Next to making sure the photos you choose for your scrapbook will enhance the whole book, matting certainly comes in a solid second in the most important aspect of scrapbook design.
Once you have lined up all the pictures in your scrapbook theme, you should concern yourself with the type of matting that will be used to surround your pictures. Matting for years was used in painting, especially oil paintings, to fashionably "frame" the picture to give it more added value to the viewer. Some of the mattes were very ornate, others were simple and understated. Some blended in so well with the painting, that you didn’t even notice the matte was even there!
A good rule of thumb for matting your photos is to make sure the color of the matte, complements the picture and not over-powers it. In other words, say you are displaying pictures of a lake or body of water, a nice matte color could be a nice neutral blue color. Don’t forget to pay attention to scrapbook mattes that have a pattern in them. The pattern should complement the pictures as well. Use your good judgement on the color and pattern of your matte.
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Martha Stewart has partnered with EK Success to release a line of scrapbooking products. She finally "gets it." She knows that scrapbooking is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the USA, possibly in other parts of the world as well. She has tapped into the this craze by working with EK Success, who is a very large and successful company specializing in crafts. It appears to be a perfect between these two business titans because it will certainly bring scrapbooking to the forefront of people’s attention.
Martha Stewart will start out in specializing in scrapbooks for baby and wedding themes, since there has been a baby boom as of late and with many people getting married. Although her presentation will be geared towards the beginner with an upscale twist. This should be a great addition to present in her magazines, TV shows and other signature media outlets she owns.
Stay tuned for segments on her TV show on scrapbooking.
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There are literally thousands of resources online for the scrapper, whether beginner or experienced. One great link to go to is at: http://www.scrapbookpageideas.com/
For those of you who are very "right brained" creative, you will not have any problems coming up with many different ideas for your pages and themes. However, the best way to get your "juices" flowing is to see what others have done with their scrapbooks.
Other very good resources for other scrapbooking ideas can be found below:
http://www.shelleysscrapbooklayouts.com/
http://www.allscrapbookingideas.com/scrapbooking-ideas.html
http://www.michaels.com/art/online/projectList?channelid=8
http://genealogy.about.com/od/heritage_scrapbooking/
http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/inspiration/index.ihtml
These are just several of hundreds of resources online that can help give you ideas when starting out on your next scrapbook. If you have any great resources with helping you "jumpstart" your perfect idea or theme, please post it in our comments here.
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Besides coming up with a sketch of your layout, you should jot down a collection of "ideas" for scrapbooks. In other words, as we mentioned in a previous post, the reason why we scrapbook is for preserving the memories of family, friends, activities, special moments in our lives, and celebrations, to name a few. Whatever idea or ideas you come up with, make sure you jot it down now. It may be that you never start a scrapbook with a particular them you made in your notebook, but it can jar your creativity to make a new idea for your next scrapbook. Sometimes we get inspired to make a scrapbook just for the fun of it.
The tools you need for your idea notebook should be a vinyl folder notepad that can hold a pen and a legal pad of paper. The next thing you should have is a collection of magazine articles, newspaper articles, or even interesting online articles that you print out from what other scrappers are doing. You know, just about every scrapbook idea has been tried and used, but you can put your own "twist" on it.
Along with keeping your ideas in one organized place, make sure you have enough pictures and other archived items to fill out this new scrapbook.
When you start your sketch sheet from an idea you have chosen from your idea notebook, make sure you take the time to choose a binder that reflects the "mood" of your theme. If you are in a "black and white" mood for a topic, make sure you have black and white photographs and lay it out in a binder that is black and white or gray in color.
A scrapbook comes alive when it aligns with your particular "mood" you are in while planning and starting to put together the scrapbook. The number of ideas in your scrapbook notebook is only limited by your imagination.
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A great strategy before you start a scrapbook is to sketch out the layout. This is often the most basic step for any scrapbooker. Pay attention to the theme you plan, gather your pictures, and on a legal pad, sketch out the placement of most of the items. Don’t worry, you can always change things later. The most important part is to get the feel for laying out things. When a beginner first starts out on scrapbooking, the largest fear is getting the sense of design. You see, designing the layout on a scrapbook is no different than a highly paid Madison Avenue art designer. You must know what comes natural in placement of items to make a pleasing arrangement.
1) Draw the rectangles or other shapes of where you want to place the photos on the legal pad.
2) Draw rough shapes of the decorative items or letters you want in and around the pictures.
3) Draw the outline of the pages and additional design patterns that you want around the whole page
A good example of a scrapbook planning sketch can be found here.
In the example shown on that link, the theme is a father and son theme.
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We are pleased to announced our first scrapbook expert interview featuring Grace from Arizona. She has over 5 years of scrapping experience and enjoys her hobby immensely. She is pretty knowledgeable now and has some tips and tricks to share with you.
If you liked this interview, feel free to make a comment here for your feedback. Enjoy!
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They say that nothing compares to experience in getting the job done! So we are lining up several scrapbookers to interview. We will be asking questions that cover literally everything you can think of regarding scrapbooking.
For those of you visiting this site, please feel free to comment on this post about what things you want to know about scrapbooking. Our poll at the moment shows that you would like to know about scrapbooking ideas. This will cover the theme of your scrapbook and the types of materials used.
Some of you have been asking about digital scrapbooking, which is an up and coming hobby within the scrapbook craze. We will cover digital scrapbooking in the next several months.
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The next step in making a successful scrapbook is to find a clean table to work on. Two of the most popular places in your home to use as a workspace is the kitchen table or a handy folding table that you can open up in the dining room or basement. There are many people who have a "hobby" table, one where they make crafts, models, or just generally "fix" things.
Wherever you choose as your workplace, make sure you get a table covering for the whole table or at least a used old placemat to put on top of it as you are going to be working with glue, paint, and other chemicals when assembling your masterpiece. Also, make sure it has good ventilation. You don’t want to get caught up in some overpowering smells! The last thing is to make sure you have great lighting on top of the table. A desk lamp is also a good choice. There will be a time when you need to look closely at your project and have to carefully work with small detail work. The desk lamp sure comes in handy.
As mentioned in the last post on scrapbook material organizers, you can bring out these containers to the table where are going to work. Don’t forget your legal pad and pen too! With the table, scrapbook material containers, and legal pad, you are ready to go!
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When starting out in scrapbooking, it is wise to plan three main important things.
1) What is the purpose of the scrapbook?
2) What materials are going to be used?
3) What is my budget?
These are quite often the most important things we should think about before even starting a project.
The purpose of the scrapbook, of course, is to preserve the memories of the object presented. It could be for family, for a once in a lifetime event, or celebrating a holiday. Soon, we will be adding a part of this blog to scrapbookers of all kinds. We will have a spot where you can add your own pictures of your masterpiece!
Regarding materials, sky is the limit! Photographs is the first on the list, for sure. From there anything goes from; coins, stickers, string, toothpicks, yarn, refrigerator magnets, stamps, buttons, colored paper, hair pins, paper clips, wire, pipe cleaners, scrap paper, screws, caps, match sticks, just to name a few. Besides photographs as the most important material, the scrapbook or booklet comes to mind. There are as many different kinds of scrap related books to hold everything as there are materials to put into them.
Budget? Well we could easily say "sky is the limit," again! But really folks, a good starting budget for a modest scrapbook is in the $70 to $150 range. In the posts to follow, we will go over the scrapbooks made with different budgets. We will show the low economy type to the "no holds barred" gaudy scrapbooks!
When starting out, we suggest starting as a group. Even if you start with you and a friend, it will be just as much fun to make when you can share the experience with others.
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I am excited to present a new site dedicated to everything scrapbooking! This site was born out of sharing ideas from friends, family and associates. We will bring new ideas, present scrapbook related books and materials for you to enjoy.
Before we start our journey in creating new and different scrapbooks for any occasion, please feel free to let us know what you would like covered here.
Let’s begin to have fun by discovery of making amazing things!
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