How to Do Chipboard Scrapbooking

Your imagination is the only limit when scrapbooking.

Chipboard scrapbooking is a wonderful way to preserve your photos and keepsakes. You can create great gifts such as a sweet baby book or a book for storing holiday keepsakes. Chipboard is the same product that is used for backing a paper notebook. Made of recycled paper products, it is both flexible and sturdy. You can collect these to make your own shapes and styles or you can purchase them already designed. No matter what style you choose to make, you will use the same techniques.

Things You'll Need

• 12 inch by 12 inch chipboard
• Hot glue gun
• Clear adhesive
• Yellow acrylic paint
• 1 oz. sand
• Tracing paper
• Pencil
• Photos

Instructions

1. Gather all of the photographs you would like to use and decide on your theme. For instance, if your photos are of a beach vacation, purchase chipboard decorated with a beach or sunshine motif. A good way to ensure that everything coordinates perfectly is to hold your photographs next to the potential chipboard design to make sure the colors match.

2. Crop your photographs into the desired shapes such as a circle or star. If you don't want to cut your photographs, you can create a shaped frame with a piece of chipboard by first making a stencil of the shape out of a separate piece of paper and then lightly tracing the shape onto the chipboard with a pencil. Cut the shape loose with scissors, then cut the center away for the photo opening. Glue around the top of the photo when attaching to the background chipboard (also known as matting).

3. Add an appropriate title to your background such as "Day at the Beach", spelling the words out with any appropriately sized item such as plastic jewels or letters cut and painted from chipboard. Glue the photos onto the background. Complete the look with the embellishments. For instance, brush clear adhesive on the background and lightly sprinkle with sand, then cut out a circle from a plain piece of chipboard, paint it yellow and place in the top corner of the page to depict the sun.

4. Allow your newly created page to dry before placing it into your scrapbook.

Tips & Warnings

• If your photos cannot be replaced easily, make copies to use.

• Save the back side of spiral notebooks to use for your chipboard needs.

• Design ideas are unlimited. You can use items from around your home such as fabric and buttons from old clothes or leaves from a favorite tree.

• When you attend a school play or visit a museum, save the program for a great page embellishment later on.

• Keep all scrapbooking items out of reach of small children.

References

• The Complete Book of Scrapbooking and Papercraft; Louise Riddell; 2004

Resources

• Blue Moon Scrapbooking: Chipboard
• Scrapbook.com: Chip Board Letters