How to… Scrapbook

intro to scrapbookingHow To Scrapbook.. or more to the point What IS Scrapbooking? Scrapbooking is a massively popular and huge sector in today’s craft world.. and I thought that any self respecting craft blog MUST have at least one post about it. So, I went to one of the scrapbooking experts and begged for advice! Kerry (@scrapbookerry) from And Then All I Thought About Was You came to the rescue and wrote this fabulous intro to scrapbooking, as well as some fabulous examples for you to take a look at! Check out Kerry’s Scrapbookery site for more.

Over to Kerry and How to Scrapbook!

What is Scrapbooking?

Scrapbooking basicsScrapbooking is essentially a blank book where pictures, newspaper clippings and memorabilia are preserved, collected and stored. The idea of scrapbooking has been around for many years and is not a new concept.

I am sure many of you have made scrapbooks yourselves or have made them for your children. I remember cutting out pictures of my favourite animals as a child and sticking them in a scrapbook brought from the local newsagents with PVA to be kept forever! This was scrapbooking then.

Scrapbooking now has developed dramatically; its main objective now is about safety and keeping the pictures and memorabilia safe and in their best condition for as long as possible.

Let’s think about a couple of things first.

Do you remember the magnetic albums, that I am sure we have all seen, the ones were you lift a clear film of a page place your photo in and then put the clear film back over the page. Over the years the photos start to go yellow, fade and they eventually start to deteriorate. All those memories are lost and cannot be passed down.

What about this common scenario? You find some pictures in a drawer of an older relative, it is full of pictures. You ask who they are, and the relative unfortunately cannot remember them all. They know at the time they were people they worked with, people who were important for so many years. Some of them are holding you as a child but they are just a person with no name. Sadly this happens a lot and I have experienced it myself.

Scrapbooking now, looks to help with these issues. It is all about safe methods using acid and lignin free products, including paper, adhesives and albums, the photos are protected as best as they can be.

introduction to scrapbookingScrapbooking encourages the use of words, journaling and telling the story of the photo that is on the page. The albums and the pages you create enable you to write any information you want, you can include names, how you know the people, what you were doing at the event, the date and any other details you feel necessary.

There is no right or wrong with Scrapbooking, and you do not have to be creative you just need to want to tell your story. I have a personal mission with my scrapbooking I hate that a lot of our photos have no names on people and my parents have no clue who they are. I don’t want that for my children, and I want to pass down a collection of albums that will mean something to them as the information is in them and they are not just a meaningless photos.

So how do you scrapbook?

Anyway you like is the real answer there is no right or wrong way. Whatever you want to do is fine. You don’t need anything technical, all of the pages below have been done with the following-

Materials:

  • plain photos
  • a guillotine
  • a corner rounder
  • acid free tape runner
  • a pen
  • alphabet stickers (Acid free) and
  • a selection of blue paper also acid free.

All of these can be brought from a good craft store. They are easy to find and stock up with.

My process:

  • I have put the photos directly onto the pages into an album and this is a 12 x 12 Scrapbook album, these can be found in the same places as the rest of the supplies.
  • I have cropped the photos, so have cut out the excess on the photo, so that the picture is just focussing on the subject which in these pages is the dolphins. So some of the trainers have been cut out that is not a problem.
  • I have them corner rounded all the corners, with the hole punch. I love this tool as it gives the images a softer edge.
  • I have worked on a guideline of having the pictures in a row, I chose this idea as each photo was cut quite small and there are very small differences in the dolphins, and I wanted to be able to see all the differences on the page.
  • I have then put a background colour on the page with the blue strip of paper. This has been stuck down first and the pictures have then been stuck on top of this in a row.
  • The pictures at the bottom of the page have been staggered to give a slightly different effect.
  • I have then added some alphabet stickers to give the page a title and that is the page finished. It really is that simple.

how to scrapbook

Here are the other pages I made with the exact same tools and equipment I used for this page, you can do very different pages, but still have a theme going through your pages with minimum equipment.

what is scrapbooking scrapbooking

scrapbooking crafts crafts scrapbooking

This page is done in the exact same way, but the coloured paper is just in yellow. I choose the yellow as it brings the colours out in photos better than the blue colour used on the above pages.

scrapbooking explained

Maybe you still think that this is too creative for you, well scrapbooking really is for everyone and it doesn’t matter how creative you are. Journaling and story-telling can be a big part of the page.

If you blog and you have tales of an event, or your children on your blog why not use that.

This is how this page has been made. I have done no crafting it is completely off the computer.

  • I used a patterned 12 x 12 background page in black and white. I then edited a photo on the computer and printed it from my printer on photo paper as an A5 picture.
  • I then copied a story on my blog that I wrote about Baba and pasted it into Word. I then edited it and printed it onto lined patterned black and white paper, as a landscape piece.
  • This was then stuck to the bottom of the page, the picture to the top. A piece of the patterned lined paper had the date put on with red stickers.
  • I then used some alphabet stickers; these are raised stickers to put the title boys on the page.

How simple is this page and so effective!

scrapbook

scrapbooks

how to scrapbook

Well there you go… thank you Kerry for a wonderful guide to How To Scrapbook and What is Scrapbooking! Much appreciated. I will certainly have a go!