Photo Safety

• Many paper crafters scrapbook so they can keep photos in a safe environment. Acid and lignin will deteriorate pictures and cause them to fade, age and yellow. Counteract this effect by using acid- and lignin-free products. Almost all scrapbook manufacturers produce supplies that fall into this category. If a photo is extremely old, rare, valuable or has great sentimental value, scan or make a copy of it before you attempt to scrapbook it, just in case.
  
  

Supplies and Tools

• Most scrapbookers need three or four basic supplies and tools to begin creating layouts. First, you must have some type of paper, usually card stock, but sometimes patterned paper as well. You will need adhesive, usually photo tabs or double-sided, acid-free tape, to adhere your pictures to the page. A trimmer comes in handy to cut photos or papers as you create pages. You can then add more embellishments from there, such as paint, ink, stamps, stickers, tags, rub-ons, brads, eyelets, flowers, jewels and bling, stickers and buttons. Finally, an album will store all those beautiful layouts you create.
  
  

Colors

• Some scrapbookers struggle with color combination ideas. Fortunately, many manufacturers help with this challenge by producing lines of color-coordinated paper that take the guess work out of matching pages. A color wheel can help, especially if you like the look of card stock as opposed to patterned papers. You can combine one or two contrasting pieces of card stock with patterned papers as well. If you have trouble matching the colors in your photos to paper, try reprinting the picture in black and white. You will avoid the hassle of coordinating colors and can use any color combination you like. Remember that you do not always need to use expected color combinations for seasonal pages, such as Christmas or spring.
  
  

Page Design

• You will enjoy looking at a finished layout more if it is well-designed. Look at other pages by scrapbookers in magazines or online. By strategically placing one or a group of embellishments in a "visual triangle," the eye will automatically track around the page. For example, you might place one flower with a brad at the top of the page, another flower with a brad and some stickers toward the bottom left of the page and larger group of embellishments with a flower at the bottom right of the page. You can use this principle when designing one or two page layouts by thinking of the two pages as one and spreading the embellishments across the page. This helps the two pages flow.
  
  

Journaling

• While photographs may be the heart of most scrapbook pages, the layout needs journaling to put the pictures into some type of context. You can scrapbook chronologically as you took the pictures, or you might opt to scrapbook by events and put all your birthday parties in one album. Finally, some scrapbookers have found they like to scrapbook their thoughts, values, beliefs, hopes and dreams, either for themselves or their children. You might want to scrapbook a special photo or two of your child and then write a letter about the importance of forgiveness or some other important personal quality.