Begininng Scrapbooking
You’ve seen those beautiful scrapbook layouts in magazines and books. You’ve admired the pages your friends have made and you might even have bought some colored cardstock and page protectors, but when it comes to putting it all together and posting your precious photos, you just don’t know where to begin.
Believe it or not, it isn’t difficult to create a fun and attractive scrapbooking page and you don’t have to be artistic or crafty either. All it takes is a little bit of instruction and some imagination. But be forewarned, as many of us have already discovered, scrapbooking is both relaxing and addictive. Starting with something simple, like getting your photos in order, will help keep you organized as you expand your Scrapbooking supplies.
Getting Organized
The first step in creating a scrapbook is to gather and organize your photos.Do you have a huge plastic bin in the back of your closet filled to overflowing with school pictures, vacation snapshots and the studio portraits that come in Christmas cards and wedding announcements. Before you're ready to scrapbook, you need to divide them up in a way that will work for you.
Some might choose to separate them by individual family members, pet photos, family group photos, extended family photos and photos of family friends. Others find it more practical to separate them by events such as vacations, birthday parties, 4th of July picnics and weddings. There is no wrong way to do it, and the objective is to be able to find the photo you’re looking for without sorting through piles of mismatched pictures.
For digital photos, you can do this organizing online. Create individual files and then copy your photos in the appropriate file. When you are ready to begin scrapbooking, you can print the photos as you need them.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to delete or throw photos away. After one older woman died her family found a shoe box full of pictures that were blurry, missing tops of heads or duplicates. None of these photos was worth keeping, the dear woman hadn't been able to bring herself to throw them away. You are preserving these stories and photos for generations, so be picky and only keep the very best.
Next we'll talk about Supplies…
