How to Make A Scrapbook Step 1-Organizing Photos

This is the first of a series of a step by step introduction to making a scrapbook of memories. First Article is on Organizing Photos.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• PHOTOS, PHOTOS, PHOTOS
• Acid free Scrapbook
• Acid free pages
• Acid free page protectors
• Acid free adhesives
• Acid free embellishments
• Cutters, trimmers, and or scissors
• Acid free writing tools

1. Organize photos by filing photos according to events, dates, or similar themes. This can be overwhelming. To get motivated, start with your most current photos. Try to file them in an acid free container which light will not penetrate, especially if you have older photos. Light can cause your photos to fade over time and deteriorate faster.
2. Once you have grouped photos by theme, event or dates, decide how many photos you want per page, usually 5-8 (with cropping) will be sufficient. Consider photos for the title page and pages that will be facing each other. Learn to "let go" of photos that are repeated or are not of good quality. In other words learn to minimize your photo collection. More info in steps to follow.
3. Title page photos can be a photo which will represent the theme of your album. Example: a group shot of the people on your tour for a Travel Album. A nice baby portrait for a Baby Album.
4. If a photo is blurry, or has a bad composition, consider eliminating the photo. However, if it is the absolutely ONLY photo of that place or event, you can TRY to incorporate it, but scrutinize it thoroughly. Can you do without it?
5. Once you have chosen the photos you will definitely be using, consider how you want to progress through the album. Which photos do you want on each page. Do you want to do it chronologically, or by theme (eg. birthdays, anniversaries), by events or places (eg. trip to Hawaii, or visit to Smithsonian Museums)
6. Choose about 5-8 photos per page. Five photos can fit a 12x12 album rather comfortably, but with cropping you can fit more (3-6 for a 8-1/2x11 album). So take into consideration how you can crop photos. You can usually crop photos with too much background or foreground. Crop tight to highlight important image of photo. Cropping will also add shapes and interest on you scrapbook pages. More about cropping later.
7. One more thing to consider: for pages facing each other you can, if you have enough photos, choose photos with a similar theme. You can make the facing pages similar in look. It would be kind of like opening up to the center page in a magazine.

Tips & Warnings

• In the articles to follow you will learn how to crop and place your photos in an album.
• You will also learn how to choose your scrapbook products and what kind of tools are out there.
• Be careful with older photos. We call them heritage photos. Some may be brittle or delicate. File them safely.
• We do NOT crop heritage photos.
• We do NOT crop and prefer not to use polaroids due to the chemicals in the layers beneath the photos.