The Major Rule Of Scrapbooking

So you’re into scrapbooking now after following some of the great free resources and tutorials on the web and you’re wondering what the rules of scrapbooking are? Great! I’m here to fill you in on the precious sport of scrapbooking. Believe it or not, there are some rules (though not hard and fast ones) when it comes to immortalizing your photos and memories.

First of all, you need to buy only pages and papers that are Lignin and acid free. When we talk about acid free, we mean a PH number of seven. That way the acid doesn’t eat up your pictures over time and you end up with bits an pieces in 20 years. That would be very sad for you and your family! Also, buying Lignin free paper ensures that your photos won’t turn yellow like you see all the old photos from years ago. All scrapbooking and craft stores sell these types of paper, and it’s very affordable and worth the investment.

Over the years we spend tons of money on the best of the best in cameras, film, and everything in between, only to stow away the photo in an album with no meaning. Sure, photo albums are nice, but when generations below you look through them, they have no idea what is special about the picture or what it means to your family. Scrapbooks allow you to document and journal the entire photo set, and put a true meaning and story behind the event that you made special. I wish my parents and grandparents would have done that for the dozens, if not hundreds of family photo albums we have from years past! But it’s never too late to start for your family, so that your kids, grandkids, and great grandkids can get a true feel of why the photos are special.

So once you stick to the basic rules of scrapbooking (which really, there is only one major one, and that is the paper issue), then the rest is up to you and your creative side of your brain. Scrapbooking can be a therapeutic and fun activity for you and your family, and you’ll be glad you have those 30 years down the road when everyone is older and wants to take a trip down memory lane. Enjoy!

How To Get Started Scrapbooking

So you’re interested in taking up the classic and fun hobby of scrapbooking? Great! You probably have some questions on what you need to start and how to get going. No problem, we’ll show you how to get started in a matter of minutes!

The first thing you’ll need is an actual scrapbook album. Maybe you have one laying around the house, but if not, head over to your favorite crafts store or look online at one of the many scrapbooking stores for a 12″x12″ album that you feel would capture the look and feel you’re going for. They come in many different “flavors”, and you could spend an hour or two just picking out the best one for the moment! That’s half the fun, so make sure you get a good one that suits you.

The next thing you’ll need is scrapbook paper. It’s perhaps the most important part of the entire process, because without pages you have no scrapbook, right? There are thousands of different types and designs out there, so you might need a while to find the right one for the job, but again, that’s part of the fun! Just make sure you pick up more than you think you need, because especially if you’re new to scrapbooking, you’re bound to make a few mistakes here and there, and you want the album to be perfect. Also make sure you get acid free paper, that way it will not harm your pictures over time.

Stickers, although not as important as the above items, are also fun and usually essential to any good scrapbook. As you’re probably aware of – there are millions of different stickers out there, and they even make sticker machines that you can get to turn your regular photos into stickers! It’s great fun for the kids and yourself, and you can pick up a decent sticker machine for about $30 online.

Now here is where it really gets fun! Adding embellishments is the part of the process that brings magic to the scrapbook. Sprinkles, tags, charms, beads, necklaces, clips and everything else you can imagine could fall under this category. Better yet, you can find tons of stuff laying around the house (check your “junk” drawers!) or you can go to any crafts store, or even Wal-Mart and find thousands of little trinkets and things you can use for embellishing.

Next, using die cuts, which are thicker stock and decorative cardboard, can add another dimension to the pages, and makes things look a lot more “scrapbooky”, more-so than stickers can do alone.

Now for another fun part – markers, pens, calligraphy pens, and other writing utensils are a crucial part of the scrapbooking experience. Whether you decide to use gel pens, colored pencils, or whatever your heart desires, it can add a lot to the experience, and is considered necessary to any scrapbooking adventure. There are some expensive professional pens you can buy, but I wouldn’t recommend them until you’re comfortable with the whole process first.

Also, make sure you pick up some assorted ribbons to decorate the pages. They make great borders, and better yet – dig through your Holiday decorations around the house and you may be surprised at all the fun décor you come up with!

So the above is a general overview on how to get started with your first scrapbook, and remember, patience is a virtue. The more time you have to think about how to craft your book, the happier you’ll be with the end product. Now go have some fun!

History Of Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a fun and popular hobby that has really taken off in the last five years or so, and although many people think it’s a new trend, in reality, scrapbooking can be traced back quite a ways! Preserving family events in the form of memorabilia, scrapbooks, albums, and everything else has been going on for a long time. It’s a tradition that goes all the way back to the invention of photographs and print, which makes for a very rich and interesting history. Long story short, scrapbooking can be best described as a visual way of telling an important story in your life.

Going back to before photographs were even in existence, in Ancient Greece there was a very special notebook called a hypomnemata. This notebook was use to preserve and take record of things they had heard and seen. When materials started to be printed, these notebooks became books where they preserved and archived printed things that they found and though were important enough to save. Sound familiar? So scrapbooking can actually be traced back to Ancient Greece!

If you dive in a take a close look at American history, you’ll also see plenty instances of the same type of material preservation. Speaking of that, some of our most famous and well known early scrapbookers have names like Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain and others. Photographs were invented and were then used in these scrapbooks to document whatever event even better. They even used titles and mounted the pictures with special corners in order to preserve and describe the moment in question. They also contained newspaper clippings, letters, and all sorts of other memorabilia.

Fast forwarding to modern era scrapbooking – it really didn’t get hot again until the 80’s in America. A lady by the name of Marline Christensen was a key person that helped revive the timeless art of scrapbooking, and thankfully so! Back in 1980, she put more than fifty scrapbooks on display at the World Conference on Records in Utah, and not long after opened up her own scrapbooking store. Obviously that set the trend, because you can usually find a scrapbooking store in pretty much every decent sized town or city. With the boom in e-commerce, online scrapbook stores have made it easy for everyone to get involved.

So in conclusion, scrapbooking history is a very interesting and rich one. It’s neat to see how far we’ve come with the exponential growth of technology helping us to better store and preserve our dearest moments with scrapbooking. If you’re intrigued by this, and thinking of starting your own scrapbook with your family, there is no better time than now to take advantage of all of the great free scrapbooking resources on the internet