Lesson 1B - Scrapbooking Basics

Here is what we covered in the first lesson. There is lots to go over to help you understand the basics. The following weeks will be technique based so they won't be as long.

Scrapbooking Basics

Scrapbooking takes your photos and displays them in a creative way by to tell others a story with your pictures.

Scrapbook Safety (thanks to my friend Tammy)
This article offers some tips for scrapers to brush up on archival safety!
pH SCALE As you may remember in chemistry, the PH scale runs from 0-14 and 7 is considered neutral. The lower the number on the scale, the more acidic with 1 being the strongest. When choosing photo safe pens, paper, glue and other products that will touch your photographs, you should choose products with a pH level between 7.0 and 9.0. If you are unsure of the products pH level check the label or ask for assistance.
LIGNIN FREE PAPER Lignin paper is readily available but can harm photos. It is a natural substance that is found in wood and plant matter. It can turn brown over time and deposits acids and peroxides on your photos. It is often found in newspapers or cardboard. Check to make sure that paper around your photo's are Lignin Free which will mean it less than 1% Lignin.
BUFFERED PAPER When paper often forms acid that can damage your photos. Buffered paper is paper that has calcium carbonate added to counteract the acids that may form later. It works as a type of neutralizer for the acid and "Buffers" them from migrating. Using buffered paper to mount your pictures on will increase the life of the paper and help protect them longer.
OTHER BUFFERING METHODS Even when you are using paper that is acid-free your photographs can become contaminated by other products that are not safe if you are scrapbooking or embellishing your album pages. These acids can spread throughout your entire photo album. The buffering process mentioned above can help but another way to protect the page would be to use acid free sheet protectors. They are available in several types from heavy duty to light weight and can be non-glare according to your personal preference.
After you have surrounded your photo's with safe products, the next step is to keep in mind what other things are the most damaging to photographs so that you can avoid them also. Keep photos away from direct sunlight and ultraviolet light. Water and high humidity is also damaging. Photographs like consistent temperatures so if you have been storing photos in the attic, basement, or garage you will want to find a safer location. Your pictures will like to live where you do.
Pictures that are enhanced with other memorabilia have great sentimental value but do not use rubber bands, paper clips, scotch tape, or masking tape to attach them with. Even some plastics are not safe for photo's because they contain PVC's. (Poly-vinyl chloride). Most craft stores carry acid free, see-through pockets that can store the locks of your baby's first haircut, hospital id bracelets, or other mementos safely.

Pictures Stuck In An Old Magnetic "Sticky" Album
Scrapbooking safely preserves your photos and memorabilia. Remember those “magnetic” albums? Ten years after carefully placing photos in these albums, people found that the glue had harmed their photos.

If you do have photos in those magnetic albums, please remove them! Use a safe glue removal product like Un-Du from Doumar, which safely loosens the glue to remove the photos. Another tip is to use a warm (not hot!) iron on the back of the page.

If the pages are very old and you simply can’t get the photos out with these two methods, I suggest making color copies of the photos and using the copies. It may seem strange to get color copies of black and white photos, but you’ll be able to capture the shades and shadows much more clearly. Take the pages down to your local copy shop—they can advise you. Be sure the copies are made onto acid-free papers. You can also duplicate the photo by scanning it on a home computer and printing onto photo quality paper, or using a Kodak Picture Maker to make copies.


Let’s get started

Journaling and Photos
It’s really had to figure out which one to pick/do first. Personally, I find I start with photos but there are times when I do write the journaling first.

So to get started look at what pictures you want to include and memories you might have that centre around a theme. Remember that journaling is the most important part of scrapbooking and a scrapbook page doesn’t have to have pictures. Don’t forget to put in information that helps you remember things as time passes (i.e. feelings, dates, prices, people’s names in a group photo).

Computers can be great for journaling as you can vary the fonts and font sizes for helping fit a lot of information in one small space. But also remember that years down the road people will want to know what your handwriting looked like so be sure to include some of your handwriting.

There are several different ways you can journal; picture captions, letters, bullets, journal around a photo, etc. Be creative with it but make sure you include all the details that you will want to know about later in life.

Title
Pick a title for the page. Remember to pick something that makes it obvious to your reader and make it big enough to see. Sometimes you can use a title that came from the journaling.

You can put the title inside the journaling too but you will have to make the title a larger font.

Your computer can save you time and money by printing them out on cardstock and then placing them on your layout. There are also letter templates to cut letters out or letter punching systems that make it much easier but can be very expensive to buy. You can also use stickers, chipboard, stamps and so much more for your titles. More details later.

Embellishments
Remember that embellishments are extras that just add to your photos and journaling. Embellishments can be overwhelming to new scrapbookers as there are so many things and techniques you can learn. There are many different embellishments such as die-cuts, stickers, ribbon, chipboard, fibres, eyelets, etc. Remember that some of these embellishments add bulk to your scrapbook pages and possibly may harm an important photo on the other side of the page. We will talk about this later.

Design Basics
When you read a magazine, what do you look at first and how does your eye follow to other parts of the advertisement and/or article. This is how we want to think about designing a scrapbook page. Designs of your page work better if you’re directing your eye from one object to another. Typically your eye moves in a Z pattern across a page so try to use that to your advantage in the design.

Sketching is a great way to try to visualize your page before you commit to it with the supplies. This might save a lot of headaches in the long run. Sketch, visualize and execute. There are times when the page doesn’t turn out how you hoped but that is part of the learning process.

You can also use a sketch from things you see in magazines. Or there are Idea Books and online resources that have sketches that are specifically made for scrapbookers.

Creating a theme to your page will help the reader understand the importance of what you are trying to convey. Just think of an article or ad in a magazine, sometimes a large picture gets your attention and sometimes it’s a catchy title. Really eye catching scrapbook pages do this as well. Some people include large pictures as it says it all but others write out the journaling first to understand what it is they are trying to say and get a title from the journaling.

There seems to be two methods of scrapbooking: events and moments pages. In events, you usually have pictures of places that you have gone and you want to write out what happened at that event. Moments pages generally you can start with the journaling and then find pictures and such to match the theme in the journaling. Sometimes the journaling spans over a longer time span and we are looking back over time. In this faithbook, we are doing are more moments based pages.

If you have ever taken art classes or tried to draw something life like you’ll know that size matters. The size of your picture, title and embellishments should be proportional. This can be a hard concept to grasp.

Here are some things that might help you in your designing but these do not have to be followed all the time:

Use blocks of papers (refered to as colour-blocking)
Use a large picture on the page that is more important with a few smaller ones.
Use the same size pictures across the page (works best especially with two pagers)
Use embellishments in odd numbers. Usually 3 is a common number.
Your use of 3’s can be visually impacting if you are using a triangle over your layout.

Remember your style and design changes overtime and you’ll get better at it as you go along.

Finishing the Layout
Once you have determined where all the elements will be then you can glue down all the parts with what we called adhesives. There are many different types of adhesives in scrapbooking and generally you’ll just have to experiment with them to see which ones you like. There are some that are permanent and other that are repositionable (this is my favourite). The most commonly used adhesives are the photo splits (they are little squares you bit on the corners to attach to the layout) but there are so many others (Herma Dots, Herma Tabs, Creative memories mini adhesive, Glue sticks, etc.). You can also use photo corners which are great if you think you still want to be able to remove the photo.

There are adhesives that are good for embellishments and these can include Glue dots, Zots, Xyron, pop dots, spray adhesives, glossy accents, KI Gloo, etc. My favourite is Glue dots for their easy of use and they are repositionable and don’t tear paper as much as others.

If you find that you make a mistake then there is also a product called UNDU that will help you in lifting older adhesives or stickers that you want to remove. I love this product for helping remove stuff (which I can do a lot).

The finished page when you are finished with the scrapbook page is sometimes referred to as a “layout”.

The Scrapbooker’s Bill of Rights
A Scrapbooker is entrusted with documenting and safely preserving family photos in an album to be treasured by future generations. Creating a scrapbook is an honorable and important task. As a scrapbooker, you are entitled (but not limited) to the following rights:
You have the right to take as long as you want to complete one album page. This may be 5 minutes or two weeks.
You have the right to purchase a certain scrapbook item for no other reason than because 1) you like it; 2) you think it’s cute; 3) you’ll never find it again or you know you will use it someday.
You have the right to a workspace of your own. This may be the basement, your college student’s old bedroom, or the kitchen table. It’s yours.
You have the right to scrapbook when inspiration strikes—whether the dishes are done or not.
You have the right to request peaceful, kid-free, stress-less scraptime—guilt-free.
You have the right to create pages that reflect and celebrate the spirit of the one person who is usually not in the photograph: you.
You have the right to put whatever you want on your album page. This includes, but is not limited to: patterned papers, die cuts, and stickers. You may place as many or as few photos per page as you deem appropriate.
You have the right to do nothing more than snack and socialize at a 6-hour cropping party.
You have the right to value your personal scrapbooking style to be as important as your photographs. You are creating a treasure—and part of that treasure is you.
You have the right to create your own legacy, one page at a time.