Want to preserve the memories of that recent trip you took to Italy? Or maybe you’ve been going through old family photos and decided it was time to start scrapbooking. Not only is scrapbooking a fun hobby and a great way to showcase your experiences, it is also a great stress-reliever and memory keeper. You can keep your scrapbooks on your coffee table for visitors to see, enjoy looking at and reliving your great memories over and over again.
For beginners, here is a basic list of scrapbooking supplies you’ll need to get started:
- Scrapbook album
- Photos
- Scrapbooking paper- Card stock and patterned
- Scissors
- Adhesive
- Embellishments
- Oval Template
It’s easy to get started once you decide on the theme, the photos you would like to include as well as creating your layout before you start.
What Is Scrapbooking?
Fun fact: the first known scrapbook was created even before the invention of photographs! The book, entitled “Manuscript Gleanings and Literary Scrap Book” was published in 1830 by a male, John Poole, not a female. (Scrapbooking is not just for women!) It contained his printed poems and engravings.
Which begs the question, what does one put in a scrapbook? The answer is, pretty much anything you want. Thank-you cards you want to preserve, pressed flowers from a special occasion, selected poems or quotes that have meaning to you. Include newspaper clippings, movie stubs, or even some sand from your favorite beach!
If you are new to this you may be asking, “What does a scrapbook look like?” There are many different types of scrapbooks, but the overall definition is a book that holds your memories. Scrapbooks can be cardstock pages inserted into plastic protectors and held in a 3 ring album, or they can be premade books with pages for you to glue on your photos.
Mark Twain was an avid scrapbooker, and even submitted a patent to improve the scrapbook. His idea was a ‘lick and stick’ type book, to save on glue.
There are scrapbooks for every occasion, but whatever your need for scrapbooking, you get to exercise your personal style and creativity, and really put your stamp on it.
What Kind Of Paper Is Used For Scrapbooking?
The key to any good scrapbook is the paper it’s made on. Extra thick paper, or cardstock, is your best friend. The heavier paper will withstand the weight of glue, embellishments and other accessories you choose to use. Card stock is used as a base, and ranges in weight from 60 pounds to 110 pounds, with the average weight being 80 lbs.
Even though cardstock will be used for your background, and have lots of patterned and decorative paper on top, you don’t have to go with plain white. There are so many styles and colors of cardstock to choose from. Just perusing our menu you’ll find:
- Parchment cardstock with an old-world charm, in 6 colors and 3 sizes
- Charming pastel with a soft look and finish, in 10 striking colors and 3 sizes
- Our Metallic Cardstock features a striking dual-sided metallic finish with a glittering luminescent sheen. It is also acid and lignin free, which keeps your precious scrapbook pages protected from yellowing and getting brittle with age, and allows you to pass on your scrapbooks to the next generation.
- White gloss cardstock is perfect for printing full color photos, as you want to use a copy, not the original. Gloss cardstock is a great accent to allow your scrapbook to shine.
- Linen cardstock has a great texture to it and will add a nice effect to your scrapbook, and comes in 3 beautiful colors in the perfect 80 lb weight.
- The most popular scrapbook paper is our brightly colored cardstock in 23 mesmerizing colors with delightful sounding names like Outrageous Orchid, Celestial Blue, and Cosmic Orange. You’ll find colors to match any theme, and will make your scrapbook stand out.
The average scrapbook size is 12×12, or 8 ½ by 11. Smaller sizes such as 8×8, or 6×6, and even mini scrapbooks hold less photos, but are great to give as gifts.
Cardstock paper can be used in full, or cut down to size.
Scrapbook Ideas
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To make a scrapbook, you can start with a premade scrapbook or scrapbook kit, which will have all the materials you’ll need, and even a theme already laid out. Or, you can choose to create one page by page, which takes time but feels great because you did it yourself.
Scrapbook ideas for beginners: A scrapbook is just a collection of your memories, preserved in a fun way. You can collect your materials as you go, and save ‘scraps’ or clippings and photographs from your recent trip, or do some digging when you’re ready to start putting it together. You can buy scrapbook magazines for great tips, or even join scrapbook clubs to get lots of great ideas. |
Scrapbook ideas for kids: A family vacation or summer road trip is a great place for kids to start scrapbooking. Kids can use a premade kit, or make their own pages. Scrapbooking is about letting them express their creativity in their own unique way. They can choose the colors for their pages, and have fun with accessories and embellishments. Let them choose their photos, and come up with their own themes for their scrapbook, like their dog, or their grandma. They’ll love stickers and lots of accessories. Make it fun and they’ll have a blast.
Scrapbooking Layouts
For your scrapbook design, you can follow a story, or a theme. A story will be a specific event in your life that you would like to document, like ‘Baby’s 1st Year’, where every page is another month or milestone, and a theme is a more broad way of showcasing an event, like Birthday, Graduation, or Wedding. If you don’t have a specific theme in mind, you can keep it more general, and work on each spread separately, then put it all together. You can also make a list of topics you want to include, and then use them later.
Scrapbook layouts follow a spread- two pages side-by-side. Each page can have their own theme, or one theme that spreads across both pages.
Once you have your theme, select your photos. If you aren’t sure which photos to include, or you aren’t sure about the theme, choose the photos that most tell the story you would like the scrapbook to be about.
Your cardstock will be the background template, and can also be used as photo mattes. Arrange any photos, accessories or embellishments on the page, and move them around until you are satisfied with the layout. Scrapbook layout ideas can follow a unified look, with each spread following the same general layout: title at the top, description underneath each photo. Having a set layout will bring your scrapbook together and give it a clean look. Or, you can play around and have fun, making each page and spread its own unique journey. The choice is yours.
Another great idea is a collage scrapbook, with lots of cut-out photos, words, mementos and embellishments arranged on a page close together, to make one beautiful montage. Each page can be its own theme.
Once you have all your photos selected, you can crop them if you’d like, and choose to matte them. Using cardstock to matte your photos with a pretty border will make them stand out more on the page, and create a focal point. Once you have your photos arranged, it is time to glue. Use an acid-free adhesive, and set the photos in place.
Lastly, create a title for your page, to tie everything together. Once you have all your spreads arranged, it is time to lay them out in the album that you chose, and create your cover page with the title of your scrapbook. Then, enjoy it and show it off! You worked hard on this, and you deserve the recognition- and the compliments.
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| PARCHMENT | PASTEL | METALLIC | GLOSSY | LINEN | BRIGHT COLOR |