Creating Your First Scrapbook Page

  What is Scrapbooking?

    “Scrapbooking is the art of preserving your most precious photographs and memories in a creative, fun and individual way.”

Once you have made the decision to start scrapbooking, that first page can be a little daunting. Choosing an album, gathering supplies and getting out your photos are just the beginning of a fun & rewarding hobby that will preserve & capture your most precious photos & memories for generations to come. 

The following steps are a guide to getting you started:

1) Sorting

2) Choosing your Photos

3) Planning your Layout

4) Cropping

5) Selecting Paper / Cardstock

6) Photo Mounting  

7) Arranging the Layout  

8) Journaling

9) Embellishing / Decorating

10) Enjoy your Layout

1) Sorting

Start sorting your photos. This can be in a number of ways; a couple of the most common are;

                 * Chronological (which is by dates, years or even seasons within a year)

If you are like me & have years of photos that aren’t necessarily written on & dated, I found the easiest way was to sort by decades if necessary, then years and then seasons.

This way you basically have a chronological album without too much fuss.

I then take the year I am sorting & further sort it into themes within the year. This way you have instant pages by separating the year & season into these themes.

It doesn’t matter if some dates are slightly out of order, if the theme or topic flows, the album will work well at telling your story.

This is how I am sorting 15 years of unmarked photos in boxes. My personal style is to then do a family album that covers the year, 5 years, decade etc. Depending on how many photos you have.

                  * Themes or topics

Some people will prefer to do a themed album. It might be Christmas, Holidays, or a dedicated album for a baby, or member of the family etc.

Using this method, you sort your photos into themes & then sort each theme into approx dates. Basically working in the opposite way to the Chronological way. Both work well, it just depends on your style, & if you are doing a one off special album or preserving ongoing family memories.

So decide what works for you & start sorting, it may sound daunting, but it is actually a lot of fun looking through all these precious photos & memories.

 
2) Choosing your Photos

 Once you have started sorting, select a group of photos to start working on for your first page; it is easier if it is of a particular theme or topic.

You can choose anything that you would like to start working on, as the majority of scrapbooking albums are refillable & allow you to swap & change pages around.

3) Planning your Layout

Choose 1 photo to be the main focus of the page; Leave cropping to a minimum on this photo. You could also enlarge this photo as a feature.

You may also like to think of a page layout idea. Scrapbooking Ideas books & magazines are a terrific resource for ideas.

4) Cropping

If needed, crop your photos. This is done for several reasons:

                *The main one is to trim off any background on the edges that is not wanted, or distracts from the main focus of the page.

*To be able to fit more photos on the page.

                *Cropping has changed in the last few years, there are more straight lines now, we are seeing less of the cut shapes from photos, although the occasional circle, oval or creative effect can sometimes used to capture the mood of the layout.

I always recommend limiting the number of cropped shape photos on your page; if you do want a shape, probably one would be plenty.

               *My motto is less is more with cropping; you can always crop a bit more off a photo, but it’s not too easy to fix a photo that has been overcropped. Although if this does happen, I have some tricks such as making a feature of the photo by attaching the cropped edge around the outside of the cropped photo, leaving 2-3mm gap between the photo & the cut edge to look like a frame.

 Please note: There are certain times that photo cropping photos should never be used:

               * Never crop Polaroids – the chemicals inside can leak, ruining your photo & your page. Alternatively, if you want to cover the white edge, you can conceal it with paper frames.

               * Do not crop historic and heritage photos. It is always best to preserve historic photos as they are, you also run the risk of cutting off historical places & references from the background.

5) Selecting Paper / Cardstock

Select 2 – 3 colours of acid & lignin free paper or cardstock that work well with your photos. You may like to choose a patterned paper & a couple of plain coloured cardstock that compliment your photos & the patterned paper.

6) Photo Mounting

Select the photos to mount. This is a great way to highlight your feature photo by double mounting it with 2 cardstock colours.

To mount, you simply choose one or 2 of the chosen paper/cardstock that compliments the photo, cut this a bit larger than the photo & attach the photo in the centre, leaving a frame of colour.

To double mount you just use a second colour paper, a bit larger again, & attach the already mounted photo to this.

You may like to experiment with cut pattern edges or draw stich lines as decoration.

7) Arranging the Layout

Arrange all your photos, embellishments, journal boxes etc on the page and adhere, using acid free adhesive.

When planning a layout, a good rule of thumb is to place the heavier items such as the larger feature photo, darker colours etc. towards the bottom of the page.

There are always exceptions to this rule. As long as it looks balanced & ‘good to the eye’.  

An example sketch of a basic double page layout:

8) Journaling

Add your journaling, as it is very important. Pictures only tell ½ the story, without the background story & information, the photo meaning will become lost over the years.

The basic place to start is the 5 ‘W’ s:

                * Who

                * What

                * When

                * Where

                * Why

You may like to also think of capturing feeling, thoughts & memories that these photos bring to you, the background stories to photos are a great way to capture the moment & convey their message for future generations.

I also like to use quotes & poems to capture a mood as part of the journaling & layout. This is particularly handy when you are short of things to say.

You can always save a place on your page for journaling by mounting some coloured paper in the journaling area. This way, if you make a mistake, you simply replace the paper instead of ruining the page. It is called a journal box. 

There are several different styles of journaling:

                * Bullet style; where you simply document each photo & make short bullet points.

                * Short Paragraph style; this is where you document the photos & write 1-2 paragraphs or sentences about the photos.

                * Story Telling style; a beautiful, but time-consuming way of telling the story. It may be paragraphs or even pages. This is particularly popular with a special dedication album or layout, or historic albums.

I often write a story at the beginning of the album as a way of introducing the album’s story. This way you can use the shorter paragraph style through the rest of the album, saving some time.  

9) Embellishing / Decorating

Next, this is the part that so many of us enjoy; the decorating.

Remember, that stickers & embellishments should be used to enhance your photos, not take over the page & detract attention from the photos.

You may also like to make a fancy heading/title for the page.

They should tie in with the layout, either complimenting the colours, the theme of the page etc.

The ideas are endless; stickers, paper piecing, tags, stamping, paint effects, fabrics, ribbons, paper flowers, eyelets etc…

Always make sure that anything you use is acid free and lignin free if it is paper.

I have attached an article on Photo safety.

10) Enjoy your Layout

Now is the time to sit back & admire your first layout.

You did it! You should also give yourself a pat on the back for starting this fun & rewarding way of preserving your precious photos & memories for years to come.

Have fun & Happy Memory Keeping!

Susan 
PAPER HAVEN