|
The Webster dictionary describes a scrapbook as ‘A blank book in which extracts cut from books and papers may be pasted and kept.’ The scrapbook of today can be much, much more than this. A scrapbook is literally a ‘memory’ book. It gives one a place to store all the miscellaneous items that accompany any life. Birth and wedding announcements, photographs, school memories, a special collection, any mementos of your life that you want to save.
Starting Assembly
The first step in making a scrapbook may surprise you, as it is not picking out a book to use. The first step is deciding what will fill it. You do not need to have all the items, just an idea of what they will be. Think of groups as you make your decisions.
Ideas
Baby's First Year
Wedding
Elementary Years
Homecoming and Prom
Pets
Grandchildren
Vacation
Keep in mind these are all just suggestions. Any event in your life that you feel is important enough to document can be a scrapbook.
Materials
There are many craft items on the market today specifically for the scrapbooker. These include:
Special papers including Acid Free
Pre-made scrapbooks
Stencils
Glues and glue pens
Stickers
Paper punches in fun shapes
Scissors that will leave a decorative edge
Colored pencils and markers
There are many nice ‘empty’ books on the market sold as journals, and these work great as scrapbooks. Photo albums that have removable pages will work. Homemade paper, punched and tied together with ribbon or jute can become a special book of whatever you decide to fill the pages with.
Decide on a theme for your scrapbook, and keep this in mind as you gather the materials.
If you are making one about your family vacation, look for stickers that consist of street signs, or cut out paper frames to back the photos in shapes of highway markers and signs. Another example could be a scrapbook on your daughter’s years in dance. Look for stencils in dance shoe shapes or trace the bottom of her first pair of ballet shoes. Color these in with colored pencils, and with a paper punch, make two holes and tie ribbon through bow, leaving ends long to flow over top of photo placed on same page. Remember that this is a book of memories. Fill it with whatever you choose, and you will surely enjoy the outcome. Experimentation works best. If something does not work, take it out. There are no hard and fast rules as to what can and can not go in a scrapbook.
Displaying
Putting together a scrapbook of a special time or event in your life can be very enjoyable to do. However, once done, many people tuck them away, only occasionally taking them out to look at. It would be nice if there was some way to enjoy and share the work you put into them. Someway to keep them out without just putting them on the living room coffee table, where they may become damaged or become nothing more than clutter. There is! Display them!
Let's look at a specific scrapbook made when my friend’s son headed off to college. On display, in her son’s old room, now revamped as a guest room, sits his small wooden rocker with his first teddy bear sitting in the rocker, and a scrapbook filled with memories of his early years, balanced open in the teddy bear’s lap.
From her first ultrasound photograph, to his locks of hair from his first haircut, and the best of her photographs she snapped his first year. Alongside the rocker is his first pair of shoes, and a baseball and glove from his years in Little League. Once she had decided what items would go together, she then found a book a bit smaller than the average sized scrapbook, but that would fit well in the bear’s lap. While she originally intended this to be just about when he was a baby, it did develop into a glimpse all the way into his early elementary years. This is perfectly acceptable. She has another scrapbook of his high school years, with not only more photographs but also his letters he achieved through sports, his bow tie from his junior prom, and a letter he sent home after his first week at college.
Whatever you decide to fill your scrapbook with, remember these are your memories, and you may look at and remember them any way you choose. Do not forget to add comments and remarks as you assemble your book. And someone once told me that they always leave a page empty in the back, with a pen tied dangling on ribbon to every book they make, so people may leave a comment or thought. Happy scapbooking!
| 
