For this month’s tips post I thought I would write about something I’ve recently really gotten into a lot more after starting the hobby a couple of years ago but not having much time to do it. What I’m talking about is scrapbooking, a hobby that I absolutely adore because it is something I can do whenever I have a spare 5 minutes or a couple of hours. It lets out my creativity in a less stressful way than when I attempt a sewing project and it is nice to reminisce through my life or my family’s life with the family scrapbook I’m putting together. It is all a work in progress and I’m always learning something new and a better way to do something but for now here are the things I have learnt so far from scrapbooking.
Make sure you buy yourself a decent scrapbook, preferably with pockets
This really is a must for me that you get a good scrapbook with a good outer cover, plenty of pages and preferably with pockets for extra bits and pieces you may not necessarily want to stick onto your pages. You don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune on the book but it should definitely be a decent quality one and let’s face it you don’t want to place your treasured memories in something not that great especially after all the work you will put into creating your scrapbook. All my scrapbooks, bar one, have come from Paperchase and I can not fault the quality especially for the price. At £10 each for my 3 most recent books they have around 200 pages, are ring bound, have a closure [ribbon or elastic] and one does have pockets. My family scrapbook is a basic black while my personal scrapbook has a bird on it as I love birds and I recently purchased a travel scrapbook to finally collate all my Europe travel images. I can’t recommend Paperchase enough for decent scrapbooks that are affordable plus they have some themed ones which are awesome for things like travel and weddings.
It may cost a lot but it is worth getting photos printed for you rather than doing it yourself
I can’t stress enough the importance of getting decent quality photos ordered from online or in a photography store. I know it costs that bit more but it is totally worth it in the end for the good quality of your images that will be with you forever in your scrapbook. Plus sites like Photobox have a lot of great offers on all the time so you can save a lot of money by bulk ordering photos. I’ve used Photobox 3 times now and every single time was brilliant, I used offers so got a cheaper price but the ease of ordering and quickness of delivery makes them great. Obviously if you have a very good printer then printing off photos at home is a given but for most of us our cheaper, everyday models just don’t produce a good quality when printing onto photo paper, I’ve tried before many times and always been disappointed with the results. From now on I’d rather spend a bit more on getting good photos because it really is the area in my opinion that you can not skimp on.
You will spend a lot of time organising photos and getting sucked into a nostalgia trip
Organising photos can be a pain sometimes, when organising my travel photos I couldn’t work out if a particular building was in one of 3 cities which made things pretty difficult. However, looking through photos always brings about a great nostalgia trip whether it is a holiday photo, a pic of you and your friends from years ago or all of the family photos that brings out all the stories, good, bad and embarassing. This is probably the most time consuming part of the whole process but fun all the same.
Have the stationary basics to hand
Things such as glue sticks, scissors and biros are most haves for the scrapbooking process. Depending on how you want your scrapbook to look and how you want to arrange your photos then photo corners may also be a good idea for your book and keeping your photos in place. The other extra stuff can be got a later date or sometimes things you think you need you may not even need at all, do you really need every colour pen, rolls and rolls of fabric tape, stickers etc? You might but you may not, the best thing to do is plan how you want your pages to look around the photos and the other bits and pieces you want to stick in there and then add decorations and descriptions after. This way it will help the scrapbooking process and give you an insight on what really needs to be added to your stationary shopping list.
Most of all though it is fun, theraputic and you get something awesome out of it when you are finished
There no real rules to scrapbooking because it is all about your creativity and it is completely personal to you and you alone. Everyone’s scrapbook is going to be different and honestly there is no point replicating someone else’s scrapbook, take inspiration which I sometimes do too but mainly it should be how you envisage your photos and memories to be. Scrapbooking is fun and personally I find it theraputic and relaxing, I think that comes from my loves of both organisation and creativity. And obviously the best thing about scrapbooking is that you get something totally awesome out of it, a book or folder full of your photos, memories, life, friends, family, good times, laughs and milestones. If they aren’t enough reasons to justify this as a great hobby then I don’t know what else is.
I hope these tips may help some of you starting out or looking to get into scrapbooking. I’m no expert on this area but these are just the key things that I have learnt so far which I think some scrapbooking blogs fail to mention when they give out tips. Let me know if you are a scrapbooker and what your top tips/products are.
Mixtape Couture 