Scrapbooking Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

Scrapbooking is an engrossing hobby that helps preserve — and create — memories. To be a good scrapbooker, you need to get organized; gather the right materials and tools; pay attention to the stories surrounding the events you chronicle; and get good at taking scrapbook-worthy photographs. You can refine your personal scrapbooking style as you go along.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Setting up a workspace where you can do your scrapbooking makes organizing your materials and creating stories for your scrapbooks easier and more fun. Give yourself permission to put together your own studio — a special spot where you can think, dream, and create. Before deciding where your workspace will be, take a look at this checklist of must-haves for your scrapbooking studio: Good lighting: The proper lighting (bright enough and easy on the eyes) instantly professionalizes your space. A comfortable chair: If possible, purchase an ergonomic chair in your favorite color. Make sure the chair is adjustable because the term ergonomic indicates that the chair adjusts to the contours of an individual's body. A bulletin board (or two): You need a place to tack up those lists, reminders, layout ideas, and all kinds of ideas and materials you get from magazines, fellow scrapbookers, Web sites, and other sources. A flat, easy-to-clean working surface: Give yourself plenty of room to lay out a cutting mat and spread out all your stuff. A good-sized filing cabinet: Your filing cabinet needs to accommodate 12-inch-x-12-inch hanging-file folders. Label tags: Get extra label tags for the file folders, because you inevitably add and reorganize items in the folders. Trash receptacle: Line your trash receptacle with a trash bag to make managing all those snips and scraps a breeze. A rod: Rods are great for hanging things that don't fit easily into drawers, file cabinets, shelves, or cubby slots. They're good for rolls of stickers, ribbons, and other items you like to have out where you can see them. If you can hang the rod at eye level inside one or more of your cabinets, you can easily eyeball the supplies you store on it. Clear a space just for you and set up shop. Take a room if you can get it, or a corner of a room, or a closet. Even a table will do. Anywhere that you can call your own and feel assured that your family won't disturb your supplies. Get as much room as possible. You need it. You want to be able to take your supplies out, set them up, and leave them in your room. Putting stuff away and taking it out whenever you work takes up far too much precious time. You can build your own scrapbook-organizing system using desks, tables, shelves, drawers, containers, and filing cabinets you may already have, or if you're ready to invest more money, you can buy one premade. Scrapbook-industry manufacturers offer options to meet any scrapper's organizational needs. Whether you have plenty of space or little to none, you can find your organizational answer somewhere within the wide range of storage and organizing choices (from fully furnished rooms to organizational backpacks). Many companies sell premade home organizational systems for scrapbookers that you can order online. Here's a list of just a few of the systems you may want to consider: Store In Style by Crop In Style is an easy-to-use, modular home-storage solution. Made from laminated, medium-density fiberboard, these modules come in classic white and vintage honey. You can customize three 16-1/2-inch-x-16-1/2-inch cubes (the accessorizer, the filer, and the organizer) based on your demands. Inserts, like drawers ($29.95 for two), shelves ($9.95 each), and paper dividers ($26.95 for five) fit into the cubes and serve as organizational dividers. One empty 16-1/2-inch-x-16-1/2-inch cube costs $29.95. Cropper Hopper's simple Home Center is a component system. Each piece is a vertical storage module. One of the cubes holds 1,200 sheets of paper, and the vertical-sticker envelopes organize stickers by theme. The cubes measure 19 x 16 inches and are priced at $49.95 each. Divided drawers for organizing materials are $74.95 each, and the file cube for hanging file folders is $89.95. The KeepsSake Creation Station looks like a piece of furniture. It stores an entire scrapbook room behind the doors of a beautiful armoire that comes in different finishes. The finish determines the price: from $1,499 for a white or wood-grain melamine to the walnut, cherry, antique maple, and dark oak finishes at $1,799. The entire cabinet measures 75 inches high x 25 inches deep (46-1/2 inches deep with desk extended) x 48-1/2 inches wide with doors closed (87 inches wide with doors open). Scrapbook supplies are at your fingertips on a lighted desktop you can roll away so that you don't have to disturb your pages-in-progress when you get up from your work.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Page protectors do the mighty job of protecting scrapbooks that will be thumbed through for years and maybe for generations. Protecting the pages of these scrapbooks from the natural oils on hands big and small and from sticky fingers, accidental spills, tearing, dust, and scratches is critical. Page protectors are the workhorses of scrapbooking. Besides their primary job of protecting your pages, they're also efficient little organizers, and they don't even mind when you cut them up and use them for any task your imagination can conjure up. We put page protectors to work, helping with the preliminary sorting of our photos, memorabilia, and other items when we're still in the process of figuring out what we want where. Don't work your page protectors too hard. If you overstuff them, they may become distorted, stretched, or damaged. Here are some handy guidelines to consider when you're shopping for page protectors. Perusing page protectors: A shopper's guide Plastic, see-through page protectors are such an integral part of scrapbooking that many manufacturers include them in the purchase prices of their album systems. However, even if you buy an album that comes with page protectors, chances are good that you're going to need more (many more), so you may as well add a few packages of page protectors to your scrapbook shopping list. Page protectors look like plastic sleeves. You can slip one scrapbook page (finished on both sides) or two back-to-back pages into a page protector. Like the albums, page protectors come in many sizes, from 4 inches x 5 inches to 12 inches x 15 inches and larger. Unlike albums (and adhesives for that matter), page protectors are relatively easy to shop for. The categories are simple and the options are limited to top-loading or side-loading, clear or nonglare, and polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyester (Mylar). You may or may not want to experiment with some special types of page protectors as you begin your experience with scrapbooking. Remember that you can always come back and check them out later if you think your scrapbooking plate is full enough for now. Here are some ideas and tips worth checking out when choosing your page protectors: Matching your page protector to your album type and size. Page protectors are made to fit into standard post-bound albums, strap-hinge albums, or three-ring binders. Page protectors that are available for bound albums are side-loading only. Top-loading or side-loading? Whether you choose page protectors that load from the top or the kind that load from the side is your call, but the side-loading type might be better at preventing dust and dirt from finding their way into the pages when scrapbooks are stored on shelves. Page-protector finishes. Most people prefer a clear finish over nonglare. But some people like the more subdued, almost cloudy look of the nonglare finishes. Again, the choice is yours. Buy only the safe polys using the following three-Ps categories: • Polyester or Mylar page protectors are top of the line. Mylar, by far, is the best product to use for protecting your photographs, but the cost is high — $10 for three 5-inch-x-7-inch sleeves. Some high-end album systems come with Mylar page protectors. Whenever you buy them, you're looking at investing in Mylar refill protectors, because you'll want a consistent look throughout your scrapbook. • Polypropylene page protectors are used by many experienced scrapbookers. One hundred 5-inch-x-7-inch sleeves cost about $15, and they sell like crazy because they're good quality and well priced at the same time. • Polyethylene page protectors are safe for your photos and other scrapbook contents. At $10 for 100 5-inch-x-7-inch sleeves, they're not expensive at all. These page protectors can be used as temporary homes for scrapbook contents when you're organizing and categorizing your scrapbook materials. And nothing is wrong with using them for your finished albums. Skip magnetic album page protectors (even when they're labeled "acid-free"). They destroy your photographs. And don't buy page protectors made with vinyl or acetate components because those components can stick to your photos, causing them to fade and change color, thus ruining your scrapbook pages. Even if your photos aren't touching the vinyl, they're still not safe. Whenever you know that you're going to include thick items in your scrapbooks (like room keys or dog tags), you can pick up a package of embellishment page protectors. They're stiffer than standard sleeves, and many feature protruding pockets that cover your bulkier items. Embellishment sleeves come in 8-1/2-inch-x-11-inch and 12-inch-x-12-inch sizes. They prevent embellishment items from rubbing onto opposite pages and protect the embellishments at the same time. The average cost of one package of 10 12-inch-x-12-inch embellishment page protectors is $7.98. Putting page protectors on overtime Although you don't want to put too many items into your page protectors, they're more than willing to work overtime by transforming themselves into additions and extensions that can give you more space for your scrapbook contents within the normal confines of standard-size albums. Some manufacturers sew extenders onto the main page protector. Others provide adhesive strips so that you can glue the extenders on, and some come with the extenders already attached. Here are some extender types for your page protectors. Page flippers Page flippers can be attached anywhere on top of your main page protector with two-way photo-mounting adhesive. They measure 3 inches x 12 inches and can be trimmed to any smaller size. Panoramic spreads Page extenders also enable you to design four-page spreads, unfolding to the left and right of two facing pages in your album. Sewn together by the manufacturer, these page protector additions are used by many scrapbookers in place of the two-page spreads that have become so popular in recent years. Page protectors that you use for panoramic spreads are either 8-1/2 inches x 11 inches or 12 inches x 12 inches, depending on the size of your pages. Peek-a-boo windows Peek-a-boo windows are little page protectors that open like windows. You adhere them to the big page protector that covers your scrapbook page, so you can add more photos or journaling notes by attaching these little peek-a-boos at different angles onto your regular page protector. Peek-a-boo windows come in 12-inch-x-3-1/2-inch and other sizes (depending on the manufacturer). You can cut them to a size that's appropriate for your design. Photo flips Photo flips are good for putting many photographs onto one page within a compact space. These photo-sized page protectors flip over one another. Attach a photo-flip strip directly to an existing full-sized page protector. Most of the photo flips come in 3-1/2-inch-x-5-inch, 4-inch-x-6-inch, and 5-inch-x -7-inch sizes. Pop-up page protectors Pop-up page protectors adhere to the inside corners along the spine edges of two facing scrapbook pages. They pop up when you open the two-page spread. The pop-up page protectors measure 5 inches x 8-1/2 inches. Quikits Quikits are available in 8-1/2-inch-x-11-inch and 12-inch-x-12-inch sizes. The manufacturer sews little pockets onto the main page protector. In them, you can put embellishments to keep them separate from your photographs or other items you deem necessary to your design. Put a two-sided paper on your main page protector and use a complementary or contrasting paper in the Quikits before adding your photos or embellishments; the result is a beautifully layered page. Simple page extenders Simple page extenders attach to your page protector's edges with an adhesive strip, enabling you to extend your pages from the top, bottom, or either side of a standard page protector. Different manufacturers offer differing sizes of these extenders (from 3-inch-x-5-inch to a full 12-inch-x-12-inch size), and they're creating new sizes all the time. Swing shutters Swing shutters adhere to the right and left edges of a main page protector. In them, you can place items that coordinate with the rest of your page similar to the way shutters open and close over a window. Swing shutters are the same sizes as regular page protectors (in other words, 8-1/2 inches x 11 inches or 12 inches x 12 inches), but they're split down the middle to provide the shutter effect.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Scrapbooking styles aren't yet definable in a truly formal sense. Instead, they're as individual as the scrapbookers themselves, and scrappers are constantly experimenting with new looks and techniques. But to give you a feel for what's going on in the scrapbooking world, here are some general style categories. By looking at them, you might discover which one (or more) of these styles resonates best with your own general style preferences. You may choose to try a shutterbug, an artist's, or a classical style, or decide instead to use a craft, shabby-chic, heritage, modern, or pop approach. Like other scrapbookers, as you gain experience, you soon adopt and adapt these and many other different looks, and in the process, develop a style that you can call your own. Adjusting your focus: A spotlight on the photographer Many people are drawn to scrapbooking because they like taking really good photographs. You can tell by glancing at their albums that the photos are what matter to them. Their pages prioritize the photo or photos, and they tend to accessorize minimally — if at all. The base pages in their scrapbooks may be used more as backgrounds for the photos than for design elements. Plain papers in low-key colors and patterns are the norm, with the photos taking up most of the page real estate. The photos on the shutterbug scrapbooker's pages aren't necessarily extra large — as many as six or seven smaller photos may be used on a page. Moreover, the photos are of good quality. They're well-lit close-ups or carefully cropped photographs that draw the eye to essential elements in the picture. If you like the discerning photographer style, you may decide to journal on journaling blocks placed next to the photos on a one- or two-page layout or even do your journaling on a completely separate page. When you make a two-page spread, for example, you can place the photos on the left-hand page and the story (or stories) that go with those photos on the right-hand page. You may even want the journaling entries to be handwritten on paper adhered to a mat over the same base-page paper you used for the left-hand page. Don't expect to use each and every photograph that you thought would fit well in your album. Choose photos that have the most significance for you and your audience and then count them so you can determine an approximate number of pages you'll be making for that album. Analyzing the artist Looking through a scrapbook artist's albums is like taking a stroll through a museum. Artistry, and not mere handicraft, is predominant on the pages. Scrapbookers often use tools and techniques that artists use, including acrylic paints and even watercolors. At the same time, they make certain that their materials are archival-safe. Scrapbooking manufacturers, following the trend toward fine arts in scrapbooking, have begun repurposing art-supply products like acrylic paints, chalks, watercolors, inks, and colored pencils for the scrapbooker-as-artist design style. Scrapbook artists who work in the fine-art end of the scrapbook spectrum may reveal their artistic proclivities in a variety of ways. One artist may focus on photo tinting exceptionally lovely black-and-white photographs. Another may concentrate on some aspect of design layout, sketching with pencils, paints, and other tools, doing intricate paper designs, or working with some other innovative technique — anything that fits into the artistic style that has done so much to enhance the reputation of scrapbooking as an art form. Creating classics In general, a classic transcends historical fads and fashions. Picture a classic car, identify a classic film, recall the title and tone of a classic novel, or listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. As is true in other classical forms, the classical scrapbook style exudes timelessness, aims for a clean, uncluttered look, and uses traditional design elements, such as straight, balanced photo mats and frames (rather than playful, tilted ones), a minimum of accessories, fewer stickers, and often more journaling in black rather than colored inks and in an unpretentious rather than a busy font (if typed) or in clear, precise handwriting. A tasteful page of a scrapbook created in a classical style has a wide, if not universal, appeal that's common with other things classical. Cropping with the crafty If you like crafts, craft accouterments, and detail, you'll like the craft style in scrapbooking. Craft-oriented scrapbookers typically include crafting mediums such as wooden charms, yarns, and fabrics on their pages, and they like to use traditional craft techniques such as stitching, paper weaving, and stenciling. The craft style is about handiwork, about mixing and matching a variety of elements, about light-heartedness, and to some extent, about tapping into an overarching Americana craft tradition that is easier for most of us to recognize than it is to define. A crafter loves to use a gingham-patterned paper and adhere some little wooden slats on top of it to make a picket fence. Often, the crafty page gets its message across more with materials than with journaling and photos, but that depends, of course, on the preferences of the individual scrapbooker. Doing shabby chic Shabby-chic albums feel comfortable, cozy, and homey. The look is vintage and worn (the look of old cracked china and furniture that's been lightly sandpapered). Shabby-chic scrappers use plenty of tendrils, flowers, and pastels in the form of papers, stickers, die-cuts, and other embellishments. Torn, stitched, and inked papers are commonly found in these albums, and so are pastel, solid, and patterned papers. Shabby-chic pages are eclectic and fun. As you can see, the shabby-chic style often features journaling tags, eyelets and laces, chalk techniques, and crumpled papers. Computer-generated fonts that suggest early 20th-century handwriting styles commonly are used for journaling in shabby-chic scrapbook layouts. Handling the heritage style Personal-history (featuring one person) and family-history albums are considered heritage albums and make use of the design elements typically used in the heritage scrapbook style. Personal-history heritage albums differ from illustrated family-history albums in that they include more than just the facts and basic photos, but both include birth, marriage, and death dates of ancestors and other family members. Personal-history albums instead only imply heritage through design, themes, memorabilia, and other scrapbook elements in addition to the photos. Colors tend to be muted rather than bright, and designs include crinkled papers, pieces of lace, and other materials that suggest age and historical context. Because a personal-history heritage album contains all the information you can garner about someone's life, journaling is more extensive than in the more recordlike, illustrated family history, or family tree, album. Whenever possible, use your own handwriting and choose the highest quality papers and journaling pens with black pigment-based ink. Making it modern Albums in the modern style often demonstrate interesting uses of lines and shapes. Think of modern furniture with sparse lines or of modern art that relies heavily on hard edges and geometric shapes and angles to create its images. In a modern scrapbook layout, the designs look clean and usually are executed with a few well-placed lines or shapes. The modern look in scrapbooking tends to include geometric shapes, angular lines, and bold colors. As you'd expect, accessories are downplayed (if used at all) on a modern scrapbook page. Journaling, however, may be another matter. Again, scrapbookers who prioritize journaling always find ways to incorporate it, even on modern pages. They may, for example, tuck a folded sheet of journaled text into a sleek, geometrical page pocket they've adhered to their modern layouts. Playing with pop Pop style is what you might expect — edgy, fun, contemporary, with plenty of little metal doodads (like eyelets and brads) punched through the papers. Pop scrapbookers use the newest and most innovative products — metal frames and charms, fibers, beads, brads, and buttons. Some pop scrapbook stylists (emphasize some) tend to minimize journaling text on their pages, replacing the words that tell their stories with symbols and images — a tendency that we generally associate with the image-based pop culture. A pop scrapper may, for example, use a miniature metal baseball and bat to emphasize and symbolize the importance of the pastime instead of writing extensively about it. These techniques and embellishments attract people (by the droves) to the pop scrapper's pages.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Before you start a scrapbook, spend some time planning it. Start by collecting items for your scrapbook, and organizing your materials and thoughts so that your finished scrapbooks have the look you want. Deciding on your scrapbook's purpose Some people scrapbook because they love the craft. Others care more about highlighting their current family events — for the enjoyment of those living now. Still other scrapbookers focus on preservation and the archival aspects of scrapbooking — always thinking about how long their albums will last. Understanding your general and specific purposes for scrapbooking focuses your decisions about the direction of your work. The following list helps you determine what your own purpose or purposes for scrapbooking may be: Documenting events and milestones: Scrapbookers make pages and albums about every conceivable event and life milestone. The industry creates themed products that work well with all your events. Whether you want to scrap graduations, birthdays, confirmations, weddings, or travels, you can find stickers, stamps, and plenty of other materials to go on your pages. Focusing on individual biographies: Perhaps you want to scrapbook the life of one family member, an illustrious ancestor or some relative who lived in an interesting historical era. Giving a gift or gratitude book: You can make a mini scrapbook album relatively quickly to give as a gift for a special event (such as a birthday or anniversary), to say thank you, or just because you want to help someone feel better. Illustrating an autobiography: Some of the best scrapbook albums are illustrated autobiographies. No one knows the details of your life as well as you do. Promoting healing: Many a scrapbook served as therapy for people experiencing pain, suffering, and loss by reminding them of the many wonderful experiences they and their loved ones have had and of the sheer fullness and diversity of their lives. The terminally ill often scrapbook their own lives, and many people scrapbook the lives of lost loved ones. Recording an illustrated family history: These albums are like glorified genealogies that chart a family's history as far back as possible. Setting examples: Your purpose may be to use scrapbooks as places where you can make your voice heard and where you can influence your children, your grandchildren, and many others. With photos and journaling, the albums you make document your own and your family's travels, successes, school activities, relocations, deaths, and other experiences that illustrate life's challenges and triumphs. Choosing memorabilia and photos for your scrapbook At the backs of drawers and shelves or somewhere tucked away in the corners and crevices of a garage, attic, or closet, you have a hidden treasure that we call your M and Ps — your personal and family memorabilia and photographs. When you begin scrapbooking, just finding your M and Ps may require a major effort. But be resolute! Press forward! Your goal is to gather all the memorabilia and photographs together in one place — the bigger the place, the better. Try Print File's drop-front, metal-edge containers for this initial gathering effort. Professional photographers and museums use these lignin-free, acid-free boxes — which range in size from 8-1/2 x 10 inches to 20 x 24 inches and are priced from $10 to $19.95. You can order them direct online at Printfile. You don't want to store your M and P treasures in just any big cardboard box you find in the garage. Corrugated material in some of those boxes is not good for your photos, and even though your intentions are noble, you may not get all of those M and Ps out of the box and into archival-safe photo boxes or page protectors straightaway. Your memorabilia can include anything you've saved that's small enough to put in a scrapbook: matchbooks, airline tickets, keys, house deeds, and so on. Collecting memorable items can add dimension to your daily life. When you're constantly on the lookout, you come upon memorabilia stuck in the most unlikely spots — and probably smile or shed a few tears as you put an item in your memorabilia holding place. After you put all the photographs and memorabilia you can find in the same place, you need to go begging. Ask family members and friends for photos or negatives you may want to use but don't have. Negatives are better because both parties then can hold on to the photos. Whenever possible, make prints from negatives rather than copies of photos because photos made from negatives always are clearer than copies of photographs. If you're missing documents, such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, call the counties where the events took place. County officials usually are glad to send you copies of the documents you need for a nominal fee. Creating a cohesive scrapbook As you get ready to select the items you want to put into a particular scrapbook, ask yourself this question: Does this item contribute to or detract from the unified look of the album? Unity is as critical in scrapbooking as it is in any creative work. You want your scrapbook to look cohesive and to convey a sense of purpose and order. You achieve unity when each part of your scrapbook becomes essential to the whole. Following the suggestions we give you in the list that follows can help you narrow your item choices and ensure that you choose items that contribute to the unified look of your album. Decide on a theme. Choose the event or experience that you want to scrapbook @ -- your infamous vacation, for example. Find all the M and Ps from that vacation and put them into page protectors. Then you can select an album (think of the album as your first item) that goes with your vacation theme. Just because you put all the big vacation M and Ps into your page protectors doesn't mean that you're going to use all of them in your scrapbook. The selection process is about refining and sifting through the many to finally decide on a choice few. Select the same photographic look. "Photographic look" doesn't mean that all photos you use in your album are exactly the same size or that they all have exactly the same colors. But if you want to create a historic, old-world look with black-and-white photos, use black-and-white pictures throughout the album. As a general rule, using black-and-white photos alongside color photos doesn't contribute to the unified feel that an album needs. But modern scrapbook stylists experiment with breaking a rule and do so successfully. Scrapbooking is full of rule-breakers. Choose a color scheme. You may get ideas for your color palette from your album cover, from one or a series of your photographs, or from some other source. Choose memorabilia related to your purpose and storyline. Look at all the memorabilia that may go into your album and then use the items that best complement the purpose, theme, story, photographs, and colors you've decided to use. A mix of types of memorabilia can add interest: maps and other flat items on some pages and bulkier items on others. Use materials consistently. Choose stickers, papers, and other materials that go well with your photos and memorabilia, the colors in your palette, and each other. Careful thought when making these choices pays off big time in the finished album. Pick an ink color (or colors) for journaling that complements the M and Ps and other items on your pages, and make sure you use quality materials like journaling pens with pigment-based inks. Just because you bought out the scrapbook store doesn't mean that you have to use everything in one album. Gather a few goodies that coordinate with your theme and color scheme and have at it! Make it fun and keep it simple, especially when this is your first album. Even seasoned scrappers get carried away when choosing album materials.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

A good scrapbook is more than just pages with photographs and mementos, it's a record of events, which means that your journaling skills get to shine as well as your creative skills. To encourage your journaling skills, use the tips in the following list: Jot down notes and quotes in a small notebook and carry it with you wherever you go. Before you know it, your notebook will be full of material for the tales that you can share in your scrapbooks. Take a hand-held tape recorder to family reunions and other events so you can preserve the great stories you'll hear. Interview older members of your family now, before they're gone or their memories fade. Write specific questions for interviews beforehand, and remember not to interrupt while someone is telling you a story. Use your photographs as writing prompts for your journaling.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Scrapbooking is an opportunity to preserve personal and family memories. To get started, gather the photos and mementos that will help make your scrapbook a continuing joy. Use the tips in the following list to help you get organized for scrapbooking: Steal a day — a whole one if possible. Then you can gather all your photos and memorabilia (including what you loaned out to others) and put them in one place, such as a section of a room, an office, or a studio where you can work without being disturbed. Organize photos chronologically by years into archival photo boxes (Print File's drop-front, metal-edge containers are good) and subcategorize later. Organize memorabilia chronologically by years into acid-free and lignin-free folders. Lignin is a substance that bonds wood fibers. Write photo notes on repositionable sticky notes rather than on the backs of your photos. Over time, inks on the backs of your photos destroy the emulsions on the fronts of them. Create your own scrapbooking space, where you can leave your work out without it being disturbed. If you're short on space or often scrapbook away from home, get a portable storage system on wheels for storing and stashing your scrapbook supplies. Develop film that's been sitting around — like now!