for me, but probably doesn't work for everyone!

[karlimarie]

I love the quality and variety of the kits now. Looking back on some of the kits I loved makes me cringe a little. I also agree with the power of hardware and how quickly we’ve been able to move from high powered computers to laptops to iPads and phones. It’s kind of amazing.

The way I’ve scrapped has changed a lot over the years. I started making sigs and scrapping before I had my own children, so I did a lot of pages for other people and tons of AAM, art journal scrapping. Much more about the process than the product.

These days most of my joy comes from documenting my kids and our lives. I never thought I’d like the pocket scrapping type layouts, but they make the most sense when doing weekly/monthly documentation and long term projects where you want a unified look. I just wish I had a way of streamlining my scrapping so that I wasn’t constantly behind. Not sure I’ll ever catch up!

[bcgal00]

I love the "quality" of digi products compared to 10 or more years ago. I've always used photoshop and the improvements over the years really enhance my scrapping i.e. extractions are so much easier now. Everything runs faster and more smoothly now. I can remember when downloading a kit took forever, now its just a matter of a min or two.

How I keep my scrapping fresh is to focus on different types of images to use. These days I am more focused on landscape and wildlife photos, not as many family photos. I go thru phases where I take more macro shots, more food shots, etc. I love to layer, stack, cluster, etc so that doesn't really change but I'll try to vary things here and there with some more minimalist pages or maybe journal a bit more.