Scrapbook tutorials with Xara Xtreme (warning really long babble in the front)

When I received Xara Xtreme for Christmas two years ago I remember opening it up for the first time and staring at blank screen before me not knowing what to do next. It was intimidating and kind of scary.

Then I found Talkgraphics. I have to say I have never found a nicer group of people on the web. I experienced from the start that this was a group of people who were very patient ,and understanding. I could ask anything and it was never ridiculed, or ignored. I learned through all of you, and I never had to wait long for someone to come to my aid when I found myself stuck with a problem and not knowing what to do next.

I watched tutorials on Youtube, over, and over again. Things that I look back on and see as simple (such as extracting an item from a photo... thanks egg) only made sense to me when I had someone to walk me through it over and over. Bob Hahn was a huge inspiration to me also with his cartooning. I know that there are even more of you out there that have taken the time to help me and make tutorials that I will probably call on in the future. I've even gotten programing advice from Soquil, which even my DH didn't have the patience help me with.

I guess the long and short of it is I wanted to say THANK YOU, and finally give something to the community, since I feel like I've taken away so much from all of you.

I've made a couple of tutorials for the beginner using Xara Xtreme as a Scrapbooking tool. I have many more planned, and hope to convince people to try it out before jumping to other programs that are needlessly complicated. Who knows they might start using Xara as a Scrapbook tool and then find out they can do full on graphic design. I hope it will help mainstream a tool that I have found to be a necessity in my life.

So here's a link to my blog that has the tutorials on it scrapbookingwithxara.blogspot.com

Sorry for the super long post, but I didn't know how to say thank you any other way.


Jen

Thanks for sharing Jen. I have a good friend who does scrapbooking. I'm going to pass your link along to her.

Happy Holidays.

Gary

Absolutely! Thanks for sharing!

It's a great idea. I'm not much of a 'scrap-booker' myself but my daughter is really taking to Xara. I'll point her your way for sure.

Thanks.

Risto

You're very creative, Jen. Extremely kind and generous of you to share so much! I really like your website, too.;)

Jen, what a superb set of video tutorials. Thank you for putting the effort into producing them. I'd no idea what scrap-booking was either until watching your videos. Excellent production :)

Jen
I'll second what others have said. Excellent tutorials. Like the way you zoom into the various buttons, perfect for someone using Xara for the first time. Well done.

In my early days, and even now, I found Egg's tutorials really helpful.

Sammy

Thanks :o

I still need to work on controlling the zoom more, but I think even my computer challenged friends will be able to follow along. :D I probably over explain some things, but I'll get better at that too.

I'm going to be making more tutorials showing how to use the tools in Xara to create special effects.

Jen

job well done on the tutorials. i've been digital scrapbooking for years and using Xara for it as long as i've had Xara. i find it's much easier using Xara than Elements although i do have to go back and forth between the two for certain things.

if you ever discover how to fill a shape from a psd image in xara (as you can do in elements when you fill it with your background paper or whatever), do post that. thus far, i've been doing what you 've been doing..."redoing" the template in xara to fill that way but sometimes making curves is easier to fill in elements then bring the stuff into xara.

thanks so much for your efforts!

Great job on the tutorials Jen.
You have put a considerable amount of time into the work. I am sure it will be appreciated by many scrapbookers.
Rupert

Thank you! I just dragged a bit map into my scene yesterday and it took up the window on a grey background and I could not figure out what was happening. I managed to finally delete it and found my image below it, which I thought that I'd lost. Here it is, easy for me to see, in your tutorial. Now I understand. Thank you so much.