BACKGROUND
The
art of scrapbook design is a old and cherished hobby, which has seen a frenzy
of increased interest in the last few years.
Over the years, young girls, in particular, have collected memorabilia and
souvenirs of their childhood and kept them in their treasured scrapbooks.
Modern
scrapbooking has focused on giving more creativity and interest to the hum-drum
family photo album. Photo albums often
collect dust from years of sitting on the shelf because they are page after
page of picture after picture. A scrapbook holds the best of the pictures
and often tells a story with just a few photos. For instance, a child’s scrapbook might have an opening page of a
birth announcement, a hospital bracelet, a footprint keepsake, and some
pictures of the momentous arrival.
Anyone with a desire to create memories for a loved one, a little
patience, and an eye for color and design can create a scrapbook that will be cherished
for many years and maybe many generations.
MATERIALS
NEEDED TO MAKE A SCRAPBOOK
What Supplies Are Needed
A
technical description of scrapbooking includes the specific supplies required,
which are: acid free and lignin free album pages, acid free plastic sheet
protectors, acid free, lignin free stickers, colored paper and paper frames,
double sided tape or smooth drying photo paste, novelty scissors and fine
tipped permanent markers. The idea is
for the scrapbook to last for many, many years, and not suffer deterioration
because paper, plastic and other materials used contained destructive
chemicals.
Acid
can cause your photos to deteriorate and can cause paper to become
brittle. Photos that have been in
those magnetic pages that are yellowing or paper that is brittle are a result
of acid affecting them over the years. Acid-free
means that the ph is at 7.0 or above but too high a ph can be a problem too. What
you really want is something that is chemically stable and ph-neutral (at
7.0) So, it's safest to use acid-free
papers, cardstock, album pages, stickers, inks, etc. in your scrapbooks. Lignin is a substance found in wood pulp and
it can cause the paper to become chemically unstable and turn brown and
brittle. Also, lignin releases acids
and can cause previously acid-free paper to become non-acid free.
Where to Buy Supplies
The
supplies used for scrapbooking can be purchased from a number of places. A craft store such as M.J. Designs would be
the first recommendation. Ask for
scrapbooking supplies, where you will find creative stickers, acid-free colored
paper, novelty scissors, appropriate glue and tape, and a variety of
markers. Another type of store would be
your local photographic retailer, such as Ritz Camera Centers. They will sell acid free scrapbook albums
and refill pages.
The pages of the scrapbook are called
layouts. Ideas for layouts are
absolutely endless. Magazines, books
and web sites abound with thousands of ideas, and it just takes a spark of an
idea for the creativity to flow from the scrapbooker, whether novice or
experienced.
GETTING
STARTED
How
do you start? The first step is to decide what type of album you want to
make. Possibilities are only limited by
the creativity you have! For a child,
ideas include a Special Events Scrapbook, an ABC Scrapbook, or a Pre-School
Years Scrapbook. For an older child, for whom you have never made a scrapbook,
perhaps a middle school or high school graduation or a 16th birthday
would be a nice occasion to commemorate with the gift of a scrapbook of their
baby and childhood years. Scrapbooks
make ideal gifts for a wedding or anniversary.
A bride or groom will treasure a scrapbook with lots of candid photos,
along with a napkin, confetti from the table decorations, or flower petals from
a bouquet.
A TYPICAL LAYOUT
Remember
that the scrapbook will have a right hand first page, then two facing pages
thereafter, until the last page, which is a left hand page. If the event needs more than one page, be
sure to make them on facing pages. Save
the single pages for front and backs.
For instance, the first page could be the birth announcement page, then
pages 2 and 3 (facing) would be newborn pages.
Page 4 might be a single page of baby’s first Christmas, page 5 might be
a memorable first birthday, and pages 6 and 7 (facing) might be the first trip
to Disney World. In other words, if a
layout needs to take two pages, make sure they are not pages 3 and 4 or pages 5
and 6 (front and back, rather than facing).
TRIMMING OR
CROPPING PICTURES
Let’s
assume most of the pictures you will use are in a photo album, with some
additional pictures in the picture envelopes.
The most difficult job is sorting the photographs. Once this part is done, the fun begins. A big advantage of scrapbook pictures vs. album
pictures is that pictures can be CROPPED.
Cropping a photo means to cut out
part of the picture that takes away from the primary subject. If you decide a pole or tree ruins an
otherwise adorable picture, cut them out! If there’s another person (or part of a person) with a dumb
expression that takes away from the main subject, cut them out. If the Christmas tree is blurry, cut it
out. When pictures are trimmed, it
is possible to put as many as five pictures on one page. If you are having trouble narrowing the
number of pictures to five, you should consider doing a two-page layout.
Trimmed
photographs look great when they are put on a colorful mat with just a .25 inch
margin. A mat is a piece of colored paper or cardstock. You should avoid too much
thickness. Another technique is to use
templates, and make a unique frame for the picture. A template is a stencil; you
can cut out the inside of the frame and place it over the picture, or cut the
photo and mount it on the frame. You
have to decide on this before you trim the picture. Those small school pictures of the children can be put in small
flower frames and put on a “family tree”.
Novelty scissors are a fairly new product on the market, and make
cutting fancy borders and edges a snap.
It is good to have at least two different novelty scissors as well as a
good pair of straight edge scissors.
ADDITIONS
OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAPHS
Don't
forget the little mementos. Not
everything can be placed in a scrapbook, but certainly you can include things
such as birth announcements, party invitations, autographs of special people,
handwritten poems to complement a layout, and of course, the senior prom
invitation. The first report card can
accompany the class picture, and confetti can be glued on the page to liven up
a special party.
NARRATING YOUR
SCRAPBOOK
Titles
It’s important to write in your
scrapbook. This is sometimes called
“journaling.” It can be done by
hand, on the computer, or with stickers.
My preference is to use the Wordart or Textart function of a word
processor along with a color printer.
The color printer offers so much flexibility in choosing the color of
the text to either match the colors in the photos or complement. You can make headlines in light blue to
announce the arrival of a baby boy, who might be dressed in light blue, or you
can use bright red and green for a great Christmas layout.
Blurbs
If
a photo is crying out for the subject to “say something,” ready made or blank
stickers are perfect. A picture of an
adorable toddler is great with a sticker that asks, “Would you like to see my
portfolio?” A picture of Fido taking a
nap is livened up with a “cloud” that shows him dreaming of the World’s Biggest
Bone. Making up a sentence or two of
funny narration is what Jay Leno uses to spice up his Headlines feature.
Stickers
Stickers
add instant “pep” to a layout. They can
be simple or complex. They can add just
color, or they can tie photos together.
For instance, pictures of children at the local fire house (for open
houses) can have stickers of the firedog, fire helmet and a page border of a
fire hose. Children at the beach can
have a border of blue waves, and stickers of sand buckets and starfish. Stickers can also cover mistakes. If you put five pictures on the page, and
then decide you only want four, and removing one takes some of the “paper” off,
cover it with a sticker!
ADHESIVES
Scrapbooking
experts have tried various adhesives, and the consensus is to use a product that
will not damage or wrinkle the photo.
Many scrapbookers use different forms of glue to safely affix their
photographs to scrapbook pages. My
preferred adhesive is double sided tape, which is completely flat, and is much
faster to use than regular transparent tape, which you have to make into loops,
which often makes a bulge in the photo or other item you are mounting.
WHERE TO FIND
MORE IDEAS
For
some wonderful ideas and hints, check out the Web. The following URL is just one of hundreds of scrapbook home
pages. [http://members.tripod.com/~tln123/luv2scrap.html]. The designer of this page, Terri Nachbor, is
an accomplished scrapbooker and has put a lot of her creative layouts on her
web page to share ideas with fellow scrapbookers.