How to Make a Scrapbook for Someone You Love

Creating a scrapbook is a great way to give a personal gift to someone you love. The scrapbook can be filled with pictures from one event in the person's life, such as a vacation, or can include pictures taken over time. The amount of time it will take to create the scrapbook depends on the number of pictures you include. The cost depends on the number of pages and embellishments you use.

Things You'll Need

• blank album photos a ruler sharp scissors scrapbooking paper embellishments glue

Instructions

How to Make a Scrapbook for Someone You Love

1. Choose the photos you want to include. They can be photos from one trip or event, or a mixture of photos spanning time.

2. Buy a blank album. If you are using only pictures from a specific event or trip, choose a smaller album with a dozen or so pages. If you are scrapbooking a lot of photos, though, you'll want a larger album (12 inches by 12 inches) to which you can add pages later.

3. Choose embellishments, which may include scrapbooking paper in a variety of colors, stickers in the theme of the pictures or indicating your love, even jewels, borders, dried flowers, fringe, feathers, stamps, etc.

4. Create the album one page at a time. After picturing what you want the first page to look like, choose two to four photos that go together and embellishments to go with them. Arrange the photos and embellishments on the page so that picture (or part of a picture) you want to focus on is highlighted. Moving items around until the page looks the way you want.

5. 

   Glue down the elements one piece at a time. Don't clear the page to start gluing; if you do, the finished page probably won't look the way you thought it would. Instead, remove one item and glue it done, then move on to another. If your design includes layered items, be sure to glue them down in the right order. For example, if you have a heart-shaped paper frame over a picture, then glue the frame to the picture first, and then glue the picture down to the page.

6. When you are done with all of your pages, carefully slide them into the plastic holders in the album. Be sure to put them in the order you want people to be looking at them.

Tips & Warnings

• Try using glue dots instead of glue sticks or liquid glue. They create zero mess. Glue dots come in several sizes and are available at almost any crafts store (they're packaged on a strip of wax paper). You simply peel the glue dot off the strip, place it on the back of the item you want to glue down and press the item to the paper.

• Steer clear of the glue until you are sure of the layout. Trying to detach pictures that have been glued down can ruin them.

Resources

• online scrapbooking store