How to Decorate Album Pages in Scrapbooking

One of the biggest jobs in scrapbooking is decorating the album pages. It is the decorations on a page that make it special and personal. There are a variety of ways to decorate album pages in a scrapbook and an abundance of materials with which to do it. Make your scrapbook stand out by learning how to decorate album pages.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Acid-free scrapbook pages
• Acid-free scrapbooking pens
• Acid-free scrapbooking adhesives
• Acid-free colored construction paper
• Photos
• Die cuts and paper piecings
• Stickers, ribbons or brads

Decorate the Album Pages in Your Scrapbook

1. Decide on a theme. Scrapbook pages often revolve around a particular event or idea. Plan the themes of your pages in advance so you can have a better idea of what decorating supplies you will need.
2. Make sure you have the right kind of decorating supplies. You should always have acid-free, archival safe pens, adhesive and paper on hand to decorate your scrapbook. These kinds of supplies will cause the least amount of damage to your scrapbook pages and photos throughout the years.
3. Create the border. This is the first thing you should do when starting to decorate an album page in scrapbooking. Trying to draw in a border after photos and artwork are in place is difficult and may cause inadvertent marks to be made on those things.
4. Place your photographs. Use photo corner adhesive if you have it. If not, a mounting square adhesive or double-stick tape will suffice.
5. Attach paper piecing or die cuts to the pages. These bits of paper art are used to reinforce the theme of your page. You can draw or color in details on them (if you wish) before or after affixing them to the paper.
6. Apply stickers, ribbons or brads to the pages. These touches add a bit of sparkle, shine and individuality to your scrapbook album pages.
7. Add drawings and journal entries. Journal entries give information about the photos on the page, but they can also be used creatively to provide extra decoration to a page. Vary the layout of your journal entries on different album pages, and accent them with smiley faces or small drawings.

Tips & Warnings

• Use special tools to make your pages more decorative. For example, you can use a corner rounder to crop the edges of your photographs so that they have rounded rather than straight edges.