Looking at scrapbooking
It’s a Utah trademark, it’s becoming a national icon and it’s so much more than paper and glue.
If you’ve never heard of eyelets, journaling, embellishments, mesh, fibers or bazzile, you’re probably not on top of one of the fastest growing hobbies in the country. Being a slightly obsessive member of the scrapbooking community, I am in support 100 percent of every male and female, young and old getting their hands on a pair of squiggly scissors.
Getting started scrapbooking is, no doubt, overwhelming. Staring at boxes and boxes of pictures, decades worth of memories and years of journals can be intimidating, but don’t let it be.
Start from today, don’t start out working backwards. Start on your current events, for example, plan now to make a summer scrapbook, and then you’ll find that as you begin to scrapbook the current, you can work backwards during the slow months.
For me, the slow months are from September through November, (when you have no major holidays and the summer is over) and January through March (when you took so many pictures over the holidays you put your camera away to prevent overuse).
I usually try and dedicate at least one weekend per month to scrapbooking, one weekend equaling about 21 hours in three days. This technique usually does a pretty good job of keeping me caught up, with time to work backwards if needed.
Before you get started, you’re going to need the right tools. The basics are obvious: cardstock paper, good black pens, straight paper cutters (scissors are no good), tape or glue and embellishments. I would strongly advise taking a professional scrapbooker along with you on your first trip to the scrapbook store, the rows and rows of colorful paper and odd-looking superfluities can be a little overwhelming for a beginner. Caution: scrapbooking can be costly, and making your scrapbook look the way you want it to can be more costly, so allow yourself a bendable budget because the further in you dive, you’ll spend more money on paper and tiny sticker people than you ever thought possible.
Laying out any scrapbook page can be tedious, time-consuming and frustrating. My best advice is to pick up a scrapbook magazine and try to mimic the pages inside. Stealing ideas is totally legitimate and they usually turn out so completely different, finding a resemblance between yours and the magazine photo is virtually impossible.
Scrapbooking in a group is highly recommended, it works a lot like brainstorming for a paper or studying for a test. Two minds are better than one.
Always be sure to organize your scrapbook stuff, whether it’s all in one box or you’re like me and need an extended truck bed, it’s important that everything is kept in one place and organized.
Scrapbooking is just as much a biography as a best-selling novel. Leave on each page a little space for you to write what happened that day, what your favorite thing was and what you were thinking or feeling when the camera snapped the picture.
Always keep your scrapbooks in an accessible and safe place out of reach from children and above the floor. If your house floods, you will be more upset about those scrapbooks than the carpet – guaranteed.
Don’t limit yourself to paper and stickers. Be creative with what you put in a layout. There are hundreds of ways to incorporate memorabilia, brochures from destinations, movie tickets, music programs, playbills and the like.
Also, don’t limit the events you scrapbook. Simple pictures of your everyday life, like people sleeping, babies crying and children playing outside can make the best pages.
Don’t make a scrapbook full of only school pictures, birthdays and major holidays. This is a form of your personal history, so put a little bit of the real you inside.
Scrapbooking is more than a hobby; it becomes a major part of life for 47 percent of females in the country. Scrapbooking itself holds the answers to a great number of life’s questions, for example:
What should I wear? Well, that depends. If you’re going to be taking pictures that day, then you’ll want to wear something that is easily coordinated with paper patterns, therefore, if I’m going to a party I will be taking pictures at, I’ll be sure to wear an outfit that I can easily coordinate paper when the time comes to scrapbook that party.
Scrapbooking provides an easy way to define any relationship. Once a man enters the scrapbook, it’s a fairly big step. The relationship however, depends on the frequency of appearances in the scrapbook. For example, if someone is in a group photo once or twice, he’s one of the friends.
If he has a couple pictures with just you and him, he’s probably a little more than a friend and if this man’s got pages dedicated to just him, and the events with just two of you together you’re probably on your way to making a wedding scrapbook.
What should I do for a summer vacation? When I ask myself this question, scrapbook pages begin to form in my brain like my own personal slideshow and I see myself at the beach, in New York. The value of any vacation can be found in the value of the scrapbook pages that follow.
Scrapbooks can also tell the future. What’s going to be in style in five years? Look back about 25 years and look at what you were wearing. You find the 80s, that’s what is coming back.
Scrapbooking is a hobby, a profession and a magic eight ball full of answers in one all-inclusive binder. Clearly, it is a necessity.
Emma Tippetts is a junior majoring in law and constitutional studies and print journalism. Please send any questions or comments to
etippetts@cc.usu.edu