There are few things more precious in life than our memories. They remind us of the past and lead us toward our future. Mankind has always sought to preserve memories in heirlooms, museums, hope chests, photographs, letters, and so on. We all want to preserve where we’ve come from to save those little glimpses of life. We’ve evolved in our methods of preservation over the years. Hope chests with letters tied in ribbon are no longer common. In our technology boom, we have become digital making it much easier to preserve our memories.
Unlike the photo albums of our parents, where photos were laid in a quadrant on an adhesive page, we now have an entire industry catering to beautifying our memories. But where do you start?
Start somewhere. Think about what’s most important to you. Is it your child’s infancy? Your family heritage? Remember that you’re just starting out. You don’t have to scrapbook everything. Even if you only make one album in your entire life, make one you’ll enjoy. Pick a topic that is close to your heart and just begin!
Select your photos. This may be the hardest part of the process. Which pictures do you include in your album or layout? It can be a tough choice when each picture carries such emotion and a range of memories!
When I first started out scrapbooking I felt I had to include every photo I took for a specific event in the album. This proved hard to follow as I switched my film camera for a digital camera. Picking which pictures to include can be hard, but choose the pictures that capture the emotion best for you and your family.
Choose photos that capture the emotion of the day or an especially funny (or sweet or you fill in the adjective) moment. The number of photos you have on a page or in an album will vary with the layout you choose.
Choose your album type. The next thing to do is choose the type of album you’d like to use. Like with all things scrapbooking there is no shortage of variation. There’s the 12 x 12 album, 8 ½ x 11 album, 9 x9 album, 8 x 8 album, 6 x 6 album, 4 x 6 album, 3 x 3 album, and even more variations of mini albums.
Your next choice is the style of your album. Do you prefer spiral bound or post-bound (has metal posts holding the album together)? Or three-ring or strap hinge (has straps that run through the spine)? This choice is entirely up to your personal preference.
See also Scrapbooking 101: Types of Scrapbook Albums
Organize. How do you want to arrange your photos? If you’re scrapbooking a single event do you want to sort the photos chronologically? Or would you rather group certain people or places together? Maybe you’d like to separate the candid shots from the posed shots. It’s all up to you. Having an order to your photos and knowing what that order is helps your album go a long way. It maintains consistency and shows fluidity in the emotion of your event.
Pick a color scheme. This can sometimes be the most frustrating thing about scrapbooking. How do you know what colors to put together? And once you have a coherent color scheme, does it match the pictures you wanted? To help you pick a color scheme go back to your photos and think about the way you feel when you look at them. What kind of emotions do they invoke? Or take the subject of the photo. The paper you choose will vary with your relationship to the subject. If you’re scrapbooking your favorite picture of your mom, your color scheme will be different than if you were doing a layout of your husband. That’s what makes preserving our memories beautiful, no memory is the same.
After you’ve got your color scheme down, you may want to choose a patterned paper with a coordinating solid for a nice accent. Now, for a technical word about paper you’ll want to choose paper that is acid free and lignin free. This is now the standard in scrapbooking paper, so if you go to a craft store to buy your paper it shouldn’t be a problem. These types of papers are free from the materials that yellow photos and paper deteriorating them over time.
Find a layout. It’s amazing the different number of layouts that are out there. The limit to layouts is the limit of the imagination. What exactly is a layout? A layout is the way you group your photos together on a page, sometimes adding embellishments, journaling, and specific paper. I’ve found it most helpful to sketch my layouts before I start a page. This helps keep me focused and be purposeful in the photos I choose and their display. See also Scrapbooking 101: Designing Your Own Scrapbook Layout
Put it all together. This is the easy part. You’ve got your pictures, album, paper, and layout. Now, all you have to do is stick it together—literally! There are many different ways to adhere your photos and materials: glue, tape, and adhesives. If you go with a glue make sure that it is acid free, dries clear, and has a permanent hold. The last thing you want is your pictures to start falling off before you turn the page. As for tape, you don’t want to use your regular tape. The Scotch tape (and glue) brand actually has a line of products specifically for scrapbooking that is photo safe. My personal preference for sticking it all together is the roll-on dispenser. It saves so much more time than the mounting adhesives (where you have to pull paper off one side). Want to know more about adhesives? See Scrapbooking 101: Adhesives
Enjoy. This is the best part of scrapbooking when you finally get to flip through your album and see all your hard work and memories displayed so beautifully for the years to come!
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