Preserving Your Memories in a Scrapbook Album
Keeping a scrapbook is a practice that goes back centuries in one form or another. But modern scrappers are luckier than their ancestors because they have so many creative tools at their disposal.
Look around and you’ll find scrapbook themes of every conceivable genre. Heritage scrapbooks, containing old family photos, letters, medals and other memorabilia are a popular choice. But there are hundreds more. Baby books, vacation diaries and many that are just a daily record of personally meaningful events.
But to put all those memories together you need tools. The basic supplies – album, album pages, scissors, colored pens and pencils, adhesives – are easy to find and inexpensive. But once you reach a certain stage you’ll want to invest in a trimmer, a cropping tool and a few others.
Even with just those simple tools you can create pages of dazzling variety. Punches let you pierce paper to make interesting hole patterns. You can use them purely as a decorative element or to allow photos to show through. With patterned paper, inks and chalks, you can make bright, cheery borders or ones that reflect your somber moments.
Even adhesive has become more than a utilitarian item, extending creative opportunities. Spray adhesive will allow you to attach an entire patterned paper in one sweep. Glue sticks, glue dots or foam squares make it easy to attach photos to your scrapbook pages in seconds. Good ones are acid-free and are designed to make it possible to remove the photo later without tearing. That makes it simple to make copies, rearrange and re-design later.
For many, their home computer has become the tool of choice as they bring scrapbook into the digital age. Scanners can add old photos and letters, but creating and manipulating images from original digital sources is a major enterprise. Digital cameras allow the scrapbooker to capture just the right moment. Software like Photoshop and others make it easy to adjust color, contrast, resolution, crop and do so much more with a few mouse clicks.
But even in the traditional media there are many new materials and methods. Use of vellum parchment is centuries old. Many monks in monasteries developed the use of animal skins for writing media to a high art. The modern form is made very differently but it retains many of the same attractive qualities, including that all-important look.
By combining old and new you can arrange your scrapbook text and photos in ever more complex and creative ways. The best thing about contemporary scrapbooking tools and techniques is they provide the means to express your boundless imagination. Yet, with all the great technology available the basic purpose remains the same: to store your precious memories.
