My assistant Ria has always loved scrapbooking. As part of the Bettencourt Team I asked her if she wanted to be a guest author and write an article about her hobby for our monthly Veronica Bettencourt Newsletter. She gladly agreed! Maybe you’re an expert scrapbooker or know nothing about it. Regardless, you may pick up a new hobby or just enjoy hearing about other hobbies like I do! Enjoy:)
Scrapbooking: Keeping Memories in a Fun and Creative Way
I started getting into scrapbooking when I was in my teens. At first I did it to cover my books and notebooks with pictures of Hollywood actors and dresses that I cut out from magazines. I’d arrange the pictures in a certain way or do a rough collage to make it look more edgy and cool.
Scrapbooking then wasn’t all high-tech like it is now, and is not even considered for pictures. Usually, pictures were just placed in ordinary photo albums. So, what I did was I’d use ordinary paper or even cute gift wrapping paper as background for my pictures and then cut out letters from old magazines and arrange them to title my pages. I’m a sentimental junkie and I keep almost everything that is memorable to me like movie tickets, airplane tickets, hotel stuff, candy wrappers, you name it, I’ve kept it. And this is what I like to scrapbook.
However, in recent years, Scrapbooking grew, and along with it the number of scrapbookers. With this growth came the really nice materials and supplies. Different shaped punchers, decorative-edged scissors, colored and glitter glue, and all types of pens and paints. Acid-free lignin-free became a very important term in scrapbooking. Materials that are acid-free and lignin-free ensure that your pictures will not discolor or fade in time. This means, you can enjoy looking back at your preserved memories for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, I was also getting interested in graphic and web design and started learning Photoshop. Then, the digital cameras came and with it, the advent of digital in the world of scrapbooking. Digital Scrapbooking bridged the gap between digital pictures and a photo album. In digital scrapbooking you get to choose how the pictures are presented. You choose the background, elements, and text that go with each photo.
Using Photoshop or any other image editing software like Photoshop Elements and Corel Paint Shop, you can spruce up your images with buttons, ribbons, tags, text journaling, and set it up against a really nice background. And you’ll have a really nice album you can print on your printer or at a film center. There are so many things you can create in digital scrapbooking, such as photo invitations, personalized calendars, gift tags, and photo souvenirs. They make great gifts too. It’s fun and easy to do.
If you’re artistic enough, you can even make your own background papers and elements by using Photoshop. There are many tutorials on the internet, as well as free scrapbooking kits you can get started with. There are also many websites that sell digital scrapbooking stuff, if ever you want to get serious with your scrapbooking.
You can even do hybrid scrapping if you’re the type of person who wants to cut and paste, and you want your scrapbook in 3D. Just print out the elements you want on, remember, acid-free cardstock, paper, or sticker paper and start scrapbooking. Me, I want the no-mess-no-cleanup way so I go for digital.
Scrapbooking is really a fun activity you can also do with friends or your children. A great stress reliever and creative outlet. For me there’s nothing like preserving very special memories of myself with my children that we can enjoy and look back to in the future.
To read about Jennifer’s story and get 500 Scrapbooking Sketches Click Here
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