Why Scrapbooking is Fun

The concept of scrapbooking started out as a unique means of preserving and recording memories. Unlike a photo album, a scrapbook is much more substantive because it can be creatively done by placing decorated albums of family or personal pictures. However, photos are just a part of a scrapbook since integration of comments, memorable souvenirs and other small memorabilia such as letters, wedding tokens and baby stuffs in accordance to the photos are placed to enrich the memories and create a much richer artistic impact. A photo album, on the other hand, is just a mere sequential listing of photographs and nothing more.

Prior to the influx of advanced digital media and scanners, the traditional and hard copy scrapbooking existed in the vogue way back the 15^th century where paper is considered an economical commodity. During this time, the majority of the people simply used scrapbooks to write poems, letters, quotes and recipes. Despite the rising cost of pictures, this fad continuously flourished as time went on with the substitution of pictures with handwritten messages from friends and loved ones. Friendship albums turned out to be a popular gift by the 16^th century, similar to our modern-day diaries were a pal can leave a small note or little scribbles upon request of the scrapbook owner. As time moved in by the 18^th and 19^th century, scrapbooks were considered a cherished method for creatively inclined individuals to store visual reminiscences. School scrapbooks were commenced and many schools and college students started using it for documentation of their personalized experiences. It was only during the 21^st century that modern scrapbooking was introduced and the invention of photography and the easy accessibility of cameras paved way for a huge cost reduction in taking photographs. And due to its affordability even to an average person, ingenious scrapbooking took an exponential jump forward.

With the Internet, the development from the original, paper-based method of scrapbooking to the electronically-based digital scrapbooking format was a foreseeable step in the evolution of this craft both to the veterans of this art and to those who are new to this wildly creative pastime. Digital scrapbooking has come out as an incredibly admired occurrence given the endless possibilities of a huge range of online scrapbooking concepts and crafts ubiquitously available on the Internet— no wonder creation of a digital scrapbook of professional quality is within everyone’s reach.

Digital scrapbooking was much sluggish before when the Internet was in its snail’s pace. Its process was more complicated too when it initially hit the market. However, this is not anymore the case, since there is already an improved Internet connection and there is an overabundance of scrapbooking sites available to readily download ideas, tools and other fun embellishments to make your scrapbook one of its kind.

It is never difficult to achieve an enjoyable and fulfilling scrapbook. First, you can decide on a theme or a special event that interests you. It can be broad one like Wedding, Baptism, Christmas, Birthdays and Anniversaries. Or you may want to be more specific such as Grandmother’s 80^th Birthday, Abigail’s Farewell Party, Mary learns how to walk, Peter’s first Christmas in Australia, or John and Beth’s 20 years of happy marriage. Then, you can organize and sort out the photos needed. Lastly, you can decorate, select some embellishments, and pick out main color for your background as well as the accent colors considering the event or theme. If the event in the pictures is focusing on girls, you might take into account the color pink or light pink. As for the layout, this task will greatly test your creativity skills. Arrange the pictures in such a way that it will appear beautifully. You can pile them randomly, and in any way you want. Then place the bigger trappings first while the smaller ones last making sure that there is still space for a few journal, enough to tell the person looking at the scrapbook the story behind the pictures. Making use of descriptive words can help give life to your pictures.

There are many things that will motivate you to start scrapbooking such as having an intense desire to preserve and recall your past long after you have forgotten them, augment your present and reveal your own life story with photos and words to prompt hope for forthcoming generations. There is no right or wrong way in doing a scrapbook, as this is your way of expressing yourself. And for as long as you are willing to put time and effort, then your scrapbook will turn out to be beautifully crafted.