Digi-Scrapping 101 - Why Digi-Scrap?

Ok, so I've been promising some of my friends and family members that I would post information on how to get started in digi-scrapping. It can be an intimidating thing at first and many people think that it will be very difficult to learn, etc. Not so! I held off for a long time thinking of a lot of reasons why I shouldn't do it and I just didn't really understand how it worked. Thanks to seeing some of my friend Kristy's layouts, I decided to go for it and am really glad I did. If you're still on the fence, here are some great reasons to start digi-scrapping and things that I LOVE about it:

• NO MESS! I can't tell you how many times I did NOT work on my paper scrapbooks because I didn't have time to get everything out and set up, only to be able to work on it for a short time and then have to pack it away again so my kids didn't get into it and destroy everything. I love having it on the computer! I just open the program, work on it for 5 minutes, an hour, whatever I have time for. Hit save...tada! No clean up, nothing for the kids to get into, and it's always there waiting for me whenever I get time for it (and it isn't collecting dust in the meantime!)
• No cutting, glueing, peeling off tape backing and re-alligning things because I can't get it in the right place. You just click buttons and can move anything you want as many times as you want without the mess and effort of paper scrapping.
• The cost (or lack thereof). Honestly, if you really wanted to you could do digi-scrapping for virtually free if you already have a program on your computer. If you have to buy a program, for $40 or less you can buy one and be off and running. You never have to buy papers and kits. There are SOOOOOOO many free downloads every single day online that you could scrap for years without ever spending a penny. And if you find something that you really love and want to buy, you can buy a whole kit with multiple papers and embellishments for $5 or less. I can't tell you how much I've spent on papers and stickers the paper way, and much of it has never been used. And the beauty of the digital is that you can use it over and over as many times as you want - free. Free is a beautiful thing.
• Create once, duplicate with the click of a button. One of my problems in paper scrapping was having to do an album for the family, but also wanting to do albums for the kids to have for themselves. But I just don't have time to do that many albums. With digi-I can create a layout and just get multiple copies printed. So I can take a layout and print a 12 x 12 copy for my album, resize the layout and print a couple copies in 8 x 8 for my kids albums, and could print another copy for a gift album for someone else. I can print it however many times I want without having to "create" another copy for another album. This is a lifesaver (for my kids anyway, otherwise they wouldn't get any scrapbooks because I'd never have time to make them!)
• Make a mistake...click undo. You don't have to start a page over or throw something away because you didn't like how it turned out. You just go to the specific part you want to change an change it and life is good.
• Even better than not having a mess when scrapbooking is the fact that it takes up no physical space in the house (Todd REALLY likes this and wants me to ditch all my paper supplies because he has always hated how much space it takes up!). For house space this is great, but do keep in mind that it will take up a lot of virtual space (hence, the reason we just bought a freakin' awesome 500 GB external hard drive! Yippee! )
• You can always print out your digi supplies to use in paper scrapping and mix the two if you want to.
• A huge thing for me too is being able to get exact color matches to what I am working on. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten stuck doing a paper layout because I didn't have the exact right shade of blue paper that I wanted for the layout. I can't stand when things don't match right and so I'd have to stop and wait until I could go try to find the perfect paper at the store. With digi-you can change the color of anything you are working with, or just create what you want. When I want a certain shade of blue for a photo mat, I just use the color picker to click on the color I want and I can create the perfect mat, etc. No more excuses to not be able to finish a layout.
• Pre-made Kits do the thinking for you. Some people have a really hard time figuring out what would work well together and can't decide what to use. Much of the digi-scrapping "kits" that you get are exactly that - a kit - with coordinating papers, embellishments, and sometimes even alphas. So you can just open a kit and know that everything is going to match with each other and look great. Great for those who don't have confidence in matching things together.
• The possibilities are endless...seriously. You can do as much or as little as you want with digi-scrapping. You can just learn a few basic things and still create great pages. Or you can learn a lot of stuff and make great pages and even create your own papers and other supplies! How cool is that! With digital editing I just feel like there is no limit to what you can do.
• Another reason I really love it is that all the pictures we take now are digital and on the computer anyway. It's so nice to not have to get them printed and then do something with them. I can just pull them up on the computer, edit them if I need to, and put them straight in a layout. It just makes sense to me!
• You can easily share your stuff with friends and family who wouldn't normally get to look through your scrapbooks. I'm not going to scan all my paper scrapbook layouts just to show them to my family (not to mention I couldn't because they are 12 x 12). But I can easily share my creations by posting them on my blog and let other people actually get to see and enjoy all my hard work!
• The list could go on and on! There are so many reasons why it's awesome. So my question is...why not?