Scrapbooking for Fun - Is It for You?

You’ve sorted those photographs dozens of times. You’ve handled cherished keepsakes: a sugar packet, a dried flower petal, a ticket stub, and more.

Scrapbooking is a great way to pull them all together and preserve your memories in an attractive manner.

The Challenges of Scrapbooking

* As a scrapbooking beginner, your biggest challenge may be choosing an album. Do you want a large, thick scrapbooking album, or a mini scrapbooking album? Do you want a baby scrapbooking album or a honeymoon scrapbooking album? Think it through, and choose one you like. Buy refill pages for your scrapbook, too.

* A second challenge of scrapbooking is the supplies you will need. In days gone by, a jar of paste, photo corners, and a pen did the job. For special touches, you might add a piece of ribbon or some colored paper, but scrapbooking then was merely collecting the cherished moments into one place. Your challenge will be to buy supplies such as sharp scissors, glue, cardstock, printed papers, plain papers, and journal pens.

* Once you have your scrapbooking album and Scrapbooking Supplies, you meet the third challenge of scrapbooking: collecting the photos and keepsakes you intend to preserve. Collecting them all before you begin will keep you from discovering when you’re on the last page that you have a photo that belongs on page 3.

Basic Steps of Scrapbooking

Every scrapbooking project has eight basic steps.

1. Organization

Sort photographs and mementoes into themes or topics. Examples are baby’s first year; elementary school; college years; honeymoon; summer of 2006.

2. Selection

When everything is sorted, select one of your themes or topics for your scrapbooking album. Put the others aside.

3. Paper

Referring to colors in your photos, select a few shades of acid-free paper or cardstock for accents. You want colors that will go well with most of your photographs.

4. Layout

Choose a focus photo or memento for each double-spread scrapbook page. Lay it on the page and arrange other photos and souvenirs around it. Remember to leave room for notes - called “journaling” in scrapbooking.

5. Extra touches

Add stickers, strips of ribbon, or torn paper to make your pages attractive and pull elements together. Also consider things other than photos, such as letter tiles from an old Scrabble game, Monopoly money, buttons, etc.

6. Preparation

Crop photos to bring out the main subjects, and mount them on accent papers. You may want to allow for a caption above or beneath the photo. Prepare smaller or larger journaling pieces that describe your memories. In years to come, they will tell more about your photos, or your feelings at the time.

7. Final Arrangement

Once each scrapbooking item is ready, place them in their final arrangement. Check to be sure colors and sizes make a pleasing combination. Overlap some items to create more interest.

8. Glue

One by one, glue your scrapbooking items to the page. Use glue sparingly, but enough to hold.

Scrapbooking personnel are usually very happy to help a beginning scrapbooker, and will help you know if it is for you.