It’s the hottest craft at the moment – one where you can preserve precious memories and create beautiful album pages in no time. It’s all about photos, telling the story behind the photos and creating albums which commemorate events in the life, from the important special moments to everyday events.
Creating a page
You can start by organising your photos into events, in chronological order or by person. Once you have chosen a series of photos to scrapbook you will probably have a theme in mind. But if you have a number of great photos where the theme is not so obvious then you can use your imagination to come up with a theme that ties them all together.
Some examples of page themes are: anniversary, birthdays, nature, pets, family, friends, travel – the list is endless. If you are creating a single page you may like to choose one really great shot as the focus.
Once you have collected your series of photos you can take them you need to select the cardstock and any background papers that you want to use in your layout. Take you photos along with you for the first few times to help you select colours coordinate with the ones in your photos. If you have a particular theme in mind then you may already have an idea of the colour you want to use. Once you have your cardstock and papers, start experimenting with where you want to position the photos.
Don’t forget to leave room around the photos forj ournalling.
Cropping
Cropping (or trimming) takes all the unnecessary background out of your photos. Never crop original photos make sure you have the negatives to reorder prints in the future.
When using a number of photos crop them into an interesting range of sizes and shapes. There are templates to help you crop photos into different shapes as they come in squares, circles, ovals, rectangles and even star shapes. Once you become more advanced in scrapbooking you may even want to start experimenting the mosaic effects in your pages.
When you have decided what shape you want to crop your photo into, place the template overtop and trace around the shape with a photo pencil. Cut along the line using sharp scissors and remove any pencil marks with a soft cloth.
You can also use the Fiskars Paper Trimmers to crop your photos into squares and rectangles, as these will create straight lines – this is a great investment if you plan to do lots of scrapbooking.
Matting
Once you have cropped your photos they are ready to be matted. Not all photos have to be matted – they can be stuck directly to the page. Photos that are matted stand out on the page.
To mat your photos adhere them to coloured cardstock or background paper with an acid-free glue or similar product. Cut out around the photo allowing the cardstock or paper to create a border effect around the photo.
You can use the paper trimmer (mentioned above) to mat square and rectangular photos.
You can add a number of mats to a photo – some photos have two or three different coloured layered mats.
Journalling
Journalling is your way recording important information and telling the story of what you see in the photos. Journalling allows you and others looking back at your layouts to relive or experience the event. It also fills in any details that are not shown in the photographs – thoughts and feelings about the event, people and place.
When starting the journalling ask yourself a few questions:
Who features in the photo/s?
What was happening in the photograph?
Why was the photo taken?
Where was the photo taken?
When was the photo taken?
Journalling can be done in your own handwriting, by printing it put from a computer, using a lettering template or even lettering stickers. If you have a long story to tell then handwrite or print it. When printing your journalling on your computer you can use the fonts that you have or download others from scrapbooking sites on the internet.
Journalling can be written directly onto your layouts, as captions for the photos or onto shaped journalling blocks of cardstock, paper or vellum.
Lettering templates, lettering stickers an even alphabet stamps tare best used for creating titles or for small amounts of journalling and single descriptive words.
Embellishments
These are used to add special touches to your layouts. Stickers, stamps, accents such as flowers, punched shapes, fibres and ribbons, computer clip art, eyelets and craft wire are all ways of adding extra texture, dimension and splashes of colour to a layout.
THE TOOLS YOU WILL NEED
Before buying lots of different tools, try out some of them at your local scrapbooking store or borrow them from friends to see which are the ones you like with best.
There are many scrapbooking stores where you can but papers and materials and the internet also a great range of products to buy and inspirational ideas for layouts.
Albums
These come in many different sizes and styles. Most albums are bound in the following ways – ring bound, post bound or strap bound. All albums will generally allow you to add pages and refills to them.
You don’t have to buy an album when starting out in scrapbooking as you can create your layouts and store them in page protectors.
Page protectors
These are available in packs at scrapbooking outlets and provide a protective housing for layouts. Albums will come with a number of page protectors.
Cardstock and papers
Cardstock comes in a range of different plain colours and patterns. It provides the background for your layouts and the mats for photos.
Papers come in different patterns and effects and there is also Mulberry paper which has a handmade look and vellum which is sheer and comes in plains and patterns. The choice of cardstock and papers is endless.
Cutting tools
You will need a pair of scissors which are comfortable to hold and fairly sharp and a pair or narrow blade scissors which will allow you to cut into small spaces.
There are also fancy edged scissors that will allow you to create decorative effects on cardstock and papers.
A Fiskars paper trimmer is a great tool that can be used for cutting straight lines in cardstock and paper and generally trimming any straight edge.
Adhesives
Acid-free adhesives are used to secure photographs, journalling blocks and other embellishments to your layouts. They range from glue sticks, pens and liquid glues to photo tapes, adhesive dots, adhesive tapes, double-sided squares and sprays. For starting out and creating simple layouts then invest in a glue stick.
Templates
These come in many different designs and themes. You will also find a range of lettering templates that will help you create terrific titles for your layouts.
Pens
As with cardstock and papers there is a great range of pens to choose from – glitter gel pens, scroll brushes, fine writers and more. Choose pens that are acid-free, fade-proof and have pigment ink and this way your journalling and other inked designs won’t fade over time.
Embellishments
Accents – there are many different accents available to add a 3D effect to a page – flowers, animals, baby theme items etc.
Eyelets – metal eyelets from in a range of different colours and shapes from hearts and circles to stars and squares.
Punches – punched shapes can add decorative effects to your layout whether placed to create a scattered effect on a page or along the edges to create a border.
Stamps – there many different stamp designs available and a huge range of coloured ink pads.
Stickers -acid-free stickers are available at scrapbooking outlets and you will find themes to suit all your layouts. Use stickers to decorate your lettering, add decorative effects to your layouts or to create a page border.
Tags – there are a number of different styles of tags on the market – from coloured paper tags in different shapes and sizes to metal-rimmed ones and even vellum tags. Tag templates allow you to create your own tags in your chosen colours.
SPECIAL NOTE
Acid-free and lignin-free Always use acid-free and lignin-free papers, adhesives and other products to ensure you photos and album pages will be preserved in the future. Some products may be marked “photo-safe” and this means the product is acid-free.
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