Don't you love looking for new scrapbooking ideas?
What to Scrapbook
Sometimes the hardest part of starting a new page is knowing what you want to put on it or generally what you want the page to be about. Sometimes it's easy to find a theme, when you just got back from a trip or school just started. Other times it can be more difficult.
Here's a quick list of potential scrapbook page themes and ideas to play with, some of which you've probably tried, others you may not have.
- Holidays: Birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, of course, but also New Year's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the first and last day of school, other holidays your family celebrates, Fourth of July, Groundhog Day, the sky is the limit.
- Special memories: Sleepovers, trips to the zoo, washing the dog, a collage of pictures of your daughter wearing her favorite T-shirt or a page filled with all those "at bat" shots from Little League.
- Travel: Don't just make your travel pages about what you saw when you got there. Have a page devoted to getting ready to go, pictures from the airport or the car ride, funny things you saw along the way. And don't forget the trip home, either.
- Cool pets: Remember your family pets when you scrapbook. Devote a book to the story of how you got your pets and tons of pictures of your best friends being cute. Or add to your child's scrapbook a page with the child interacting with the pets.
- Best friends: Don't limit your pages to family photos. Get your friends (and your kids' friends) in on the fun by having them pose for a few pictures and then sharing the scrapbook page you've made with them. You could even scan the finished page and e-mail it to all your featured friends.
- Favorite things: Is your daughter obsessed with the color green? Does your son love worms? Make a page each year devoted to their favorite thing. It will provide a wonderful memory for you and will probably surprise them to see years later what they thought was the coolest thing when they were 7.
- Scrap collage: Your pages don't have to include just pictures, bought items and journaling. They can also include items that traditionally would go in a scrapbook, the little pieces of paper, buttons, bits and other meaningful things we want to remember. Consider making a collage out of some of these precious things, and maybe including some journaling that explains why these bits are important to you.
- Play with shape: Pick a picture and find a shape that's inside that picture. It could be a circle, a square, a curve, whatever. Duplicate that shape on the page as many times as you can, either in the layout, the way you journal or with other things you attach to the page.
- Play with color: Pick a picture and a color that's in the picture (don't go with the obvious color). Add that color to the page as much as you can.
- Raid your stash: Most crafters aren't completely devoted to just one craft. Go through your supplies for sewing, knitting, beading, candle making, or whatever other crafts you do and see what inspiration you can find for your page. Perhaps a quick-to-knit swatch of that brown yarn would be the perfect thing to mount a picture on. Let your imagination run wild.
- Play with products: If all else fails, go shopping! Find a new die cut, some stickers, even a new glitter pen, and devote a page to playing with your new toys.
Using Scrapbooking Products
Of course you don't need anything more to scrapbook than some paper and pictures to put on it. You don't have to buy all the fancy paper and paper trays, caddies, scissors that cut perfect scallops, giant die cuts, vellum stickers and lamination machines. But the truth is you can get a lot of ideas for your scrapbook projects just by walking down the aisles of your craft store. The colors, textures, different kinds of paper, brads, ribbons, punches and charms can spark pages in your imagination you might not otherwise have thought of.
If you go to a store that specializes in scrapbook supplies, you will receive a flood of inspiration, even if you don't spend a dime, though of course it's fun to buy and try the products, too. Think about how you might be able to reproduce a look with items you already have in your stash or that you could make (for instance, you can make your own envelopes to hold things on the page). Or how could you take an idea you saw in the store in a completely different direction?
Finding Scrapbooking Supplies Online
The existence of numerous online scrapbooking stores makes it easy to find ideas to use in your next project. This Scrapbooking Supply Search Engine allows you to compare prices and products among various scrapbooking supply stores.
Using Your Scrapbooking Ideas
The main thing about collecting scrapbook ideas is that you have to follow through. You have to make the page that you had all the ideas about. Otherwise you've just got a stack of photos and a stash of stuff and no beautiful books to share with family and friends.
So go out there and get inspired, but then go back and do the work to make the pretty pages. Your memories deserve it.
