How to begin a scrapbook.
Sometimes, just getting started on a scrapbook can be overwhelming. You have all these photos sorted and ready to go but you are just not sure how to get started. Following are several creative ways to begin a scrapbook of different kinds.
First you would type up the person’s name and/or their birth date. Center it on the page, using a large font so that it will be big enough to be centered in the middle of the front page of your scrapbook. You can also select any font that seems to go with the subject of your scrapbook. You can then cut it in a heart shape, oval shape or any shape you want. Remember to use acid free paper on which to print it. If you are good at lettering, you can hand letter the name or title for this page. They also make letters in many sizes, many styles and many colors that you can use to letter this caption page.
Once you have lettered it and cut it out, secure it to the front page of your scrapbook with your scrapbooking adhesive or with acid free rubber cement. On the edge of the heart or oval shape, start placing stickers over the seam line. You can use stickers that apply to that person’s life. Such as, a few baby-related stickers, a sticker of some of their favorite childhood things like a tricycle, a wagon or a teddy bear. Move on to other things in their life, like musical notes if they are musical, airplanes if they travel a lot, things representing hobbies they do, etc.
If your book is a theme book, then your title would be something to do with that theme and the stickers would also relate to that theme. For instance, we took a trip to Hershey, Gettysburg and Lancaster, Pa. The center read Vacation, 2005 and the stickers were Hershey kisses, a plane, a car, a soldier or rifle, a camera, a Boyd’s teddy bear, quilts, and on and on. The Boyd’s Bear factory is in Gettysburg and the Lancaster area is an Amish area where there are many quilts. These things were all things that were representative of our trip.
If you are doing a scrapbook on a certain era, you can state the time and get stickers that relate to that era. These are available at any scrapbook supply store like Michael’s, Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart.
Also, a good way to start a scrapbook of a trip might be with a calendar. You can buy calendar pages or you can just take a ruler and marker and draw your own calendar. You can place stickers that represent what you did that day on the appropriate day or write information that relates to what you did that day on that particular day. This also helps you remember when you did each activity so that your thoughts and your photos are in the correct order making it easier to follow through on the rest of your scrapbook. You might want to take one of your photos from each day and minimize it and place a photo from something you did on the day that you did it.
These ideas for opening pages get you started and can help you get your thoughts organized and therefore help you get your scrapbook in order. You are now ready to move on to the rest of the book.
Now that the mental block of how to start has been removed keep going and get those memories on pages for many generations to enjoy.
