Digital Printing Papers

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I originally started scrapbooking with paper about 7 years ago before my husband and I got married and before we had children. I have kept up with it since. I have a scrapbook space in our kids playroom set up with all my tools needed, supplies, and a wipe off board for my projects I am working on. I can work on scrapbooking while they play or I can work on it when they take a nap. I work on a “Family Book” each year and I start it in October (since our kids birthdays are at Halloween time) and I end it the next October. I have been asked how I keep up. This is how I do it. I usually put about 3-4 two-page layouts in it each month. Usually one for my daughter and one for my son and one of us all four doing something together. That makes it work well for me. It keeps my scrapbooking up to date, but allows me time for other things as I am also a Nurse part-time.This past year, I got more into the digital part of scrapbooking. I have used Memory Mixer in the past and have Photoshop Elements for Mac. I have been looking up tutorials on doing different things, finding great sites for FREEBIES and good buys, and have been adding those to this blog so I can find them quickly and others can also benefit from them.One thing I had wondered about recently was the paper to print the Digital Layouts on. Should I use 12×12 photo paper, 12×12 cardstock, or 12×12 brochure paper? This past weekend I found my answer. This could be different for different people, but this is what I think will work for me. The 12×12 photo paper I had seen printed at my scrapbook store looked good except the elements on the digital page had the same texture as the photo because it is made using photo paper. The photo looked great, but I wasn’t sure I liked the way the whole page looked.  The 12×12 cardstock I thought would give a “flat” look so I wasn’t sure that was what I was wanting. I went to Fry’s Electronics and looked at their papers. I found they now have 13×19 paper made by Epson that can be used in their wonderful printer that will accomodate 13×19 paper. They have photo paper or presentation paper. I bought a small 8.5×11 package of Hewlett Packard Glossy paper (which should be similar to the Epson Presentation paper) and took it home and used it in my printer that prints up to 8×10’s. I already had the Hewlett Packard Matte Brochure paper for printing elements that I don’t want as much of a shine for things like cards or gifts. I wanted the glossy for the shine for digital pages, though. When I printed on it, it was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I sized it to print a 8×8 (instead of the 12×12) so I could see the results. The page looked great! So, I think that the Epson presentation paper will give the same result, but a 12×12 could be printed and then there is room to print two 6×6’s of the same page for gifts. 

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