Enhance your traditional scrapbook

Discover how a little bit of glam goes a long way. If you’re looking for that ultimate shabby chic, romantic or even modern look then it’s not always about the background design but also about the elements you use on the page itself.

Scrapbook paper and background designs can be downloaded and printed for free to give your book a unique look but more than anything what makes a scrapbook a scrapbook is what you add onto the page and design itself such as photos, beads, ribbons and words for example.

Scrapbooking for beginners tip – The Real Secret to Embellishing a page

Be careful not to crowd your layouts with embellishments as sometimes it rings true that less is more. If you make your page too fussy sometimes it takes away the special effect that you are trying to use but then again, depending on it sometimes more can be more interesting.

Have you ever leafed through someone’s scrapbook and as you peeped over each page and you didn’t know where to look first?  The pages were jam-packed with diverse patterns, photos, stickers, stamps, and so forth, that you sort of got lost in the disorder of it all.  This is a shared mistake that a lot of beginners make.  They feel that the complete page has to be bursting in order to give that “wow” appearance. This isn’t always true.

Once you have designated your photos and your background, pick just a few accompaniments and briefly place them onto your layout.  Decide if the trimmings are actually improving the page or if they’re taking away from the main central point.

For example, if your background encompasses diverse shades of purple and your photos are of a Purple Hat luncheon, then using cute tiny orange flowers would be very off-putting. Decide if your additions should be dispersed throughout a page or used as a group combination.

Occasionally by keeping your photos cropped and matted as squares and your journaling parallel to the photos, you only need two or three add-ons near the bottom or top of the page.

Scrapbooking for beginners tip - Always be Picky and Choosy  

Learn why a varied variety of added extras shouldn’t be used for a spread.

One of the significant rules concerning scrapbooking for beginners is to take it easy with the mingling and toning of embellishments. Beads, twine, brads, stickers…all of these things are a lot of fun to use. Nevertheless, when a spread encompasses too many types of embellishments, it creates confusion.

On average, use only three types of add-ons for a spread. Let’s say you’re producing a spread relating to your son’s Little League games. You might enhance the spread with sports stickers, brads and buttons. It’s okay to use more than just one sticker, one brad or one button, but just make sure that the entirety doesn’t overpower the page.

You also need to be choosy in terms of the sorts of accompaniments that you use. Make sure each item is acid-free. Then, over time, they may discolour your scrapbooking page or begin to chip away. For the most part you’ll want to use flat embellishments for scrapbooks, and save the poufy flowers, charms and large beads to beautify the façade of greeting cards.

Either way, whatever you choose to adorn your scrapbook you can always create unique and diverse looks with a simple add-on, quote or even photo. Add an inspiring quote next to a gorgeous picture and you will have people ‘wowing’ over your skills and creativity.