Valeria Protasova
Reading time: 12 minutes
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Who among us does not like to be photographed and photograph loved ones and loved ones? Over time, a huge number of photographs accumulate in our home, which, of course, we want to preserve and pass on to future generations. That’s why today we will discuss with you ideas for decorating a family photo album with your own hands. It would be nice to make this pleasant activity one of the most, doing all the creative work on designing a family album together.
Family chronicle using scrapbooking technique – DIY vintage family album
Scrapbooking is one of the techniques for creating and decorating family or personal albums with your own hands. Where, in addition to photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, buttons, drawings and other memorabilia are added that carry a story telling about you and your loved ones. Thanks to this art, instead of a regular album, we will get a whole story about the life of your family. The cover of a photo album can also be given an original look. Decorate it with some mementos of yours, such as a ribbon to attach an amulet to, or yellow maple leaves. You can put a beautiful inscription on the cover, symbolizing something important only for you and your family. 
Design of a family album in the form of a family tree
Try to make your own family tree of your family and attach it to the title page of a photo album. This will not be difficult - indicate all the closest relatives whom you remember and whose photographs you can find in the family archive. First, add photographs of your most distant ancestors to the album, and finish with photographs of our days. Such a photo album, made with your own hands, will be of interest to absolutely everyone - both the older and younger generations. After all, looking at it, you will have the feeling that you are reading a real saga about the history of your own family. 
How to make a family album with children's pages - ideas for designing a children's family album
Of course, one of the most important events in every family is the birth of a child. We always want to design this chapter of our lives in something special. After all, even the smallest detail is important here. We have a great many photographs of growing children, because we want to capture every moment of the little person’s life. And choosing some individual photos from them to put in an album can be very difficult. But try to select the most characteristic photographs that most clearly reflect the important moments in your baby’s life. At first, these could be photos of you with the baby still in your tummy. Next - discharge from the maternity hospital. A newborn baby meets family members and closest people. First smile. First steps. Walks. Sound sleep. Breakfast. For any mother, all these moments are incredibly important and each one will remain in memory forever. You can also attach the baby’s first hairs to the photo album, make decorations from the first booties, ribbon, from a lace baby scarf or cap. Do not forget to describe next to the photographs the events that are depicted in them. Over time, you can add your child’s drawings and various school or sports trophies and certificates to the photo album. 
DIY family wedding album – lace, satin bows and dried flowers from the bride’s bouquet.
A wedding is a very important and special day for every woman. I would like to remember every moment of this happy day. And, of course, we are left with a huge number of photographs that require decent design. You can decorate your wedding album in an unusual way by adding satin bows and lace from the bride’s accessories. You can also attach dried flowers from the bride’s bouquet to the photos, if you still have them. All these little things will become more and more valuable to you over the years, and every time you open a wedding photo album made with your own hands, you will return to that magical day. 
The idea of designing a family album about a vacation with trophies from long journeys
We all love to relax, and from every trip we bring a bunch of photographs. Naturally, these photos also deserve their own photo album. You can decorate such an album with postcards depicting the countries where you have vacationed, trophies from your travels - be it a piece of shell or a dried exotic plant. You can also make an ornament out of sand from the beaches where you sunbathed and took pictures. Do not forget about the descriptions of what is shown in the photographs. After all, your children, many years later, will be very interested in reading about the adventures of their parents on vacation, and looking at the colorful illustrations for this exciting story. 
How to make a family album as a gift to parents - a chronicle of the parental family
A photo album made with your own hands is also a wonderful gift that you can give to your parents for an anniversary, or some holiday, or just because. Collect the best photos of your parents from all family albums to transfer them into one. When adding photos, add some words from yourself to the description for your mom and dad. Tell them how much you love them and how dear they are to you. You can decorate a photo album with clippings from old magazines and preserved old theater tickets that your parents attended. An album for parents can also be decorated with homemade decorative items - an album cover crocheted or knitted, figurines for decorating a luxurious antique style, made by yourself. The album can also include homemade collages, appliqués and decorative elements in a vintage style, with antique lace and velvet. The flight of fancy here is simply limitless! 
Do-it-yourself creative album - creating a family chronicle with photos, drawings, poems and stories of all family members
And, of course, every family should have a common album, looking at it so warmly and comfortably to spend time surrounded by loved ones. There are a great many ideas for creating such an album, and all family members will have to work hard to bring them to life. Add your favorite photos to it in chronological order. Accompany them with poems of your own composition, let each family member write stories about some significant events. You can also collect children's drawings to put them in an album, small memorabilia. Bring all your creative impulses into the design! In addition to photographs, you can add everything that matters to your family to the photo album. And then you will get a real illustrated family chronicle, which can be left as a souvenir for descendants. 
A self-made photo album will breathe new life into your memories captured on film. After all, what if not looking at family photos on winter evenings? brings loved ones closer together, making us appreciate each other even more.
Some are ready to take selfies at every step, others agree to be photographed only on rare occasions, but everyone, without exception, cherishes pleasant memories. True, a stack of scattered photographs somewhere in a closet drawer or several folders on a computer can hardly be compared with an original photo album made by yourself. You won’t be ashamed to show off such a thing to your relatives, friends or colleagues. The only question is how to make a photo album so that it not only looks beautiful, but also carries a certain idea.
DIY photo album: design ideas
The success of any idea depends on its implementation. It is best to implement your ideas using already formed styles and techniques. Also, do not forget about such basic things as composition and plot. Especially if it is a homemade gift. Let's look at everything in order.
Plot
This element of idea implementation, as a rule, comes first. The design of a photo album depends on the plot or theme. Albums dedicated to family, the birth of a child, wedding, travel and other significant life events can be considered classic. You can also make a photo album as a gift for a loved one or as an anniversary gift for a colleague. Some options will be discussed in more detail below.
Example “For Myself” Example “Rest”
Composition
Making a photo album with your own hands is not just about choosing photos and decorations. It is much more important to achieve visual unity. It is best to follow these rules:
- determine the semantic center of the page
- make bright accents
- make sure that the photos, inscriptions and decor are in harmony in shades
- balance the proportions
- choose jewelry in accordance with the meaning of the photo
- draw a triangle “photo-title-description”
Style
Fans of minimalism should pay attention to the style with the self-explanatory name “clean and simple”. It involves a minimum of decorations. A minimal amount of decor is also characteristic of the “European” style. Its highlight is the unusual shapes of photographs that are cropped to resemble a specific object. If you like to immerse yourself in the past, then the ideal option is “vintage”. “Shabby chic” involves the presence of ribbons, lace and scuffs. The “American” style is even more saturated with decor. Before you design a photo album with your own hands, you should look for a style that will represent you or your family from the best side.
Technique
Stamping involves the use of various applicator stamps. Decoupage requires the use of drawings, pictures, and ornaments. Cropping is based on working directly with photographs. They are trimmed so that only the key elements remain. Photos, supplemented with original descriptions, are journaling. Distress is the aging of paper. You can find at least a hundred more original techniques online.
How to make a photo album with your own hands: step-by-step scrapbooking
Step 1. Selection of material and tools for work
To work you will need:
- scrap paper
- cardboard with a density of 300 g/m²
- adhesive fabric
- cover fabric
- padding polyester
- ribbon
- notebook
- breadboard knife
- needle
- pencil
- ruler
Step 2: Planning the Album
To ensure that the result does not disappoint, you must clearly understand what you want to get in the end. Even before you make a photo album with your own hands, work on a template. To create a template for a future photo album, you can use a notebook of the appropriate size. In it you can sketch the name of the pages, draw the approximate location of the photo and decor.
Step 3: Album Binding
We take the prepared cardboard, cut 3 strips 24 cm high and proportionally increasing in width. Fold the sheets in half so that proportionally increasing roots are formed. The dimensions of the spines can be drawn in advance, as indicated in the photo. The result should be a notebook with a spine. All parts are glued along the spine line. The resulting binding can be stitched with waxed cord, then you will get a durable photo album with your own hands. Scrapbooking, a master class for which is not difficult to find, will provide many options for decorating such a cord.
Step 4. Page design
Using a set of scrap paper, we create a rough design for the pages. Double-sided tape will help you attach additional elements. The resulting backgrounds are glued to the finished binding. They can be supplemented with clamshells or photo mats. As additional decor, you can use a variety of elements: cut-outs, appliqués, beads, ribbons, etc. It is important that the volumetric decor is evenly distributed and does not deform the album sheets. A previously created DIY photo album template will help you do everything right. Step by step with a photo you can easily bring the work to the desired result.
Step 5: Album Cover
The cover must be made based on the size of the binding. 2mm woven cardboard will do.
- It is necessary to prepare 2 blanks for covers and a spine from cardboard.
- Next, we cut out the corresponding pieces from one-sided adhesive fabric.
- We place the spine between the cover blanks, retreating 0.3 cm.
- We fasten everything with adhesive fabric.
- Then we cut a piece of padding polyester the size of the workpiece and attach it to the top.
- We apply the finished soft blank to the fabric chosen as decoration.
- We should leave 2.5 cm of fabric on the sides. They are attached to the workpiece using 2-sided tape. Where there is no tape, we fix it with glue.
Step 6. Assembling a photo album
At the last stage, you need to attach double sheets of prepared binding one by one with your own hands. The first sheet is attached directly to the cover. You can proceed to flashing the album only after the structure has completely dried. Having opened the album in the middle, we mark the places for the holes. Next, we punch them with an awl and stitch the album with tape. You can secure the corners using special corners. Additional cover decor would also be useful.
DIY photo album for a newborn
A photo album for a newborn has long ceased to be a rarity, but the same cannot be said about the originality of its design. But this is exactly the thing that is important to do with your soul. To begin with, it is worth selecting the most characteristic photos that more clearly reflect important moments in the child’s life than others. The scrapbooking album must include photos of the first ultrasound, discharge from the maternity hospital, meeting loved ones, first smile, first steps, etc.
As decorations, you can use booties and ribbons, which used to be elements of the baby’s clothing. Don't forget to supplement your children's photo album with short descriptions of the events depicted in the photo. Over time, you can add drawings of your child to such a photo album, as well as evidence of his victories - certificates and trophies.
DIY family photo album
One of the variations of such an album could be a family chronicle or a do-it-yourself photo book. In addition to photographs, you can add postcards, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia that are somehow related to the family history. The cover of such a photo album should be supplemented with an inscription symbolizing something important for the whole family. You should not spare time and effort to make such a photo album with your own hands. The master class above will make the process easier.
DIY wedding photo album
Creating a DIY wedding photo album step by step with photos is much easier than it might seem. The process itself will bring pleasure, and perhaps revive old feelings. The main thing is not to forget that each page of the album is a story that conveys the mood that reigned during the holiday.
Master class video
Finally, here is a video that will make the process of creating a photo album with your own hands easier:
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Photography is a unique thing. This is not just a picture, this is a whole segment of life. When you look at a photograph, your memory brings up a whole heap of memories from the depths.
You can spend more than one pleasant evening looking at a photo album. You can never expect such warmth and impressions from electronic versions of photo collections. In addition, if the gadget breaks down, pictures can be lost forever. Isn’t this a good reason to continue the traditions of our ancestors and make a photo album with our own hands?
Why make your own if you can buy ready-made options? There are a lot of arguments:
1. Because it will be unique.
2. It can be made in various styles and themes.
3. A piece of your soul will fall into it.
4. And simply because it is an interesting activity.
Interested? Let's look at creating a photo album with your own hands step by step.
Scrapbooking Basics
Like any business, scrapbooking requires advance planning. The problem is that it is not enough for a photo album to have an aesthetic appearance; it needs to carry a certain semantic load. To fulfill all the conditions, you need to find the optimal way to implement the idea. And here it is better to stick to already proven techniques and stylistic ideas for designing photo albums.
DIY photo album
It should be noted that scrapbooking is not a cheap hobby, so before you go purchasing supplies, you need to think about the following for your future masterpiece:
- plot;
- composition;
- design style;
- implementation technique.
Plot
It is the plot that will give you the idea of how to make a photo album with your own hands. The design of the product will directly depend on the theme. A photo album can be a family album or a gift album.
The design of a photo album directly depends on the topic
Composition
For a do-it-yourself photo album, page design ideas must be correctly positioned. The photos themselves and the design elements should appear in visual unity. Here it is important to determine the semantic center of the composition and, in relation to it, select accents or decorations for the page. The subject of the image will help you choose a title and perhaps even make a brief description of the photo.
All pages of the photo album must be made in the same style
Stylistic orientation
“By creating a photo album with your own hands, you are free to choose any style of its design”
Admirers of lush decor should focus on the American vision of a photo book. Connoisseurs of antiquity and those who like to immerse themselves in bygone days will certainly choose shabby chic or vintage. Adherents of minimalism can take a closer look at the European style and one of the most popular ideas for designing photo albums – “clean and simple”.
Design of a photo album in the “clean and simple” style.
When creating a photo album with your own hands, you are free to choose any design style. Other design options can be used, the main thing is that they can present the theme of the album from the best side.
Performance technique
There are many options on how to make a photo album with your own hands. The following help to implement your ideas:
- stamping;
- decoupage;
- journaling;
- cropping;
- distress.
There are about a hundred more entertaining techniques that allow you to create magnificent copies of photo albums.
Decoupage technique in photo album decor
The presented methods are distinguished by relative ease of implementation. Thus, stamping involves the use of applicators and all kinds of impressions. In decoupage, plot drawings and ornaments are used. In cropping, they work with the photo itself. It is trimmed so that only the key points are preserved. Journaling is characterized by adding original descriptions to photographs. Distress is based on the aging of the paper.
Many different types of impressions are used in stamping
DIY photo album: step by step
Stage I
Essentially this is preparation for work. At this stage, we focus on selecting tools and purchasing materials. What will you need?
Materials:
- thick (500 gsm; m) cardboard;
- scrap paper;
- notebook;
- padding polyester;
- adhesive fabric;
- tapes.
Tools:
- awl;
- ruler;
- needle;
- breadboard knife;
- pencil.
Stage II
We sit down to plan the implementation of our own photo album design ideas. The result will not disappoint if you clearly formulate what you want to see in the end. This is where a notebook comes into play. It is desirable that it be similar in size to the future original. It will become a kind of template for work. On its pages you can experiment with the arrangement of photographs and decorative elements. The most successful options are recorded.
Sketch of the location of pictures and decorative elements
Let's start creating a photo album with our own hands by assembling the spines for the pages. To do this, you can use less thick photo cardboard. Strips are cut from it corresponding to the height of the sheets. The width of the stripes may vary. On average, the figure rarely exceeds 3 cm.
Stripes corresponding to sheet heights
Using a ruler, find the center of the narrow part. We set aside 2 mm on both sides of it if the landscape pages have convex decorations and 1 mm in other cases. We proceed in the same way from the opposite side. We connect the outlines with a ruler and draw a strip not with a pencil, but not with a writing pen. This photo album design idea will help you bend the sheet strictly along the given lines. We cut off the corners of the workpiece. Now you can put sheets in them and fix them with glue. The outer sheets should not have “partners”. The free part of the spine will be needed for another.
Fix the leaves with glue
Stage IV
Page finishing. Their decor begins with covering them with scrap paper. Select the right colors and create a general background against which the rest of the composition elements will later be located. The decor for a photo album assembled with your own hands can be:
- applications;
- vinyl stickers;
- newspaper clippings;
- beautiful cords;
- ribbons;
- lace;
- beads.
Decorative materials for photo album design
In general, everything that your fantasy draws. If there is an abundance of volumetric parts, they should be evenly placed on the pages, then the sheets will not be deformed, and the product as a whole will not lose its shape. This is another reason to work on a photo album with your own hands step by step.
Place the decor evenly on the pages
Stage V
We make the binding and attach the cover. We collect the sheets glued into the spines into a book and glue the first ones with a piece of bandage, gauze or adhesive fabric, so that there is one and a half centimeters of free material left at the edges of the binding.
Cover the spine with gauze
From cotton braid with processed edges, we cut out two strips, the same length as the width of the binding. We bend the remaining gauze and glue it exactly along the edge. This idea for decorating a photo album will help hide flaws in the assembly of the end part of the binding and will serve as an additional fixation for the sheets, preventing them from coming off.
Glue two strips along the edge
While the cheesecloth is drying, work directly on the spine for the binding. If the paper for work is not too thick, then the part can be assembled. You will have to cut out two components: one strictly according to the size of the binding, the second with a width allowance of 3 cm. We lay the smaller strip on top of the larger one so that there are even allowances on both sides. Mark the boundaries and glue the parts.
Spine for binding
It would seem that's it? But at this stage there are some secrets. Design ideas from scrapbooking professionals will help you make a high-quality photo album with your own hands. What do they advise? A thick spine will prevent the album from opening. Is it possible to avoid problems? Yes, if you draw longitudinal lines along the inside of the spine with a sharp object (the same non-writing pen) with a step distance of 1 cm. This technique will allow the part to bend smoothly.
But the nuances of the topic “how to make a photo album with your own hands” do not end there.
The spine is fixed under the cover
The spine must not be glued to the binding. It is fixed on the cover. The structure is allowed to dry, after which the sheets collected on gauze are placed in it. We fix the free ends of the fabric and the part of the leaf spine that was prudently left when assembling the photo album with our own hands to the inside of the cover. It’s better to make it a transparent “Moment”. It holds more firmly and marks are removed more easily. The stains are simply erased with an eraser.
Inside cover
The creation of the photo album is complete. All that remains is to decorate the cover and fill it with content.
Thematic ideas for designing a photo album
Pleasant memories require beautiful cutting. Selfie, which has become fashionable, allows you to make photo albums with your own hands for almost every occasion, but still more often they are created for more global reasons.
Family Chronicle
It can look like a full-fledged photo book. Its contents will include not only interesting and memorable photographs, but also newspaper clippings, postcards dear to the heart, and things closely related to family history. It’s a good idea to write a motto on the title page that reflects the credo of the family.
DIY family photo album
How to make a photo album about your family with your own hands? For example, in genealogical chronology. Dig into the family archives. There will probably be many photographs of your ancestors that you remember and will be able to tell something to your descendants. These photos will appear on the first pages of the chronicle. The story should continue right up to the present day. In the future, your creativity can lay the basis for a whole galaxy of similar photo albums.
Make a series of family photo albums
If a family leads an active lifestyle and does not forget to record everything that happens in it on camera, then it will be difficult to fit everything into one album. In this case, you should divide all the photos into thematic groups and try to assemble a photo album with your own hands for each occasion.
If you love to travel, take a selection of photos from your most memorable trips. Additional decor for such albums can be postcards depicting excursion places of countries or trophies obtained, such as a dried leaf of an exotic plant. The epic of a sea holiday is perfectly decorated with sand, pebbles, shells from the beaches, seagull feathers, and sprigs of seaweed.
DIY photo album about travel
Don't be lazy to describe what is shown on the pages. It will be interesting for your descendants to read about your adventures.
Start working on a photo album with your own hands, and design ideas will appear in your head. All relatives can be involved in the matter. Give them a page and ask them to decorate it as they wish. You can ask them to compose a poem or write down a life story, or make a drawing with their own hands. In a family photo album, any illustration will be significant.
Make a photo album for the whole family
“Don’t think that the time it takes to create a child’s photo album with your own hands will be limited to one day - it will be a long process”
The birth of a child is probably the most important event in the life of every family, overshadowing even a wedding, so the desire to immortalize every minute of the child’s life is quite natural. How to make a child’s photo album with your own hands so that what is reflected in it evokes affection even years later? Pay attention to details and wisely plan the sequence of filling with photographs. From the heap of photographs, try to select symbolic images that tell about a new milestone in a child’s life.
DIY children's photo album
You can start the story from afar. Let a photo of the last days of pregnancy appear on the first page. An excellent addition to them would be ultrasound printouts. The logical continuation will be shots from the discharge photo shoot in the celebration hall of the maternity hospital. Next will be pictures with relatives. Later they will paste into the photo album with their own hands: the first smile, the first tooth, the first independent breakfast, the first steps. For every mother, these events are simply etched in her memory, and a desire is born to share her happiness with the whole world.
Ultrasound printouts would be a great addition.
There are a lot of ideas for designing baby photo albums. They can be made into a repository of children's heirlooms by gluing inside a strand of the first hair, ribbons from a cap, or a piece of a bow that was used to tie a blanket. Over time, it will be possible to add children's drawings, crafts and greeting cards brought from the garden and school. Then they will be replaced by artifacts of achievements in the form of certificates and awards.
An example of the design of pages for a children's photo album
Don’t think that the time it takes to create a child’s photo album with your own hands will be limited to one day - it will be a long process. Its contents will be replenished as the object grows.
And one more thing. Children often delight us with pearls. Don't be lazy to record them in the same album. This will be a great reason for fun years later and will decorate the pages well if it appears on them in color.
Wedding photo album
The wedding day is special for both newlyweds. Naturally, you want to save every moment of it in your memory. A huge number of photos from the celebration will require systematic storage in a decent design. So how can you make a photo album with your own hands as unusual as the event itself?
DIY wedding photo album
It's not trivial to decorate it. The bride's accessories, lace, ribbons, and elements of wedding paraphernalia will help with this. The photo can be decorated with dried flower buds from a young wedding bouquet. Over the years, such little things will become incredibly valuable and touching. Here are some more photo album design ideas.
1. Recreate the historical accuracy of the wedding celebration by grouping photos according to the chronology of its course.
Recreate the chronology of events on the pages of the album
2. Don’t be afraid to put so-called reportage and staged photographs in the album. They can be quite funny.
3. Try to give the design of the photo album a specific stylistic direction. It can be retro or something more modern.
Give the album a general stylistic direction
4. Create personal pages for portraits of heroes of the occasion and VIP guests.
5. When making a photo album with your own hands, supplement it with images of landscapes that served as the background for the wedding event.
Complete the album with landscape images
6. Multi-colored pages in the album will look original.
7. Bet on the originality of the photographs themselves. Let them be highlighted in sepia or decorated like a painting. Dilute color photos with black and white.
Dilute color photos with black and white.
8. In the wedding album, you can use several photos of the newlyweds taken on the eve of the wedding, as well as those telling about the ups and downs of the preparations for it.
9. Separate the official part and the party. This way you will have two albums with photos at once.
10. A photo collage of small-format photographs is also interesting.
Photo collage of small format photographs
Design ideas used when creating a photo album with your own hands can cause a certain imbalance in the perception of compositions due to the overload of frames with characters. When placing close-up group photographs in a self-created photo album, try to place them on the spread so that the views of the guests captured in them are directed in one direction. Then you won't get the impression that they are looking at each other. Also, a spread literally “littered” with small photos is not perceived in the best way. Use a compositional approach to their arrangement, dilute the pictures with texts and decorative elements. Let your design talents make a splash!
Dilute your photos with text and decor
Conclusion
The proposed options for creating and filling photo albums are just the tip of the iceberg called scrapbooking. Knowing how to make a photo album with your own hands, you will ensure that it excites memories of days gone by and helps bring loved ones closer together.
Photo gallery – DIY photo album
Evgenia Smirnova
To send light into the depths of the human heart - this is the purpose of the artist
Content
Scrapbooking is the art of making and designing photo albums, photo and picture frames, booklets, postcards, and gift wrapping. Scrapbooking for beginners will give everyone a chance to learn how to create original things with their own hands. The art of scrapbooking has several different directions and techniques - distressing (aging album pages), stamping (creating original effects using ink, stamps and applicators), embossing (creating raised paintings) and other styles used to design albums and paintings.
Scrapbooking – what is it and where to start
Scrapbooking for beginners is a type of manual creativity, which is based on the design and production of photo albums, the original storage of family photographs, personal stories in the form of photographs, drawings, newspaper clippings, and notes. An original wedding and New Year's album, personal diary, invitation card, gift box, picture, book, binding, envelope for money will be very beautiful. Scrapbooking is also suitable for beginners; it is worth choosing simple options, after mastering which it will be possible to move on to complex patterns.
At its core, scrapbooking acts as a unique way of storing stories, using tactile and visual techniques that replace the story. The photo album must be decorated in a special way and consist of separate leaves, each of which will express a complete thought (collage). Such original albums should cover one topic - the birth of a child, a wedding. For beginning craftsmen, there are ready-made diagrams (sketches).
In Russia, demobilization albums are widely popular, containing not only photographs, but also drawings, collages, interesting caricatures, wishes, and addresses of colleagues. The production of such original albums is carried out by soldiers who are novice craftsmen, and everything necessary can be collected during the service.
It simply doesn’t make sense to arrange all the photographs in the house in scrapbooking style, so a specific theme must be chosen, after which photos will be selected to match it. Beginning scrapbookers may find it tiring to spend a long time creating a masterpiece, but after completing a few elements, they will have a desire to continue practicing this art.
What you need for scrapbooking
Scrapbooking for beginners requires patience and preparation of materials. You will immediately want to buy a lot of things for work, but you should not buy too expensive tools. For beginning scrapbooking masters, you need to select a starter set of tools that are not very expensive, and any beginner can purchase them. It is not necessary to buy professional tools that experienced scrapbookers use.
Materials
If a decision has been made to engage in this type of art, beginning scrapbooking craftsmen will need the following materials:
- scissors (several types);
- double-sided tape;
- glue;
- paper and pencil;
- sewing machine;
- figured hole punch;
- buttons, ribbons, rhinestones;
- cardboard or cutting mat;
- rubber stamps;
- ruler and scissors.
Tools
Beginner scrapbookers should have the following tools:
- You need to take several types of scissors (small and large).
- Double-sided bulk tape, special adhesive tape for photos.
- Simple PVA is ideal for gluing paper.
- You will need special shaped hole punches, but there is no need for beginner scrapbookers to buy more than 2 pieces.
- For a beautiful and original decoration of a notebook or photo frame, ribbons of various thicknesses, rhinestones, buttons or other decorative materials that are at hand can be used.
- For cutting parts, simple cardboard or thick old magazines are suitable.
- Scrapbooking for beginners does not require too many tools, so it is not necessary to purchase a sewing machine; it is not always needed. Instead, take a simple thick needle or thin awl.
- You will only need a few rubber stamps, which come with stamp pads. Wet wipes can be used to clean dies, but only those that do not contain alcohol; beginner scrapbookers can wash them with warm water and soap.
- Experienced scrapbookers use eyelet installers, and beginners can buy kits for their installation in specialized sewing stores.
- The ruler with scissors will be replaced by a special cutter (a simple metal ruler, a stationery knife).
Sketches
Scrapbooking sketches for beginners will help make cards, postcards, and notebooks much easier. For beginning craftsmen, sketches will be a real lifesaver, because they can give new ideas and inspiration when creating an original photo album, frame, or notepad. If you can’t make a scrapbook page yourself, you should pay attention to ready-made templates (blanks) for scrapbooking.
Master class on scrapbooking a photo album for a child
A step-by-step scrapbooking master class for beginners will help you easily make a beautiful, original album for a child. Possessing creative and unconventional thinking, you can easily create a real work of art, but if you lack imagination, there is a way out - check out the master classes and choose a more suitable option for beginning craftsmen.
In this case, you will need the following materials:
- 3-5 sheets of paper with any design;
- 4 sheets of cardboard (white), size 12.5x12.5 cm;
- 2 sheets of thick cardboard measuring 13x13 cm (special paper for scrapbooking).
Step-by-step instructions for scrapbooking a photo album for beginners.
- First, the original album cover is created. 2 squares are cut out of paper, the dimensions of which are 15x15 cm. 6 square sheets (12.5x12.5 cm) will be used as the inner sheets of the album.
- Paper is glued to the cardboard squares, all protruding corners are cut off. The left and right corners are cut straight, and the bottom and top at an angle.
- Carefully paste it over.
- Next, take a thin tape (about 50 cm long) and glue it to the inside of the square. The end of the tape “A” (as indicated in the photo) should be slightly longer.
- 2 pieces of tape are glued to the square (tape length 5 cm, in the lower and upper parts of the square).
- Following the example shown in the photo below, all parts of the future album are connected.
- White sheets of paper are glued on top, directly onto the tape, and for the cover you will need to take colored paper (various colors - black, red, blue, pink).
- All pages of the album are covered with squares of paper; any other decorations can be used according to your own taste.
How to make scrapbooking frames with your own hands
To make an original photo frame with your own hands, beginning scrapbookers will need the following materials:
- scrap paper (1 sheet);
- pencil;
- ruler;
- scissors;
- non-writing pen or stick;
- photo;
- stationery knife;
- glue;
- scotch.
A step-by-step plan will help you avoid mistakes and do all the work correctly, and a stencil will help you make a beautiful inscription, which will be simply irreplaceable in the initial stages. To create an original and unusual photo frame, you should use a variety of stencils that help you make various drawings, which will be important for people who do not know how to draw beautifully. Scrapbooking video tutorials for beginners will become an indispensable assistant in creating a real masterpiece.
- At the initial stage, the sheet of cardboard is divided according to the pattern shown in the photo.
- Using a stationery knife, carefully cut out the middle. A cardboard frame is glued to the back of the scrap paper.
- Inside the frame, carefully cut the paper crosswise and use a non-writing pen to make the sides of the bends.
- The corners are cut off, approximately 5 cm is removed from the edge of the cardboard. The upper and lower parts of the future frame are determined. Not very large cuts are made at the top, which should be slightly larger than the photograph. Scotch tape is glued around the perimeter of the frame, with the exception of the top part.
- A piece of cardboard is glued to the back to prevent the photo from falling out. The corners of the frame are bent on all sides; it is necessary to cut out all excess.
- A footrest is made from the remaining cardboard and attached to the frame.
- Almost any decoration can be used to decorate a photo frame - flowers, letters, beads, rhinestones, any available material. A digital camera will help you take beautiful photos for an entire showroom of original photo frames.
Technique for scrapbooking notebook
To make a beautiful notebook with your own hands, a novice crafter will need the following materials:
- super glue;
- thin felt;
- scissors;
- double-sided tape (sticky film);
- notebook and paint;
- decorative elements for decoration.
- Thin felt is laid out on the table, after which a notepad is laid out in the center, about 10 cm is left for hemming the material around the perimeter, all excess is cut off (it is necessary to cut out the shape of the notebook).
- Double-sided tape is glued to the inside of the cover, the notebook is folded together with the felt, and all the lines are carefully smoothed out by hand (the binding should be evenly covered with the material). Corners need to be cut.
- All edges of the felt cover are glued, each bend is pressed well so that the glue has time to set. The notepad is closed and pressed down on top with any hard object.
- At the very end, the notebook cover is decorated - using a pre-prepared blank or template, colored paint (colors can be very diverse - black, scarlet, gold, green, yellow, blue). The most important thing is that the paint is completely dry.
Video tutorials for scrapbooking postcards
Things that were made with your own hands, and this is scrapbooking for beginners, are in a real trend and are becoming more and more popular every day. It is possible to buy ready-made exclusive items or be patient to create a work of art. Having done just one
I especially want to remember the first months of a baby’s life. After all, it is at this time that the child grows and changes “by leaps and bounds.” And a little later, it will be very interesting for parents to sort through old photographs and recordings that record the first smiles and steps of their child. A beautifully designed album for your baby will be an excellent option to save all this unique information in one place - do-it-yourself pages will allow you to save this valuable information.
Let's try to make a baby album with our own hands
Required materials and tools:- blank for a scrapbooking album (it is better to choose a blank with rings so that you can add new pages if necessary)
- sheets for scrapbooking (plain and with prints. You need to think about the theme of the album in advance and choose the appropriate paper - you don’t have to limit yourself to pink for girls and blue for boys)
- stamps and colored ink
- paints
- stickers
- universal glue
- sparkles, rhinestones, buttons, ribbons and any other elements for decoration
- figured hole punch
- scissors, curly and regular
It is difficult to describe a specific master class for designing a children's album, because... You need to start first of all from the amount of material and photographs that the parents have. At the same time, if you are planning to make such an album, then you can outline its plan in advance and take the necessary photographs as the baby grows.
You can simply print out photographs and paste them, you can make collages manually, or you can do them first using computer programs. Very beautiful albums are obtained if you decorate the pages with ribbons and special curly stamps - these scrapbooking ideas can be picked up on the relevant forums.
Step-by-step design of the first pages of the album:1) We start designing the album with the cover. You can put a family photo on it, or just a portrait of a baby. In any case, it is important to remember that this is a cover for a children's album, so it is better to give preference to delicate watercolor colors. Cute drawings depicting storks or babies in cabbage will look great.
2) To fit in all the necessary information, you need to act step by step. The first pages of the album can be dedicated to the months of pregnancy. Photos of the rounded tummy and the first ultrasound photos will be posted here, accompanied by funny comments and captions. Those who wish can even paste “that same” striped pregnancy test here.
3) It is very useful to place a family tree on the following pages - it will be important for both parents and the grown-up child to feel that the little person is part of a big family.
4) The next page is the very first photo of the baby, straight from the maternity hospital. Here we also include complete information about how much the little man weighed, what his height was and his Apgar scores. The tag that is hung on newborns can also be glued on this spread. Feel free to add more of your personal memories of this event (who was there, how you felt, how it all started), because... then such important moments are erased from memory, and re-reading them will be very interesting.
5) Next we post information about choosing a name for the baby. How they chose the name, who they decided to name it after, what it means - we put all this on this spread. Here, if desired, you can add information about your zodiac sign and year of birth according to the Eastern calendar.
6) Photos of the maternity hospital are naturally followed by discharge photos. We place photographs of happy parents on the page, accompanied by short stories about how this significant event went. We also describe how the move home and the first days of life with a new family member went.
7) Everyone is very interested in who the baby looks like - mom or dad? To find out, place a large photo of the baby and each of the parents next to each other. And to make it more interesting, you can even take not adult shots, but photos of parents in infancy - that’s when the similarities are especially visible. And then, when the grown-up baby looks at his album, he will be very interested in the fact that mom and dad were also once very little “dolls.”
We analyze thematic pages in a children's album
In addition to the chronological design of pages, you can use collages dedicated to individual everyday sketches:
- “I’m sleeping” - a photo of a sleeping baby in different poses and places, a crib, a night light.
- “I eat” - a photo of a baby trying various foods (from a bottle, a spoon, or just with his hands from an adult’s plate); here you can also describe the schedule for introducing complementary foods or funny taste preferences.
- “I’m walking” - photographs of walks, games in the sandbox, on playgrounds, sledding and snowball fights.
- “I’m bathing” - photographs of a baby in a bath with foam, rubber ducks and other toys, funny shots in a bath towel.
- “I play” - photographs of the baby with his favorite toys, the process of collecting the first pyramid, shots with mobiles and rattles.
- “I’m crawling” - the baby’s first attempts to move around the apartment, parents preparing a safe space for the baby (sideboards, latches on doors and drawers, etc.).
- “I’m walking” - the first hesitant steps by hand or along a support, the joyful faces of relatives who saw the baby’s new skill, the first shoes.
Video on the topic of the article
For greater clarity, we suggest watching the following videos, which demonstrate in detail how to make an album for a baby with your own hands.
