Saturday, August 23, 2008

Scrapbook Saturday

Today I wanted to talk about the basics of scrapbooking and some things I've learned along the way.

1. Journal right away. As soon as something happens write it down. Otherwise when you get around to scrapbooking the pictures you may have forgotten what happened. Also, it goes without saying, journal on all your pages. Your family wants to read about themselves. Really! People who weren't there want to know what's happening in the photos. Future generations wont know that's you and Mildred watching the kids play in the yard after a hard day at school. So JOURNAL it. Even if it's just the who/what/when/where....that's better than nothing!

2. Make a page about the journaling. Usually we fill up our scrapbooks with birthdays and Christmas mornings and we don't include really important times. One of my favorite pages was when I scrapbooked about my SNS and how I hated/loved it. It had lots of journaling, and I took a picture of the SNS and one of Millicent nursing. Make a page here and there that tells a nice story as the focus.

3. Take lots and lots (and lots) and lots of pictures. Not just pictures of the first day of school, and Easter morning, but pictures of everything. The kids playing outside, doing their school work, riding their bikes. I missed the boat on this one. Now I try to take lots of pictures of ordinary things, so my books aren't just filled with special occasions.

4. Get in close. Sometimes I just want a picture of one of my girls faces. I want to include a sweet poem about them, or a neat title, or just talk about something they are going through. And a picture from Frontier City doesn't fit. What I want is a close up of their face, doing nothing. So get in there and get those close ups.

5. Always put the date. I used to only put the dates on pictures (which you should ALWAYS do). Now I've started putting it on the bottom of every page I complete. When I flip through the scrapbook and read about when Kati was really struggling with confidence, it helps to remember WHEN that time was. I started doing this with my All About Me book and loved knowing how I have changed over the years. Then I decided I wanted the same for all the other pages. Try it, you'll find how much you like it.

Here is a page I did for my AAM album a few months ago. It's a list of 100 things I love. (I challenge you to make a page, post it and link back here to me.) I wont actually get to scrapbook today because our air has gone out and it will be really hot here today. But you do a page and come back and tell me about it.

Feel free to tell me what you've learned about scrapbooking as you've gone.

3 comments:

Lily said...

Great tips. thanks for the remonders. The one I always forget is to add a date

Unknown said...

These are all great things to keep in mind. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Number 3 is especially important. I noticed earlier this year that all I've photographed in 2008 were vacations (duh) and birthdays Nice to remember, of course, but not a good way to capture this year by a long shot.