Scrapbooking Tips and Ideas for Beginners

Scrapbooking can be a fun hobby that chronicles the days and years gone by. They are a great way to preserve photographs and memories for years to come.

If you have not scrapbooked before and have been thinking about trying it out, don't be scared. Scrapbooks don't have to look perfectly neat or up to any set standard; scrapbooking is about designing pages the way that you want and having fun while doing it. You don't have to spend a lot of money on scrapbooking supplies, either.

You have all sorts of options when it comes to decorating and designing your scrapbook pages. Pre-designed scrapbook pages are not always needed, unless you see something that you really like. In fact, these pre-designed pages aren't even needed at all!

To get started, you may want to get any or all of the following supplies:

• Scrapbooking paper for page backgrounds. Most craft stores have these papers for cheap prices, or you can buy packages of specific colors, or designs.
• Adhesive. You may choose to use double sided tape, glue dots, tape runners, or glue sticks.
• Embellishments. Use any that you like whether it be stickers, ribbons, borders, decorative stamps.
• Scissors. You may want to use craft scissors with various designs or cut out your own designs with plain scissors.
• Markers, glitter pens, glitter glue, colored pencils (one, or all of the above; it doesn't matter).

Begin Scrapbooking

The first step is to plan out the page(s) you are going to be working on. Decide which photos you are going to use, how many pages you will be using, and how you want to design the page. Lay the photos onto the page and arrange them in the order that you want them so that you can get a basic idea of how much extra room you have to work with.

If you choose to, you can layer the photos by using various colors of scrap paper to mount the photos on, or you can just stick the photo directly onto the page. When layering, you can use as many different colors and layers as you like; it's all up to you!

Decorate the page using your embellishments. Use some stickers and/or add some ribbon to the top or bottom of the page. You can also use stamped designs to your page and color the design in with glitter pens or crayons. If you have a good imagination the possibilities are endless on how you can design your page.

If you wish to add captions to your photos, you can simply write the captions in if you have nice handwriting. If you want your page to look really neat, you can always type up the caption in a special font on the computer, print it out and glue it right onto the page. You don't always need a caption for every photo; you can use word or letter stickers on the page such as, "happy birthday" or "summer time". 

For extra flare you can add some glitter glue to the page if you feel like waiting for the glue to dry. Just remember to have fun with scrapbooking, share ideas with your friends and family, or even have a scrapbooking party to make your photo albums extra special!