Scrapbooking and Capturing Those Special Moments Every Year
Many interesting and special events take place during the course of a typical year. While the big trend is to share photos and anecdotes via our social media channels, these memories tend to be forgotten soon after they’re posted. Rather than relegate special moments, benchmarks, achievements, and other yearly events to the vastness of cyberspace, crafty people may want to display them in more prominent ways.
Scrapbooking is a trendy and popular hobby that can help people document various events that manifest over the course of a year. But scrapbooking can be much more than that as well. It can serve as a valuable resource that shares what life was like in that year.
Such traditions are not new. Books highlighting family memorabilia, such as recipes, letters, sketches, journals, and memoirs, were popular in Europe as early as the 15th century. Even school yearbooks are a type of scrapbook, spotlighting students and events in a single convenient book.
The reasons for scrapbooking are the same today, to preserve memories, record family stories, and pass information down through the generations to come. Scrapbooks can even be customized in style or form their creator’s choice.
For the diehards who are devoted to documenting happy times and special occasions in the year ahead, scrapbooking is a great way to do just that. Here’s how to make the process creative and successful.
* Devote a box to ‘scraps.’ At the beginning of the year, set aside a medium-sized box, like a shoebox, that can store various items you want to include in your scrapbook. These could include ticket stubs, receipts, travel brochures, matchbooks, foreign coins, hotel room key cards, bus passes, city maps, or whatever is important or has sentimental value to you.
*Make time to scrapbook. Set aside a few days each month to go through collected items and organize them so you have an idea of what will be included on your pages. Every event may not make the final cut, but that’s up to you.
*Indulge in some craft supplies. Not everyone has the time to design each scrapbook page from scratch. Thankfully, there are numerous pre-designed templates or slip-in pages that require little work on the part of scrapbookers.
*Use your own handwriting. Handwritten sentiments can make the scrapbook even more meaningful.
*Don’t overload with photos. Let one or two photos on a page best convey the emotions and stories. Create balance with white space, text, and other accents.
*Categorize your photos. Disorganized photos can make scrapbook creations more challenging and ultimately frustrating. Organize your photos by month and rely on an online photo storage system to keep them safe. Then, when you need them, you can print only those images you want to include in your book.
*Have fun! You have the entire year to create a beautiful scrapbook. Take your time, put your soul into each page by experimenting with different ideas.