Recipe for a wonderful scrapbook page.
Begin with something important. A photo, or set of photos, a ticket, a card, a letter. These are just some of the things you can use. This will be the reason for making a page, and its theme.
Choose a colour you like and find a piece of acid-free paper that suits what you're using. For the purposes of this demonstration I am using photos of my sister as a ballerina and a muted yellow paper with pinks in it.
If is imperative that the adhesives you use are acid free if you are using photos. Acidic glue can damage your precious photographs. Archival spray is available, but expensive. Archival spray renders papers acid-free. This is useful for including tickets to the ballet or letters from deceased relatives.
Begin by cropping the photos to a pleasing size. It is good to remove unnessary space that is not taken up by the subject of the photo. However, bear in mind that some background details may provide important historical information later on. To crop photos you may use scissors, a craft knife or a specially designed photo cropping paper cutter. Scissors with decorative edges are available and these make charming patterned edges to paper and photos.
Decide what elements you want to include on the page with the photos. For this page I have made a small lacey ballet dress, and have spelt my sister's name in heart shaped beads on a piece of thread. Remember that less is often more, and you can always add things on later.
Arrange you elements on the paper with the photos in a pleasing manner. There are several approaches to this. You can plan obbsessively, moving things around and achieving "perfection" or you can take a more intuitive approach and stop when you like it. Ideas books are available which demonstrate successful layouts. These are helpful if you feel lost.
Remember to leave space for a heading for the page, and possible some text. In my example, I am using the beaded name of my sister as part of the heading. I am also going to write the word 'Ballerina' using fancy lettering.
I have arranged three photos on the page, and am putting the heading half way down and two the left, in between two photos.
Once I have decided on layout, it is time to affix photos to the paper. As I said earlier, acid-free is imperative. I use photo splits, which are like tiny scraps of double sided tape. I put one (or half of pne if I'm feeling frugal) on each corner of the back of the photo. It is very important that you put the adhesive on the back of the photo. Then peel off the photo-split backing and adhere to the page.
Affix your elements using acid-free adhesives. Photo safe glue is useful for such things as tickets. Glue dots are available and useful for beads, shells and small decorations.
When writing your heading and any text, or journalling you wish to add to the page, remember the acid-free rule. There are a huge range of acid-free gel pens available in many pretty colours. Don't worry about making mistakes, as you can always stick something over the top of it. Don't worry if your handwriting isn't perfect, it adds character. If your handwriting is truly atrocious, you can always type it up, print it out and stick it on!
Some important points to remember for journalling. Who is in the pictures? Why are they there? What are the dates?
You can also include quotes that seem appropriate, slogans or song lyrics.
Your page is now finished! Congratulations! Insert into an acid-free scrapbooking album or frame to display on your wall.
Posted by jenni at November 7, 2003 02:30 PM