How to Do Scrapbooking Using Smaller Albums

Large scrapbooks are common, scrapbooking supplies easy to find. Many books and websites tell how to do scrapbooking using large albums.

How to do scrapbooking using smaller albums is another matter. Smaller albums are often more appropriate for the topic or the use you intend for the scrapbook.

Smaller scrapbook albums can be perfect for a baby, or as a gift to someone serving in the military. Smaller albums can be inexpensive to make, compared to an 18×20 album. Smaller, mini scrapbook albums can be completed more quickly, too.

Smaller Album Sizes

Standard scrapbook albums, and therefore scrapbooking paper, are usually of a size that provides a 12″ x 12″ page area on which to work. Anything less than that size is technically a smaller album, but scrapbookers usually shrink the measurements further. Here are four common smaller album sizes.

* 6″ x 6″ with a 5″ x 5″ page area: This smaller album will hold a photo and a bit of journaling on each page. Standard photo size is 4×6, so you will have to crop photos.

* 7.75″ x 6″ with a 7.5″ x 5.75″ page area: This smaller album will hold a slightly cropped 4×6 photo or 2 smaller photos, journaling, stickers, and embellishments.

* 8.5″ x 8″ with a 7.5″ x 7″ page area: This smaller album provides space for one un-cropped 4×6 photo or 2 cropped photos per page. The added page height allows for easier journaling.

* 8.5″ x 10″ with a 7.5″ x 9.5″ page area: With this smaller album, you will be able to do much that you can with a large album, except that pages will be long and narrow rather than square.

How to Do Scrapbooking Using Smaller Albums

Begin with an overall theme: wedding, baby, vacation, honeymoon, etc. Carry the theme through your scrapbook, laying aside photos and memorabilia that do not fit the theme. You can use them in a second scrapbook.

Before gluing anything into your smaller album, create a layout for each page. This will allow you to see how each photo will be used before it’s too late to change your mind.

Select one or two photos, creating a sub-theme, for each 2-page spread. Crop the photos to fit in a pleasing arrangement. Overlap photos on some pages for variety. Do not glue yet.

Select and cut scrapbooking paper for each page, choosing colors that will complement that page’s photos and theme. Do not glue.

Frame photos, or put torn paper behind them, to set them off from the background scrapbooking paper. You still are not gluing items into your smaller album.

Lay a sticker or two on the page, and possibly an embellishment on a 2-page spread.

Place captions below the photos, or add a separate, small note telling what the photos are and your memory of the occasion.

When each page is laid out the way you want it, go back, and begin gluing the elements into your smaller album.

Tip: Smaller albums may be addictive. When you finish one, you will want to get busy on the next to preserve memories with a different theme.