Scrapbooking

Looking for a fun and creative craft to do while in quarantine? Make a scrapbook to let your loved ones know you’re thinking of them or make a scrapbook for yourself and your favourite memories! This craft is a great one you can do alone or with your friends and family.

What is scrapbooking? Scrapbooking is essentially preserving memories by arranging photos, titles, journaling and embellishments in an attractive layout, which is then put into an album for yours and others’ enjoyment.

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Supplies

☐ Cardstock (Solid-coloured plain or textured, acid-free papers, used as backgrounds and photo mats)

☐ Patterned papers (Use them as photo mats, background papers, or part of page accents)

☐ Scissors

☐ Craft scissors or a pair of straight-cut scissors

☐ Adhesives (Can be glue sticks, liquid glue, tapes)

☐ Pens and Markers

☐ Album (The scrapbook album will house layouts, after completing each scrapbook layout, slot them into the album for protection and viewing)

☐Embellishments (Buttons, ribbons, fibres, beads, frames)

Wondering where to buy your supplies? Check out Michael's paper craft and scrapbooking section for all your scrapbooking needs!

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Basic Steps to Making a Scrapbook

1) Brainstorm a theme

Consider what you want your scrapbook to be about. Having a theme will help you have a good idea of the kinds of pages you want to create. It will also make it easier when you compile your scrapbook supplies as you can look out for items related to your theme. Some examples of common themes are graduation, a wedding, a baby’s first year, or specific college years!

If you do not have a specific theme, start with a general album where you’ll put in everything you’ve scrapbooked. After you’ve been scrapping for some time and have a decent number of pages, you might want to sort them into broader themes such as individual family members, friends, travel, or holidays!

2) Photo Selection

The next step is to select the photos you’ll like to go into your specific theme album. If you don’t have a theme in mind, choose pictures that can help you tell the story you’ll like to scrapbook about.

3) Placement of Page Elements

For specific themes, a good idea is to try to set a consistent layout design for all the pages to create a unified look. For a non-themed book where you create each page whenever you get inspired, play around with the placement of various elements, and try to achieve an eye-pleasing arrangement on your background paper.

A little planning will come in handy to save you from cropping photos into the wrong sizes, or realizing that you’ve run out of space. This also helps you to avoid committing to a layout design that doesn’t look right. Have a clear idea of where your pictures, title, journaling, and embellishments should go before you start cropping and pasting

4) Crop, Mat and Adhere Your Photos

If you need to crop any photos, make faded pencil marking on the back and trim the images to your desired sizes with your scissors or paper trimmer.

You can also choose to mat your photos. This will make your photos stand out more and draw eyes to the focal picture. To add a pretty border around your photos, you can use cardstock, patterned, papers, fabric, and other materials as image mats.

If you’ve already planned out the placement of your elements, you would know where your photos should go, so adhere your cropped images to your scrapbook page with your adhesive.

5) Page title

Page titles can highlight or support the page theme or topic. You can handwrite your title, add swirls or creative extras to turn the title into a decorative page topper. Stamped letters, sticker letters, stenciled letters, and computer-generated titles are great as page titles too!

6) Journaling

Journaling helps to tell a good story while your photos are there to support the story. Spend some time thinking about the words you want to put down. You can add names, dates, captions, lyrics, quotes, heartfelt letters for your journaling. You can print out your journaling using computer fonts or handwrite them. Are you making this scrapbook for a loved one? Check out our blog post on how to write heartfelt messages for some inspiration on what to write for them!

7) Add Embellishments

These are the extras that will allow you to add even more personalized touches and details to your designs Shopping for embellishments is an eye-opening experience! Embellishments can enhance your page with interesting and decorative pieces. If you want to add dimension, detail, or texture to your page, add an embellishment or two. You can glue your embellishments, sew them, or tie them with ribbons to your layout. Try not to go overboard with them and let it overshadow your story. Decorations are the extra bits to your scrapbook page; they’re optional.

Once you've completed all seven steps there you have it! Your very own scrapbook layout. Repeat the steps with the next page you want to create until you have a full scrapbook album!