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Scrapbooking Tips That Respect The Environment

There are ways to preserve memories while respecting the environment-and that’s good news for the growing number of American scrapbookers.

Scrapbooking is all about creative use of paper products. Paper is an all-natural, renewable resource, automatically making it an environmentally friendly medium. Plus, you never need to throw anything away-every little bit of paper can be used to make a scrapbook. Here are some scrapbooking tips from the Abundant Forests Alliance:

1. Start off on the right foot-or the right paper, that is. Look for “acid-free” or “archival” paper, which can protect your scrapbooking materials and fingertips. While paper is a natural, renewable resource, it is also recyclable. Remember to always recycle or use your scraps.

2. Protect those photos. After gathering your photos, make color copies of the originals so you can use them for something else besides your scrapbook.

3. Can’t scrap it? Snap it. If you cannot fit a large object in your scrapbook, you can take a photograph of it and include that instead.

4. Save the small stuff. Save small items from special events and day-to-day life, and recycle them in your scrapbook. Using a variety of materials adds personality and texture to every page.

5. Repurpose gift wrapping. Instead of throwing away used wrapping paper or gift bags and tags, include pieces in a holiday or birthday scrapbook as page decorations and colorful reminders.

6. Bring the outside in. Take your kids on a nature walk. Collect items such as leaves, flower petals, bark and pebbles to include in your scrapbook.

7. Celebrate a special newborn. In addition to taking photos of a child’s special day, create a scrapbook that honors his or her first day in the world. Recycle that day’s newspapers to chronicle world and local events.

8. Create rainy day memories. Initiate a rainy day scrapbook with a scavenger hunt for the kids and ask them to collect items that represent a good day at home, such as a label from a favorite food, a drawing of a favorite toy, or magazine cutouts of words and pictures.

9. Say “I do” to scrapbooking. Whether you are her friend or the bride herself, collect fun items from a wedding to remember the special day. Natural resources include invitations, dried flowers, photos, confetti, dress fabric and ribbons.

10. Remember to recycle. Scrapbooking by its very nature relies on a renewable resource-paper. Paper is also recyclable, so remember to recycle your scraps.

Scrapbooking-Class – Vacation Keepsake

Photo albums make a wonderful gift, especially if you have taken the time to add your personal touches, ideas, embellishments and a written description about the photos.

Scrapbooking-Class suggestion today is a “Vacation Keepsake”. If you have vacationed with another family and have taken lots of memorable photos, why not make up an album for that family as a keepsake of your vacation together. It is possibly the nicest and most welcome gift that you could give to your friends.

You can buy albums and photo pages quite cheaply now. I like to rummage through the $2 shops and discount stores. I always check out that what I purchase is acid free so my photos will not perish over time.

By creating low cost personalized albums you are killing two birds with one stone – you are actually mounting your photos in an album instead of throwing them into a box in the back of your cupboard “to do for later on” and you have hand made a beautiful gift for your friends. How good is that! Here are some personalized vacation photo album ideas:

Materials:

• 3 ring binder
• Fabric – size needs to be the binder plus 2” on each side
• Poster board
• Ribbon, glitter or paints for decoration
• Photos
• Colored paper
• Acid-free photo pages
• Old magazines
• Spray glue

Tools:

• Scissors
• Hot glue gun

1. Select the fabric and decorative items. Create a vacation theme for the album by using drawings, stickers or pictures depicting the vacation, ie beach scenes, snow scenes or camping scenes.
2. Cut the fabric to fit the binder. Lay the binder flat on the fabric and use scissors to cut with 1” – 2” excess on each side.
3. Wrap the fabric around the binder. Use spray glue to secure the fabric to the exterior of the binder and smooth the fabric as you work so that the fabric stays tight with no gaps or sags. Be sure to glue the backside with the binder closed so that the fabric is not too tight.
4. Glue the fabric flap. After gluing the exterior of the binder, fold the excess fabric to the inside and use the hot glue gun to secure the flaps to the inside of the binder.
5. Fit poster board to inside cover. Cut the poster board to size ½” smaller on each side than the cover to hide the excess fabric. Using the hot glue gun, use a thin layer of glue to secure the poster board to the cover and fabric flaps. Let the glue dry.
6. Decorate the exterior of the album. Use ribbons, glitter, fabric paint or decorative sequins to personalize the exterior. Draw or lay out the design on a sheet of paper before attaching it to the album cover fabric to avoid changing your mind or damaging the fabric by removing pieces. Try to stay simple and avoid clutter on the cover.
7. Organize photos. Gather the photos for the custom photo album and organize for several pages.
8. Decorate pages. Using photos, colored paper, glitter, images and letters from old magazines, decorate the photo pages. Layout the pages until satisfied with the look. Then glue the decorations to the acid-free photo pages. Let the individual pages dry fully before putting them in the handmade photo album.
9. Sign the album. If giving the photo album book as a gift, sign or include a personalized message on the rear cover.

With these simple steps, create a great personalized gift for your friends or family. Design your own keepsake photo albums to organize your college photos, family trips, travel scrapbooks, birthdays, family Christmases, weddings or for any special occasion.

I hope you have enjoyed these helpful hints from Scrapbooking-Class. Please bookmark my site as I regularly update new tips and hints for all my scrapbooking friends.

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Image by http://www.free-stockphotos.com” title=”Free Photos”>Free-StockPhotos.com

Having a scrapbooking-class is a fun way of keeping your photos and memories alive. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to commence scrapbooking. It is possible to get nearly everything you need online for free. You can find free printable scrapbook pages, words and titles, designs, layouts, quotes and even step-by-step projects without spending a cent. It is a great way to begin your scrapbooking-class but we have to inform you that scrapbooking is addictive so be prepared to spend hours and hours on your new found hobby.

To commence you should decide on the theme and layout you would like to make your scrapbook about. Let’s say you are interested in making a scrapbook about a birthday party. To find the free printable scrapbook pages type in “free printable birthday” in Google and you will get a number of websites giving away birthday scrapbook pages. The first two pages of results will provide you with ample selections.

After you have selected the theme and found the free printable scrapbook pages you want to use you need to look for words, titles, quotes and fonts for your scrapbook. Type in “free printable scrapbooking phrases” in Google and you will again be rewarded with numerous sites that will provide you with words, titles and phrases you can use on your pages. These will be used for journaling and are an important part of your scrapbook.

Finally you are going to need embellishments for your scrapbook. Type in “free printable scrapbooking embellishments” in Google and from the first couple of pages returned you’ll be able to find numerous embellishments for your scrapbooking-class.

Now you have everything you need to make your free printable scrapbooking pages. If you aren’t averse to spending a small amount of money then you can also get fairly inexpensive items to build your scrapbook using the online resources that you just used. Most the sites also sell higher end items at a reasonable cost.

Remember also, the $2 shops are a great source of cheap stickers and embellishments, card stock and other scrapbooking and cardmaking supplies. Do check that the papers and other stock are acid free to protect your valuable photos.

Check out scrapbooking-class.com from time to time as we present more useful articles and craft ideas. Happy scrapbooking.

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