How to Make a Friend Book

Although most scrapbooks featuring your friends showcase the adventures you've shared together, make one that focuses on them instead. Create layouts as visual biographies to chronicle their personalities and let future generations discover who your friends were and why they meant so much to you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Scrapbook album
• Photos
• Memorabilia
• Adhesives
• Cardstock
• Patterned paper
• Embellishments
• Pens

1. Give each one of your friends a "questionnaire" to fill out. Ask them about their history, favorites, pet peeves, heartthrobs, hobbies and family history, for example. Let them list their impression of you when you first met, why they think you're such good friends and their fondest memory from your years together. Reference their answers when writing the journaling for the layouts about them.
2. Buy a scrapbook album so you'll know what size layouts to create. A three-ring binder will allow facing pages to sit completely flat and also give you room to expand and rearrange the pages easily (see Resources).
3. Gather photos of your friends. Ask their parents if you can borrow a few of their baby pictures and make color copies of them to include on the layouts. Also use pictures you've taken at school, during extracurricular activities, at dances or while hanging out at the mall.
4. Look for any memorabilia that you've collected to adorn the pages. Consider clothing labels from your friends' favorite brands, postcards from sights you've seen or takeout menus from local restaurants, for example.
5. Coordinate cardstock, patterned paper and accents that will match with the photos and memorabilia for each page. Create the layouts by placing the photos first, then deciding where you'll write the journaling. Add patterned paper and embellishments that suit your friend's personality or feature her favorite colors and motifs.
6. Leave room on each page where your friends can autograph their pages and write you a personal message, yearbook style.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want your friend album to stand the test of time without fading, discoloration or deterioration, use acid-free and archival-safe page protectors, cardstock, adhesives, pens and embellishments when you create your layouts.