I take horrible photos and don't know much about photo editing. Which is why I love actions.  These are things you download and install into your program that enhance your photos at the touch of a button!  Marvelous! There are also actions that create shortcuts.

• the Coffeeshop Blog- best action site ever. All free and very cute. She even explains how to install the actions. My favorites are Velvet Truffle, Caramel Dreams, S Curve, Butterscotch Vintage, and Buttercream Black and White. 
• Pioneer Woman- I installed all of them, but I always use Seventies, Boost, Lovely, and Slight Light

Every designer and design site will send out a weekly newsletter with previews of their products for sale that week. They will often include freebies too and give freebies just for signing up for the newsletter!

I'm signed up for these newsletters: the Shabby Princess, the Lilypad, Sweet Shoppe Designs, Mscraps, Oscraps, Sugarhill Co, Sahlin Studio, Brittish Designs,  Chelle's Creations, Suzy Q Scraps, Jenn Barrette , Micheline Martin Designs

Designers used to offer free mini kits when they released their new kits, but that trend is phasing out.  Now designers are offering exclusive freebies to people who like their facebook pages. I don't mind because these freebies are usually better (like full sized kits when they reach so many fans or on NSD or iNSD). "Like" your favorite designers and stores, plus check their exclusive tabs often because they will occasionally add new freebies!  They will also post giveaways, drawings, games, and coupons on their facebook walls.

Watch out for scrapbooking holidays! Designers will be very generous!

• Birthdays- Stores have birthdays where they will give out freebies, have specials, and run games with free prizes. Some designers will also give you a kit on your birthday (Chelle's Creations, Suzy Q Scraps). Also when designers have birthdays, they will usually give prizes or their age as a percent off their products.
• iNSD  - These days are HUGE!  Lots of freebies, blog trains, and deals. International Scrapbooking Day (iNSD) is around April/May usually, but there is another one in the fall.
• Christmas and other holidays- There will always be specials, and possibly blog trains or daily downloads (where you check the site each day to download part of a kit) 

I started with the 30 day trial of Photoshop CSC, but after talking to my photographer friends I bought Photoshop Elements 7.0 (PSE 7). Photoshop Elements (now there are more updated versions) will have everything you need, nothing you don't. If you are a student, you can usually get Photoshop at a discount. Or you can buy it at Costco for pretty cheap. It is a HUGE progam, so make sure to install it on a fast computer. You may also want to look into buying an external hard drive to store all of the pages you create and freebies you download!!! Some people use Paint Shop Pro, but I don't know anything about it.  Adobe products are the standard.

Start off with an organized system of downloading, I didn't and have to go back from time to time to organize (i.e. create a folder with the designer's name and put all of the things you get from that designer in the folder or organize by kit theme, or color).  Friday is your new favorite day. I opened up a separate email account just to send all of my scrapbooking emails and newsletters. This helps keep out the clutter from my normal email. I only open it on Fridays, which is when most people send out their new stuff. It's like Christmas! 

Find out my favorite places to download things HERE.

*Kits contain papers and elements (elements are all the extras like ribbons, buttons, fun shapes, stamps, alphas, staples, etc.)
*Templates are basic pages that are set up for you with paper, element, journal, and photo placement where you "clip" or paste your own things to them. They help make scrapbooking faster, espeically if you are out of ideas.
 *Acronyms- PS (photoshop), PSE (photoshop elements), CT (creative team who scraps for a designer), PU (personal use only products to be used for personal scrapbooking non-profit only), CU (commercial use products that can be used for commercial projects with or without permission)  
*Freebies=free stuff! Your new favorite word! 
*Zipped or compressed files-To save time on downloading, all of your downloads will be zipped files. You will have to unzip them with your computer's program, or download a free unzipping program before opening them. 

When your husband gasps at how much a book costs to print, remind him of how much paper scrapbooking would cost. Even printing 4x6 photos and putting them in a plastic protector type album would cost more than digital scrapbooking and it's not as cute. The cheapest site I've found is Viovio. Shutterfly is over priced and only worth it if you have a really good coupon.  I've printed several books from Viovio and they turn out really nice.  Be careful to begin with the end in mind. Most scrapbooking pages are 12x12, so your options to print will be 12x12 or 10x10. If you want a different size book, then make sure that you create all of your pages that size in the beginning. I've done 8.5x11 size books too. It would be helpful to look at the site, choose the type of book you want, and then get started. Make sure that you leave at least 1/2 inch around the borders for possible cropping when printing. Or you can give all your pages a 1/4 inch white or black border like I do. It helps to avoid a massive endless upload of all of your pages by proofing pages and uploading them to the printing site as you create them instead when you are ready to print (it also acts as another back-up).

(Update: Do NOT use Mixbook!  They are horrible.  I had a groupon so I printed my daughter's baby book from there, but it was a pain from start to finish.  It took forever (like days) to upload the pages and they have HORRIBLE customer service. No phone, just email. Some pages of my book are fuzzy and pixelated. My friend printed three different books from them and they all were cut out wrong so they have uneven white borders and were off set. She can't even talk to a person to figure out how to return these books. Save yourself some trouble by using someone else.)

Update #2: I did a more detailed printing post HERE and HERE.

I cannot emphasize this enough.  There are lots of horror stories out there.  Invest in an external hard drive and back up often! I'm super paranoid so I back up my stuff in at least three places-my computer, my external hard drive, and burned DVDs. Sometimes I upload my favorite ones online and of course having a printed book is back up too.