New Header is Up (and Digiscrapping 101)

It hit me that it was MAY yesterday! What the heck happened to April? It went by in such a blur between the girls turning three, Easter, and lots of events. Andy and I look at our calendar and shudder - a free weekend is nowhere to be seen.

So I had to get down to business and get up a new header! I kept with the same kit that I used last time, but since it is not a huge kit I didn't have a lot of embellishments to choose from. In the digiscrap world there are lots of (necessary) rules. These rules are called "terms of use."

Some designers give you carte-blanche with their work. Some don't. Kits cost anywhere from $1-$8, and some higher. The higher costing ones are usually huge. Also, almost every designer does regular "freebies" - which help them gain new paying customers.

All of them allow their designs to be used for personal use - meaning your own scrapbooks or gifts you make for others. If a kit is deemed "Personal Use Only" you can't use any of their designs in a way that would make you money. Also, many of these personal kits don't allow you to use their designs on your blog - whether or not you make money off your blog.

A good portion of designers classify their kits as "S4H or S4O Friendly." S4H=Scrap for Hire, and S4O=Scrap for Others. This means you can use their kits in projects you make money off of. (Dangling preposition.) Some have limits of how many of any one item you can make, like 500 cards. Beyond that you would have to purchase another license from them. Also, if a designer doesn't have their kit in this category, you can usually contact them and they will sell you a separate license to use it that way. I have done this - and every single one has been super cool about it! (Some didn't even charge me - they just wanted to know who was doing it.)

For both of those cases above, you can't use any of these designs in a kit you create. If you want to become a designer of digiscrap kits - you can't recolor one of their papers or embellishments and pass it off as your own.

Finally, there is another category called "Commercial Use." This is the most open of the categories. These designs can be altered by you in any way at all and you can include them in your kits that you design. These are usually in patterns, ribbons, buttons, etc. in grayscale and when you add color to them you get really nice depth. It's not uncommon to see the same exact element in a ton of kits - like a basic fence. But each designer recolors it, gives it texture, adds flowers, etc. - and they all come off looking completely different.

Who patrols this whole world? Basically no one. It is mostly on the honor system. Who would know if I made 1000 cards using a kit for "personal use" and tried selling them at a local craft show? Probably no one. But once you see how much time and effort these designers put intot their creations there is no way any self-respecting digiscrapper would! There are sites created to deter Digital Privacy - which is good for beginner digiscrappers to read about.

If you want to look at digiscrap kits, just for fun, my favorite shop is Elemental Scraps.

So ... back to my header. :) I have an Excel spreadsheet where I list (by name and designer) every kit I have. Right now I have over 120. I keep track of who allows their kits to be used for profit, on blogs, etc. I loved the "Little Lady" kit I am using now - and it fit into the "can use for blog" category! Yay! It is a smaller kit, though, so because I didn't have a lot to choose from, I ended up throwing together the header in about 15 minutes. I think I am going to go back and fix it up - the oval pictures on the sides are NOT even with each other and it's driving me nuts!

Once summer hits I think I will change the color scheme. Something bright.

Here are some recent pages I made ... enjoy!