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Scrapbooking has for a long time been a huge pastime in the US, one in four households now scrapbook and there are signs that this craze is taking off in the UK. Scrapbooking or ‘memory booking’ originally included memorabilia like photos, newspaper clippings and letters but has evolved into creating attractive and fun displays of photos, text, tickets or certificates, and other memories with less structure but more emphasis on recording all aspects of life.
With the explosion of digital media the risk of only developing one good photo from a film of 24 or 36 has been removed, we can now take as many as we need to get the one perfect shot. With such easy access to software such as Adobe photo shop and Picasa the ability to crop and edit our photos enables us to capture and store a lot more of those great memories. This has been added to by the increasing quality of the cameras on mobile phones so that we are never without a camera.
Scrapbooking enables you to not only protect but also to tell the story behind the image. A photo of a smiling child may be lovely to look at but it has more depth if the reason behind the smile is known.
It is not just the contents but the albums themselves which are important to the scrapbooker. Just like the interior of your home, your albums can reflect your personal styles and taste. Your memories should be enjoyed and shared but if they are hidden away in the bottom draw or in a shoe box, no one gets to share those great memories.
Nowadays you can literally buy any sort of scrap book; hand bound luxurious leather with beautiful gilding, to one made out of card, or you can always make it yourself for something truly unique. It is important to remember that Scrapbooking has come about partly through the necessity to protect and preserve those memories and images, however many old albums and those from abroad have acid in the paper, which over time can slowly erode the images and other important milestones, like your first school report or your first bike ride without stabilisers. So remember if you are thinking of getting into Scrapbooking or ‘memory booking’ the quality of the paper is massively important.
Another joy of scrapbooking is that you can take as much or as little time to do it. Some people take years to do one, waiting for another milestone in their child’s life, whilst others are constantly updating. In the US they even have scrapbooking retreats, for the really serious ‘scrappers’. But, if you feel you really are too stretched for time there are even professional scrapbookers who will do it all for you. Olivia Norman at www.atlastcreative.com will collate all your photos and memorabilia and create the perfect scrapbook for you, and although there is a cost involved it is better than your memories never seeing the light of day again. Once your album is created, it is completed and needs no maintenance, it is ready for all to enjoy.
On a more practical note, you may have invested a lot of money and time in your memories, so for their preservation and display, you should really spend some time and effort thinking about it. Why spend hundreds or thousands on a great holiday, a great camera (or phone) or even more relevant, a great education, only to not keep those memories safe? Whether in a beautiful frame, scrapbook or album it would be great not only for you but your friends and family to have a visual diary of all those memories in life that we have worked so hard to achieve.
It is more than likely, especially nowadays, that future generations will know much more about how their father or grandfather liked to spend his time. Unlike photo albums, scrapbooks allow every memorable detail to be included. Years from now, when your children's children are viewing the albums that you have created, they will know exactly how life was for you and your family. You won't always be there...but with your albums, you really can be.
While some people prefer the physical presence of an album containing all the items they have pasted onto the pages, the hobby of digital scrapbooking has also increased in popularity since home computers have become much more affordable. Some of the advantages include a ‘greener’ conscience, negligible costs, the ability to share pages online and the use of image editing software so that you can experiment with images without making permanent adjustments.
Noble Macmillan scrapbooks
Scrapbooking Mini Glossary
- Crop or Cropping: gathering together to scrapbook at a home, a scrapbook store, or convention. A person brings their own materials to create pages while socializing with other scrapbookers.
- Matting: matting is a technique that allows you to enhance your photos by adding a border around the outside edges. Simply lay your photgraph on a piece of cardstock and trim around the photo. (the size of the trim can be any size...1/8th inch to 2 inches, even more). Matting is an easier and more efficient way to 'frame' a photo.
- Journaling: journaling is the writing that describes the events taking place in the photographs on your scrapbook page(s). A scrapbook without journaling is merely a fancy photo album!
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Leather bound photo album
