Scrapbooking Ideas Now

As I write this article, I am on my way home from a 10-day vacation. A wonderful time, relaxing yet filled with fun and educational things to do. In this article, I want to share with you some tips and ideas for Scrapbooking your trip on what to do before and during your vacation to ensure a pleasurable scrapping experience for when you return.

Prior to leaving, have in mind what you want to accomplish. Do you want to document your vacation and incorporate it into your present album? Do you plan on creating a theme album, making the entire album about your vacation? You may always change your mind, but if you know prior you may take more or less photos.

Here are some ideas for during your vacation:

1. Save your ticket stubs. Use as an accent on your page or tuck into a pocket, mini envelope or file folder.

2. Save brochures, programs and other items to be used as embellishments or accents in your scrapbook.

3. Have a street map, map to the amusement park or any other kind of map? Maps tend to be large and would make a great background paper. You can also use for matting photos, page borders, or fold into a pocket or envelope. (use the map itself to create the pocket/envelope).

4. Can’t get the perfect photo? Weather or lighting not cooperating? Too many people? Whatever the reason may be, make sure you make a stop at the gift shop and look for postcards. Postcards are inexpensive, typically .25-.35, and offer beautiful glossy photos.

5. Start your journey with a large envelope or file folder. Keep maps and information about your possible destinations. After visiting, file your memorabilia there. This will keep everything together in one place and be ready for Scrapbooking upon your trip home.

6. Immediately jot down funny stories, important events/happenings on the way home (from that days event) to keep the memories fresh. Again store in the same large envelope/folder.

7. Did you learn an interesting fact while touring? Be sure to document it. Whether in a photo or as journaling. Write it down and store away.

Upon your return, once you get back all your photos from the trip, look them over. Look for a common theme or color. Based on your findings, decide what papers and colors you want to use. Purchase or gather papers, embellishments, stickers or anything else you want or may need to include in your album. By using the same theme and colors of paper your vacation will be more unified into one theme. Plus this will ensure scrapping your entire trip much easier and quicker. Each page can have a different background yet coordinating. For each page, choose your photos, accents and embellishments from your trip or some you may have purchased with the papers. Add your journaling and then see what needs to be done to complete it. Now you have a completed album or pages to remember your vacation and to share with others.

Do you have extra photos from your vacation? Here are a few ideas on how to use those extra photos:

1. Ask all those involved in the vacation what there favorite part was. Create a top 5 or 10 page and use up the extra photos of the top favorites. Be sure to include a quick summary in the journaling.

2. Use extra photos and let the kids make their own vacation memory album.

3. Use extra photos to make a mini album of the vacation for someone who went along and may not be a scrapbooker themselves. What a great gift idea!

4. Mount an extra photo to a piece of cardstock and use as a thank you card to give to someone who may have taken care of your pets, mail or plants while you were away.

I hope the above tips will prepare you for your next vacation and help you “Scrap your Trip”!

The Beauty of a Scrapbook

Life presents us with many memories, both good and bad. The good memories may leave us brimming ear to ear in a joyous smile, while the bad ones a sadness in our hearts. And memories have the funny tendency to occur when it is least expected.

Keeping pictures of events in life is one way to keep those memories alive. Joyous moments and special occasions such as field trips, holidays, vacations, birthdays, graduations, weddings, and many other occasions often captured in photographs. Further, these photos keep the memory of the event or circumstance alive, and give others who are able to look at the photos a brief glimpse of the scene and ability to share, to a degree, some of the emotion around the photos. So the question arises: “Do you want to let these special photos lie still in plain and traditionally-looking photo albums? Or do you want to really spice them up? How about using a Scrapbook to house your precious photos.

You don’t have to be an expert at taking photos or even an experienced artist to create these scrapbooks. All you really need is a concept to express your idea, a design to house your ideas, and your precious photos to fit into your design.

Scrapbooking allows you to keep the memories alive with the use of poems, quotes, love songs, or simple statements expressing your feeling to the person or events as captions for your photos. In this manner, your most intimate feelings will be kept alive in your work of artistry.

When journaling the events surrounding your photos, you may recall some funny or memorable incident about the photo that you may include to make the caption more expressive and alive. Colors also play a great role in your scrapbook. Softer colors such as cream and blue or silver and gold are mostly used. These colors make the pages of the scrapbook more attractive and lively.

A scrapbook is perfect for capturing times of joy and love in your life. For example, your scrapbook may serve as memorabilia of the items such as cards, love letters, restaurant menu dined at, concerts attended, dried flowers, and many other things which you and your loved one have given to each other. Another example is a question and answer portion that you and your loved one ca answer in the scrapbook. The questions may revolve around your favorite food, pet peeves, traditions, future goals, favorite pastimes, and the things which you mostly agree and disagree on. Scrapbooking is a quick and easy method for recording special memories that you and your loved one share. And creating the scrapbook can be great fun as well.

Before starting your scrapbook, first get all the pictures that you will include in your work. Then, chronologically sort them out by date. Before pasting the photos, make sure that you’ve already conceptualized the sequence of those as they will appear in the pages. Once in a while, put in artistic embellishments to the pages. Never fail to include the captions too. Do this all throughout the pages of the scrapbook. By carefully following the ins and outs of the steps, you are on your way to creating your beautiful scrapbook

There seems to be a new craze that is taking the picture-taking planet by storm. I recently attended a fundraiser for Leukemia research hosted by a Creative Memories scrapbook consultant. The consultant is related to a person who passed away from the illness and she decided to merge her two passions together as one.

I have never gone to a scrapbook party in my life and I had no idea what to expect. I immediately became addicted to Creative Memories scrapbook supplies and projects once I started one of my own. There were lots of items to choose from and my little pictures actually turned into something like pages out of a storybook.

What I love about the Creative Memories scrapbook meetings is that they are designed to keep you focused on the task at hand. You are also surrounded by others who are engaged in making wonderful displays so you have a great resource for inspiration. The arrangement is simple and you can start your Creative Memories scrapbook project immediately.

Each person arrived with a donation for the very good cause. We were then seated by a starter kit donated by the Creative Memories scrapbook representative. I was overwhelmed by her generosity but she said that many of the items were discontinued by the company anyway so she really didn’t view it as much of a sacrifice.

Even the discontinued Creative Memories scrapbook starter kits were excellent in design and quality. In no time at all I was on my way to making a wonderful presentation that I will share with my family. Of course, I chose my daughter as the subject of interest. This is a great starting point for a beginner because there are tons of great ideas for newborn baby pages.

I found lots of die cast cutouts and adorable stickers among the items for sale at the scrapbook meeting. Many other moms had left over stickers and details for these kinds of pages that they wouldn’t be using. The Creative Memories scrapbook function is wonderful for trading and sharing tools.

There are so many items that you need when you are completing such projects. Many of us don’t have the money to invest in this kind of hobby but when you attend a Creative Memories scrapbook workshop most of the tools of the trade are available. Other tools are passed around by generous crafters.

It is amazing how a fundraiser can educate you about a serious illness while opening the door to a whole new hobby. The Creative Memories scrapbook fundraiser did just that for me.