Basic Scrapbooking Tips

Scrapbooking Tips

by Dulce P. McFadden

To help you make Quick, Easy, Affordable Albums

Have Fun, take as long as you want but don't take it too seriously. The point of scrapbooking is to preserve memories it does not have to be a work of art. Don't worry if you will like it in 20 years, 20 years from now you won't be focused on that one page but on all the great pages you have made. You don't have to love every detail, you just have to love doing it.

Who are you scrapbooking for? Yourself, your children, loved ones?

Journaling:

• write from someone's point of view
  • Mommy loves you; My Mommy loves me
• poems and quotes can help make journaling easier
• short and sweet or tell your story
  • who, what, where and when
  • Vacation: who went? where did you go? when did you go? what did you see? favorites
• a list
  • step 1, 2, 3, 4
  • rolling over, first you push up on your arms, then you drop one and roll!!
• pictionary
  • descriptive word and definition (use the dictionary definition or your own)
  • inquisitive, loving, joyful, lovely, bossy, stubborn, driving, naughty
  • title: what is happiness? And answer it with pictures.
• Song
  • find a song that matches your pictures... use the lyrics as your journaling or type the lyrics and use that as the background paper
• Write it out somewhere other than your page first. That way you can see how much space you will need, and you have a chance to change your mind.

Themes

stick with same colors or make every page different

Chronological Marriage

Vacation Birth

Alphabet Album

A is for apple, awesome, adventure, album, age, attention

D is for dog, daddy, doll, duck, dolphin, destiny, delicate, Disney

Letters

Don't like to write? You can buy letter stickers, print them off your computer (this is how I get my husband to journal in our children's scrapbooks. I bug him for weeks until he takes 5 minutes to type it up and then I choose the font and size and I am done!)

Running out of letters? Improvise W = M, B can be cut into a b,  an E can be cut into an F or L

Mix and Match.... upper and lower case letters, different colors, fonts

Write out your titles!!! When you are pulling out letter by letter sometimes you are too focused on each letter instead of the word and you can misspell something. Imagine misspelling your child's name!

Acid Free!!!

Do not put newspapers in your scrapbook they will yellow and damage your pictures, make a photo copy. Also make sure your supplies are always acid free so they won't damage your picture. A lot of companies any more will put a little AP on scrapbooking pens/markers. That means they are certified by the Arts & Creative Materials Institute

Sizes of Scrapbooks.

There are 3 main sizes: 12x12, 11.5x8, 8x8 : you can find more sizes but these are the main ones. I prefer the 12x12 because most supplies come in that size and then you won't always have to be trimming down pages. You also have the most room to work with so it is the best if you have a lot of pictures. Older pictures were standard 3x5 size or even smaller depending on the age of the pictures. If you have a lot of those you can scan and reprint but it is time consuming and can get very expensive. Otherwise it might be a good idea to try a smaller album size. I like the 8x8 size for gifts. You can put one or two pictures per page and it makes a great gift.

Scrapbooking Kits:

There are many scrapbooking kits out there. Most will give you matching paper, stickers and decorations. Some will give you predesigned pages. These are nice shortcuts to make scrapbooking easier. Keep in mind the price; and only buy when you will be using most of the kit. If the kit is $20 and you buy it because you loved 5 pattern pages but don't plan to use the rest then you just spent $4 a page and that is before you add the cost of the pictures and other embelishments.

Give yourself a goal.

Make one page (or a set of two) every day... or every day off... or once a month you get one day to scrapbook all day. Don't make it something you have to do (like a job)...let it be something you look forward to. Good luck and have fun creating memories.

Challenge Yourself: Make a page about you; and only you!

Do a page of you :then and now – how u have changed

A day in the life

Do a survey

Make a list of :likes, dislikes, what would I do if I won the lottery, what scares you, what do you think your best feature; others think it is

Yourself and your hobbies

Chalenge #2: Make your own pastern paper using punches or stamps!

Chalenge #3: Make your own embellishments.