Try Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is an incredibly popular hobby in North America that has now made its way across the pond.
We take a look at what scrapbooking is along with tips on how to get started with this popular craft and bring your precious memories to life.
What Is Scrapbooking?
The hobby of scrapbooking stems from the historic tradition of preserving memories of people, places and events within albums through sketches, postcards, trinkets, letters and poems.
Scrapbooking in its current form is an incredibly popular hobby in the United States. Nowadays scrapbook albums include photographs, art, embellishments, and journal entries, and provide something like a visual diary to their owners.
There’s a strong tradition of using scrapbooking as a social activity, as scrapbookers get together at houses or meeting places to share tips, show their work, and get to know each other.
Some people now keep a ‘digital scrapbook’, scanning in photographs and notes to add to online photo albums, but for many people the touch and feel of a paper scrapbook is unbeatable.
Select Your Scrapbook Story
The first thing to do is to decide what sort of scrapbook you want to keep. Scrapbooks could be:
- – A family history book
- – A personal memory book about your relationship with your significant other, your closest friendships, or your childhood
- – A record of a grandchild’s journey as they grow up
- – A journal from a holiday or particular event
Your scrapbook as a whole should only contain items that help to tell this story, and each page should have its own theme to keep the story flowing.
Have a think about how you want the scrapbook to look – do you want it to be clean and minimalist in design, artistic and showy, vintage or elaborate? This will help guide you when you buy your supplies.
What To Put In A Scrapbook
The memorabilia that you use in a scrapbook can be anything that you think is significant to the story you want to tell. It could include:
- – Photographs
- – Newspaper clippings
- – Sketches
- – Recipes
- – Tickets
- – Cards and gift tags
- – Poems, prose, or letters
- – Journal entries
- – Postcards
- – A family tree
- – A child’s drawings or school work
- – Scraps of fabric or wrapping paper
- – Holiday souvenirs
- – Written anecdotes and significant facts
Once you’ve decided what sort of scrapbook you want to make and what you want to put in it, it’s time to get supplies.
Scrapbooking Supplies
The biggest, most important supply you’ll need to get started with your own scrapbooking project is the album. Decide if you want a large or small album, one that is fixed in size or that you can add pages to, one with plain or patterned paper.
The other materials you will need to start are:
- – Scissors
- – Photo corner mounts or adhesive spots
- – Acid free background paper
- – Good pens for writing, and pens for any artwork you want to draw
- – Mounting tape or glue
One of the most important things that separate scrapbooks from photo albums is the way they incorporate embellishments to help put items in context.
You’ll find that hobbycraft shops and websites like eBay sell fantastic accessories for scrapbooking to help you embellish your scrapbook and tell your story. You can buy shape punchers, stamps, stencils, paper cutters, stickers, ribbons, fabric, buttons, beads and more to help adorn your scrapbooks.
Do you have memories you would like to preserve in a scrapbook?
Rachel - Silversurfers Assistant Editor
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