Scrapbooking For Beginners - A Step by Step Guide to Your First Scrapbook

In my scrapbooking for beginners guide, I hope to save you all the mistakes I made when I began my first scrapbook and the mistakes which other guides have cost me.

When I began my first scrapbook I spent nearly two hundred dollars on everything from how to books to layouts and magazines. Five years later I haven't used half of what I bought, despite having several scrapbooks. My mistakes were two-fold. First I had no organization, and second I had no planning. While not as fun as buying all the stickers and layouts, planning your first scrapbook album will save money and save time.

Step One - Choose Your Theme!
The very first step in your scrapbook should be to decide the theme. Picking your theme will be important in many ways, not the least of which is to have the correct photos for each page. Its also important to choose your theme before you organize your photographs so that when you are browsing your photographs you can add them to multiple themes later.

The first scrapbooking guide I read began by telling me to get a few pictures, card stock, pens and embellishments. That was actually terrible advice. Once I had everything in front of me, I realized that it was nowhere near the items for what I wanted my scrapbook pages to look like. In order to make a scrapbook which you can call your own, choose your theme before buying the materials.

Themes can include scrapbooks about The Disney Vacation. Our Wedding Day. Our Honeymoon. Baby's First Year. Each theme will need certain photographs which depict days or moments you want to remember. You can have as many themes as you wish and can even have the same photograph in multiple themes. For your first scrapbook try and pick a theme for which you know you have numerous photographs.

Step Two - Choose Your Photographs!
Now that you have a theme in mind, its time to pick out photographs to use. Photographs get scattered everywhere so its best to find the ones you wish to use at the start your scrapbook. When we got married my husband and I had a DVD of pictures, professional photographer pictures, pictures from my mother and father, disposable reception camera pictures, friends sent pictures, friends of parent sent pictures. I had to stop most of the time when making my scrapbook to find the right pictures someplace else. My biggest mistake was missing photos when I began scrapbooking because I had forgotten to pick them out beforehand.

The great thing about scrapbooking is that if you do forget a picture or two, you can just add another page in your scrapbook. The bad part is if you want a picture to be part of a page you've already designed and glued together, you have to remake the page.

When choosing photographs, its best to have two to three photographs per page but you can have as few as one or as many as eight. You can have as many pages as you want in each scrapbook album.

My wedding scrapbook album has two hundred photographs and four different sections. Each of my four sections was part of a separate album which I incorporated into one album. Its very large, but its also very dear to my heart. That is what scrapbooking is about, making each scrapbook a memory in itself which can be reviewed and enjoyed by anyone. Each album chronicles an event or time which is important to you.

Step Three - Make copies
In my opinion this step is the most important part of starting a new scrapbook album. Make copies of every photograph you will use at the start. Make two copies if possible. There will be times when you wish to cut a photograph to fit an idea for your scrapbook. Or glue something onto the photograph. If you want to use the photograph in multiple albums, an album for each of your children with the same themes for example, you'll need 1 copy of each photo for each album plus the original. (and if you're clumsy like me, you'll want an extra copy for when you mess up! haha)

Photographs can be made digital and saved onto computer discs. You can upload them to webites like Flickr so you can have physical copies made at a later time or you can make online scrapbook albums.

Store the negatives and back up discs (DVDs) of all photographs in a special area away from the actual photographs.

Step Four - Write and gather a list of items to include in the scrapbook album

When I speak about what you'll include I mean besides pictures and journal entries. Each page of your scrapbook album includes pictures, a small piece of writing about the picture and whats known as "embellishments". Purchased embellishments will be included in the later part of this guide, however at this point I'm writing about personal embellishments.

The wedding album I put together had pieces of my dress as backing of photographs. I used ribbon from the linen napkins for bows on other pages. Some pages had little pieces of the sequins from my gown, the Ashcroft my husband wore was on another page with his picture. You may not want to glue those items to your books but I chose to do so. Maybe you have a blanket you child used, part of a stuffed animal to include, the buttons off your cheerleading uniform. There are hundreds of little embellishments you can include from your personal life which make your album even more special. One of my friends used sand colored with food dye she got on her honeymoon in her album about her honeymoon.

Plenty of guides speak about the little embellishments to add in your scrapbook album. Their embellishments include glitter and little pieces of beading from the stores etc. Before you spend your money on those, find the items in your house to include in your scrapbook. Old Christmas or wedding cards, Birthday cards, towels, an old cat toy etc etc..

Step five - Sort and Build Each Page (if possible take a picture)
You now have all you need to build your first scrapbook album. Organize the pages of your album with the photographs and embellishments. Use manila envelopes if necessary and number each one. The reason it is important to organize your photographs and embellishments now is so that when you go shopping you will have an idea about what you want on each of your pages. At this point you do not need to know where or how to place the pictures on each page. The only important information we want from this exercise is which pictures and home-embellishments we want to add on a certain page, what the general theme is and how many pages we will have. Its much easier to find what we want at the craft store or online when we have the base of our scrapbook album.

Scrapbooking for Beginners - Step Six - It's time to go shopping!
When you're shopping you'll want the following scrapbook supplies:
1. Pens, crayons, paints, fabric paints and markers for each page's note writing, picture drawing, and for wrting on fabric (if you use any in your scrapbook)
2. Backing to make mini frames on the page. Photographs can have a matte which can include cardboard, old greeting cards (my personal favorite's are the ones from the occasions the scrapbook is about), wrapping paper, felt board, or anything really.
3. Scrapbook album
4. Paper trimmer
5. Glue and tape
6. Paper - Different types of paper for the albums - Paper for the designs (like card stock, material, wax paper.. anything your imagination can come up with). Paper for the journal entries like stationary, index cards, plain black and white paper to cut out letters.
7. Scissors
8. Embellishments - stickers, material, beads, pressed flowers, sand, feathers, candy. Pretty much anything goes here. Each page is what your imagination makes it.
9. Stencils - Letter, number and design stencils
10. Page protectors - Make sure they are the correct size for the album

You can make your first album as elaborate, expensive, inexpensive, big, small. You can decorate the outside and inside. You can add hand prints from your kids. Let your imagination guide you. Have fun. Put little frames around photos. Cut out hearts and stick them on the photographs. Glue buttons, write on them.

The important part of scrapbooking is just beginning.

Stay Tuned for Scrapbooking For Beginners - The Wedding Album