What To Put In Your Scrapbook Album

1. Newspaper Clippings

A popular addition to scrapbook album  pages is newspaper clippings. Newspaper clippings of birth announcements, team photographs, or favorite celebrities add a personal touch to scrapbook pages.

Newspaper contains about 4% lignin. Therefore, yellowing and brittleness of the newspaper paper will eventually occur. However, since the percentage of lignin is low, newspaper will preserve for many years before this deterioration process begins to occur. To further slow this process, use Mylar or page protectors to protect the newspaper from the outside elements.

2. Graphics and Clipart

Various graphics and clip art are available on the Internet. Many of these items can be downloaded or printed for free. Downloading and printing images is a good way to find pictures or photographs of your child's favorite television character or band for a unique personalized touch. Print these graphics or clipart directly onto lignin-free and acid-free paper and put in your scrapbook album.

3. Kid's Art

Kids bring home the greatest creations of macaroni, glitter, and finger paint. Unfortunately, the macaroni bits and glitter is soon all over the floor or eaten by the dog.

To save these creations, without the macaroni and glitter mess, simply scan and print your child's creations for use in your next scrapbook album.

Kid's art is great for use for kid's rooms, grandparent scrapbooks, and kid's scrapbooks. These pictures can be used as backgrounds, as focus items, or as embellishments.

4. Weaving Photographs

For more dramatic results from your photographs, trying weaving two copies of the same photograph together. This technique creates a three-dimensional artist look. This technique would look great on a scrapbook album for a graduating art student or a scrapbook for a friend who is quite artist and creative. This technique might also look good on a child's scrapbook with a kid's art background giving the whole page an abstract look.

To achieve this technique, first you need two copies of the same photo. On one photograph, draw evenly spaced vertical lines on the back of the picture. Cut along these lines with scissors or an exacto knife. On the other photograph draw and cut along evenly spaced horizontal lines.
 
Next, using alternate strips, from photograph one and then photograph two, weave the pieces together.  To preserve the rectangular shape of the photographs, start your weaving in the center of the piece and work outwards.

5. Collage

Collages are congregations of photographs or news clippings. These items can be placed in any order or pattern. Collages can have a theme such as a single individual or an entire family group combined.

Collages create great funky scrapbook album pages. This method is especially useful for surprise scrapbooks meant to overwhelm the reader either with all of their accomplishments or all those that care for them.

In addition to photographs and news clippings, collages can also contain blocks of text or embellishment. These additions can be used to increase the busyness and overwhelming nature of the collage or reduce the effect slightly by distracting the focus away from the collage.

To reduce shifting of the photographs as you select an appropriate collage design, place temporary tape on each photograph or newspaper clipping. Once the display is set, start permanently attaching the collage to the background.

Scrapbook albums should reflect the giver's or the receiver's personality.