Light on frills, heavy on informative text, this handbook will help beginners and adepts alike make their scrapbooks everything they want them to be. Hundreds of tips on all aspects of the craft lead us through every step, from deciding on a theme and designing the page to journaling, adding mementos, even making over an old album assembled before you knew how to do it properly. The lengthy thematic section offers 30 subject ideas, including scrapbooks for cooks, gardeners, sports enthusiasts, theatergoers, genealogists, pet lovers, and travelers, or those celebrating special occasions. There's also information on "Scrapbook Socials"--organizing scrapbook clubs to turn a solitary creative pursuit into a fun collective endeavor. Other scrapbooking guides may be prettier (this has some black-and-white illustrations and diagrams, but no color), but few are this comprehensive. --Amy Handy
From the Inside Flap
ustomized family heirloom is easier than you think!
Now you can create a scrapbook to cherish forever--one as unique as the lives it portrays. This comprehensive source book, produced by the experts at the Scrapbook Guild, will answer all your questions and take you step by step through the process of assembling a homemade work of art.
Even if you have no artistic ability, you will learn how to make scrapbooks so full of style, so engaging, they beg to be shared with others, and where turning the pages is as fascinating as walking through a miniature museum.
The Scrapbook Guild provides expert tips, professional layouts, and instructions for using original quality materials to produce a treasure that will last for generations...as individual as your own memories. Discover:
How to get started
Best-for-your-money materials--pens, paper, scissors, album types, and more
Remedies for common scrapbook problems
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Why Make Scrapbooks?
In our busy lives, bombarded by the demands of today's high-tech world, we have so little time for the things that really matter. Scrapbooking keeps us connected to what is important in life--family, friends, and the experiences we share with them. The simple act of pasting photographs and jotting down impressions in a book is a relaxing way to record history. By taking bits and pieces from our lives and putting them together in one place, we celebrate our existence and create something timeless in a world where there seems to be no time at all.
And speaking of time, the wonderful thing about scrapbooking is that, like quilting, which can be done one block at a time, scrapbooking can be done one page at a time. When that page is finished, possibly after one sitting, you have something complete. It is a boost to your creativity that everyone around you can understand, enjoy, and appreciate.
Many of us, whether we freely admit it or not, have a sentimental streak. We can't bear to throw away a handmade card from a special friend or our child's first stick-figure drawing. Scrapbooking gives us a practical way to preserve tangible memories from days gone by, and pulling together these various elements can be a very creative process. Scrapbooks also give us a usable resource, showing the places we've been--(What was the name of that cute little B & B we stayed in that night?)--the things we've seen-- (What museum was that painting in?)--not to mention the people we were.
Organizing and protecting your priceless photographs may be the most important reason to scrapbook. Right now, how many of your precious photos and negatives lie scattered around the house in boxes in the attic, drawers in the guest room, or even stuck in harmful plastic "magnetic" photo albums? By using the best materials for your photos and mementos, you'll have a family album (or two) that displays your history clearly and safely . . . for many years to come.
A Story to Tell
We all have a story to tell. A thousand stories, really. There's little Bonnie's first year when she grew so fast and charmed so many. Remember the once-in-a-lifetime family vacation to search for traces of your ancestors in Europe? Or the summers spent at grandmother's cottage on the coast of Maine? What about your college years when you met your life-long friends and learned more than calculus? And how can you forget the family myth you've heard a hundred times about the sweet-sounding violin your grandfather made?
Every life has many unique stories, but few of us take the time to write them down. That's really a shame, because in an important way we honor our lives--our families, friends, and accomplishments--through the stories we tell. To preserve those tales for generations to come is an act of love. A scrapbook of family pictures and mementos captures the narrative of our daily lives and commemorates our friendships, our successes, our family ties, our interests. Scrapbooks highlight the landmark moments, both large and small.
In your hands you can hold memories--a Valentine made by your four year old, the ticket stub and program from your first Broadway play, a picture of your father wearing a funny hat, a letter from your favorite aunt. These mementos, rather than being stuck haphazardly in boxes under the bed, can be organized by theme and category to tell a richly detailed story--page by beautiful page.
Travel Scrapbook
You might travel frequently for adventure or only occasionally for relaxation. But whatever your pleasure, a scrapbook preserving the trip will help you relive joyous moments and provide a good reference for future travel.
Your scrapbook can chronicle ten years of travel or a single destination. If you create your scrapbook during your trip, as a miniature diary, then the experiences can be captured with immediacy and vividness.
Travel journal ideas:
Pack a small, blank spiral-bound notebook (4" x 6", postcard size), a glue stick, tiny scissors, and a nice pen: each page of your scrapbook will contain a short record of the day's events during travel.
Find an appropriate postcard and glue it on the front cover of the scrapbook to make it "official."
Cut up an inexpensive map which indicates the locale of your hotel (or destination) and glue it to the back cover.
Include travel confirmations and the unused portion of train or airline tickets.
Buy postcards to document the places you visit (instantly you have photos).
Stop at an automatic photo machine and mug it up.
Save any printed matter from the day's activities: shopping bags, packaging, newspapers, concert programs, receipts, brochures, hotel stationery, maps, transportation schedules, business cards, restaurant cards, matchbooks, napkins, stamps, museum exhibit ticket stub.
Glue assorted paraphernalia like scraps of paper on which a native scribbled directions for you or the box of Chiclets with Arabic lettering; and write the relevant captions: "Ellen bought Chiclets to add a refreshing touch after our meal. To our surprise they were flavored with fennel! We visited the Villa Borghese on the Via Veneto today, and were lucky to get tickets, it's the first season the museum has been open in 15 years!"
You can make another type of travel scrapbook after the trip. Gather materials suggested above and combine them with photos you have developed after you've arrived home.
For the cover and title of any travel scrapbook, use lettering found on postcards or hotel stationery. You can print your own lettering in a variety of typefaces on a computer. A photocopy enlargement of airline or train tickets lists time, dates, and destination and are enticing without giving away the visuals inside the book. Or consider a color copy enlargement of your passport.
A quintessential photograph or postcard of the trip makes an attractive visual title. Or try a photo montage that encourages picking up the scrapbook to see what all the photographs are about.
If you look for themes in your travel photographs, you will no doubt be inspired to create other scrapbooks.
Train rides scrapbook: photos of the trains, stations, and places. Add: ticket stubs, schedules.
Great monuments scrapbook: Arc de Triomphe, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Mt. Rushmore, Taj Mahal.
Renowned cathedrals, temples, synagogues.
Natural wonders: Grand Canyon. Everglades, Rocky Mountains, Mississippi River.
Skiing vacations scrapbook or beach vacations scrapbook
Favorite hotel scrapbook with brochures, cards, receipts, stationery, and photos of each establishment.
