How to Do Freestyle Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a hobby that produces beautiful keepsakes that can be passed down for generations. Rather than store your photos in an album or photo box, consider putting together a unique scrapbook that can store much more than just pictures. While there are many kits designed to make scrapbooking a cut and paste activity, freestyle scrapbooking gives you the creative freedom to make something truly unique to your experience and memories.
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Things You'll Need
- Scrapbook
- Colored or patterned scrapbook paper
- Markers
- Stickers
- Rubber cement
- Pictures
- Mementos such as ticket stubs, etc.
Instructions
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Putting Together a Scrapbook
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1
Select a theme for your scrapbook. Scrapbooks work best when they are centered around a specific event or time frame, such as a wedding, family vacation or baby's first year. Collect the pictures that you will want to use for this scrapbook. If you have mementos such as ticket stubs, invitations, brochures or any other items that can be pasted to a piece of paper, collect these as well.
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2
Select a scrapbook for your project. The most common sizes are 12 inches by 12 inches and eight by eight inches, though you can find books in a variety of dimensions. Your local craft store should have albums in several colors and patterns to suit your style and theme. A book filled with several plastic page covers around white sheets of card stock or paper is ideal. You can add additional pages to these books at a later time, and the plastic covers protect the pages very well.
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3
Purchase paper and pages for your scrapbook. You should purchase several colored or patterned sheets of scrapbook paper in the same size as your scrapbook. If you selected an eight-by-eight scrapbook, larger sheets can be cut to size if needed. You should purchase more pieces of paper than there are pages in your book so that you can use one for a background and another for embellishments.
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4
Select stickers, stamps and other embellishments to go with your theme. If you are making a wedding scrapbook, select stickers of a bride and groom, wedding bells and words associated with the event. For a summer vacation scrapbook, you may want stickers depicting hot dogs and picnic blankets. Most craft stores have several isles of stickers for just this purpose.
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5
Collect your supplies, pictures and mementos together in a location where they won't be disturbed by pets and children. Lay out your items, and begin to group them together. For example, pictures of the family at the airport should go with the ticket stubs from the flight and stickers of airplanes. Likewise, a keepsake napkin from a favorite restaurant should go with pictures taken at the restaurant and stickers depicting food.
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6
Collect your pictures, mementos and stickers for one page. Select a background that suits the theme of the page. Paper with clouds printed on it would be perfect for the page about the airport, or a checkered background reminiscent of a tablecloth for the restaurant page. Next, select contrasting paper to mount the pictures and other items on, if desired. This works best with a solid color for a patterned background or vice versa, though you can combine two solids and two backgrounds as well.
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7
Cut the pictures down as needed, and cut out any shapes or pieces of paper that you will be mounting the pictures on. Cut shapes slightly larger than the pictures if you want to mount them on a contrasting paper. Be creative with the shapes. You can cut the pictures into an oval or circle shape, or cut around the silhouette of a particular person or object.
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8
Lay out the paper, pictures, mementos, contrasting paper and any other items for the page on the background paper. You may need to move the items around several times before you find an arrangement that you like.
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9
When you have a design you like, begin by gluing the bottom-most layer, such as a contrasting border for a picture, to the background. Rubber cement works best because it allows you to move your items at a later time if needed. Glue down all of your pictures and mementos, then add stickers and other embellishments such as ribbon or pieces of paper cut into shapes. You can also hand write notes, dates, and captions on the pages with marker.
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10
Repeat steps six through nine for each page of the scrapbook. When you are finished, slide the pages into the plastic covers. Each plastic cover can hold two pages, back to back. Keep your scrapbook in a dry, cool place to preserve your work.
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Tips & Warnings
If you anticipate creating a scrapbook for an event ahead of time, be sure to hold on to as many mementos as possible for your book. Items such as matchboxes, hotel room keys, and even maps can make excellent additions to your scrapbook.
