I recently received the following comment/question on one of my YouTube channels and so I thought I’d answer it in this blog post so that maybe it would help others with the same dilemma.
I am a crafter and card maker, I like the idea of being able to make a project in a day or so. I am intimidated by starting to make a scrapbook. Do you have any advice for a “chicken” 🙂 like me? I have to be organized to begin with a project. I am a frugal crafter so, I don`t by any certain line of products except for circut.I have a lot of material s as I` been crafting for 30 yrs. Any advice will be appreciated.
There are a few things that will make (making) your first scrapbook page a little easier.
Use a scrapbook “collection” or pre-made kit. It is much easier to scrap with a “collection” or a “kit” because the colors, patterns and embellishments are already chosen for you.
Use a Sketch – A sketch is a drawing of a scrapbook page which shows you where to put everything. I recommend going to Pinterest and searching for “scrapbook sketches” and a gazillion sketches will come up or you can go to my sketch album on pinterest.
Scraplift someone else’s layout. Scraplifting means finding a scrapbook page that you like and copying it. There’s no shame in scraplifting, we all do it! You can find a ton of great scrapbook pages on Pinterest by clicking here, or you can check out my scrapbook page album on pinterest where I’ve pinned layouts that I want to scraplift someday.
Getting Started
My first piece of advice is to pick out the photo or photos that you want to scrap. Going by the colors/feel of the photo, choose a few sheets of scrapbooking paper. Try to choose no more than one large pattern and one or two smaller patterns and maybe a sheet of cardstock as your base. You want the focus to be on the photo, not the paper.
Once you have decided on what papers you want to use, you’ve pretty much got your color palette chosen. Next, gather any embellishments you’d like to use, keeping your color palette in mind. If you want to use your die cutting machine, this is a great time to choose and cut out your die cuts.
When you’ve got all of your supplies together, you can either choose a sketch to follow (or you can just start layout the things you’ve chosen out on your page and “playing” around until you come up with a layout that you like. That is what I do most of the time. However, I think it’s much easier for beginners to “scraplift” or use a sketch.
Keep in mind that everything you add to your page should add to the focus of your photo and not take the attention away from the photo. Some scrappers put so may embellishments on that you forget to look at the photo and that pretty much ruins a scrapbook page (for me anyway).
There are all sorts of guidelines that some scrappers follow such as the rule of thirds and putting three clusters of embellishments in a triangle on the page, however, I don’t tend to follow guidelines, I just do what I think is pretty and what makes my photo stand out. I think creating is more fun without guidelines and rules!
I hope that these tips have helped you new scrappers, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.
That’s a good idea to choose the paper based off of the photos you want to use. I have been wanting to get into scrapbooking and bullet journaling for the past two months. I will keep what you shared in mind when I visit a nearby craft store for supplies next week.