Creative

A beginners guide to scrapbooking – easy ideas to get started!

Written by Team Brook. Published 5 years ago. Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.

Jun 20

Have you ever made a scrapbook? You might find it hard to believe if you’ve never tried it but it is really really fun. It’s sort of like doing a photo album, but because of the extra creative elements and words, it ends up being so much more meaningful and strangely satisfying!

If like us you have been going through old photos and keepsakes during lockdown, and have them all shoved into a box, or still have a load of photos on your phone, have a think about doing a scrapbook. It is a brilliant way to preserve and document your memories.

New to scrapbooking? Don’t worry, we’ve got you! Here’s a beginners guide to scrapbooking to get you started…

What you need

All you need is a scrapbook (obviously!), glue, coloured or patterned paper, washi tape, scissors, a pen and some markers and you’re good to go!
For the inside pages, our recommendation would be to go for plain white paper instead of kraft or black pages. This way you will have a clear blank canvas to work with and you won’t be limited to using other colours on your pages!

All our memory books come with super thick (170gsm) white paper so are perfect for scrapbooking. We also have a brand new Scrapbook Kit Gift Set, which is perfect to get you started:

Martha-Brook-A-beginner-guide-to-scrapbooking---easy-ideas-to-get-started-Scarpbook-Kit

And to show you how easy it is, we gave our new Scrapbook Kit Gift Set to Edlyl in our team. All the rest of the photos in this blog are what she pulled together using it!

Choose your theme

Scrapbooking is all about storytelling so the theme you choose will help you create an overall look and will guide the mood of your pages to create a consistent style throughout your book.

To pick a theme, start by thinking about what the scrapbook is for. Some great themes could be: celebrating a milestone birthday, marking a special anniversary, displaying your favourite adventures or capturing what you got up to during lockdown. Edlyl decided to go with the adventures of her and her boyfriend Jamie (cute couple alert!):

Martha Brook A beginner guide to scrapbooking - easy ideas to get started 5

Gather your photos and other keepsakes

What makes a scrapbook so lovely and individual are the contents inside. If you’re celebrating a milestone birthday, the contents could be some words from friends and family and assorted photos from throughout their life. But you can also think beyond this. Anything can be included, from birthday cards to letters and postcards, tickets to event flyers, pretty much anything you’ve kept close to your heart will help create a beautiful display.

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Gather your photos and keepsakes together and roughly group them. With this, you can work out the order of the pages. Remember you want to tell a story through these pages, so make sure they flow well together.

Now you’re ready to begin…

Consider using coloured or patterned paper to make backgrounds

Putting a background behind a photo can really help accentuate it. You don’t need to do this with every photo, but adding some colour or a pattern behind some of your photos or keepsakes will bring your scrapbook to life.

If you don’t have patterned paper, you can easily create your own using blank paper and some marker pens.

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The key is to keep it simple; you want a backdrop that will compliment your photo but also something that’s not too distracting to the eyes! Our tip is to stick with lines, dashes and dotted patterns, they’re cute and super easy to make!

Mix up your page layouts

Varying the layout on each page will make your scrapbook beautiful and inviting to look through.

First, arrange your photos on the page and work out their rough positioning. After this have a play around with some coloured or patterned paper. Don’t be restricted to just using one background, layer them and put them on top of each other to create a visually interesting scene.

Use some of your lovely keepsakes to add texture, any little scraps you have can become a decorative piece!

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Get creative with extra embellishments 

One of the most fun things about scrapbooking is that you can be as creative as you like!

If you’re artistic, you could add some hand-lettering, paper collages or even some drawings to add some character to your pages.

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For those of us less artistic, washi tape is an easy and brilliant way to make your page pop a bit more. They’re not just for sticking your photos on but they are also great as borders.

Add text and captions

One of the things that makes a scrapbook much more than a photo album is the stories written inside. Finish off your page with some descriptive text or captions to really tell your story. Even if you’re not a big fan of your handwriting, embrace it! In years to come, you will love the personal touches like this.
Martha Brook A beginner guide to scrapbooking - easy ideas to get started 6
Take your time to reflect on those memories and write down what comes to your mind. It’s your chance to record the ‘remember when’ moments that haven’t been captured in a photo.

There you go! Some easy ideas to get you started with scrapbooking. We hope we have inspired you to make a beautiful and personal scrapbook and when you look through your book, we hope each memory will feel even more special. If you give it a go, let us know how you get on!

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