How to Make a Heritage Scrapbook

Heritage scrapbooks are a fun, beautiful way to preserve your family history for generations to come. Instead of storing priceless family photos, letters and mementos in boxes in your closet or attic, you can organize and display them in a scrapbook that allows you to fully enjoy and appreciate them. Putting together a Heritage Scrapbook just requires some organization, creativity and motivation.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Scrapbook album
• Family photographs and letters
• Adhesive
• Embellishments
• Scissors
• Journaling pens
• Acid-free patterned paper
• Rubber stamps
• Ink pads

1. Go through all of your old photographs and separate them into a way that makes sense to you and will flow nicely in a scrapbook. Some people like to do this by person, while others do it by time period. Place each group of photos in a photo box with memo card dividers or gallon size zip-closure bags.

2. Write down your family memories in a notebook or on your computer. Your perception of family members and events will be priceless to your descendants, and they're a wonderful addition to a heritage scrapbook. You may also want to talk to other family members about their recollections and write those down as well, or have them write their stories in their own words.

3. Decide whether you want to use a scrapbooking kit or use a plain, undecorated scrapbook with your own gathered materials. Gathering your own materials gives you more creative freedom to put together something really personal, but kits can make the process much faster.

4. Look at examples of heritage scrapbooks online for inspiration (see Resources below). You can get ideas for layouts, materials, fonts and other aspects of the scrapbook from others but still create something that is entirely your own.

5. Choose a simple color scheme that can be carried throughout the scrapbook in all of your decorative materials. Most heritage scrapbooks use deep jewel tones and neutrals, but you can choose any scheme that compliments your photographs and your tastes. When purchasing new materials, take the ones you already have with you so you can make sure they'll look good together.

6. Start simply. Establish the order you want things to go in for your scrapbook, and just concentrate on attaching photos and letters to the pages. You can add embellishments later. If you like a layered look, you may want to adhere some patterned paper cut-outs to the pages behind your photos. Depending on the size of each photo, it's best to use 3 to 5 photos per page. Use odd numbers for more visual interest.

7. Distress each page with walnut ink, sandpaper or textured stamps. This process can help your pages look older and therefore more 'authentic'.

8. Use a light hand with embellishments. Putting too many on each page will make the pages heavy, bulky and busy looking. You want your family mementos to be center stage – everything else is just decoration.

9. Personalize each page by adding the names, dates, and places of each event pictured in your own handwriting with a journaling pen.

Tips & Warnings

• Always use acid-free, archival quality materials in scrapbooks that contain precious family mementos, especially if they are your only copies.
• Instead of gluing letters and other mementos down onto the page, you can glue envelopes to the page and place them inside. That way, you can still read the backs of letters and you won't have to damage any of your valued keepsakes.