Getting Started on Scrapbooking – Part 1

Scrapbooking is all about preserving those special and memorable moments in your life - your son’s first birthday, or your parent’s anniversary celebration, your wedding, your friendships, your travel – it can be anything or everything!

There are 2 major parts of scrapbooking – one are the photos or mementos that you want to keep; and the other part is journaling – you would want to write down a funny incident or just to document what you saw or how you feel during that moment. This second part can be optional – sometimes, the photos and title just speak for itself.

This article will provide you a checklist of basic materials you will need to decorate your scrapbook pages. It is a good idea to keep the supplies on hand so that you will have the different materials that you can use when that creative moment strikes!

PRINTED PAPER
Paper is used as backgrounds, titles, decoration – it can be just a plain colored paper or one that has a print or pattern. There’s vellum paper that has a kind of a frosted glass effect that works together with a printed background.
Papers made specifically for scrapbooking are acid-free, lignin-free and archival quality.

ALBUMS
A scrapbook album is basically a book designed to contain scrapbook pages. It can have sheet protective pages made of archival, acid-free plastic with opening on top or on the sides where you slide in your scrapbook pages and thus preventing your pages to get dirty through handling and exposure. A scrapbook album can also have cardstock pages that you can directly create your scrapbook pages on. The pages should be acid-free to lengthen the life of your photos.

CUTTING TOOLS
With paper crafts, you will always need scissors. Other than that, a paper trimmer is an indispensable tool for scrapbooking – just because it makes it easier and faster to cut paper and photos properly. As you progress on your scrapbooking, you will definitely like to consider decorative scissors and shape cutters.

ADHESIVES
Special adhesives are required for scrapbooking – these are made to be acid-free so as not to harm your photos and papers. There are several types that you may consider getting – glue sticks are the basic ones, also double-side adhesive tabs. Glue dots and 3D dots help with securing different embellishments like buttons or fiber.

PENS
Pens should be permanent, photo safe, quick drying and fade resistant. For dark paper try opaque pens or gel writers. Pigment ink pens are best because of their permanence. Photo-safe pencils and wax pencils can be use for writing on the back and front of photos. Never use an ink pen to write on photos that is not acid free and photo safe. Over the years it can bleed into the photograph and ruin it. The newest item on the market are the vellum pens to be used with vellum paper. They are great and can work wonders for your album pages.

EMBELISHMENTS
Embellishments can greatly enhance your scrapbook pages. Today, there are thousands of embellishments that can be used to customize and beautify your pages – metal accents, rubber stamps, 3-d stickers, ribbon, buttons, brads, eyelets, tags, rub-on transfers and the list goes on.