4 Things You Must Know About Creating A Scrapbook Layout

1. Arrange Your Photos

I know how exciting it can be to go out to your craft store and buy card stock and embellishments but before you do, I strongly recommend that you spend time arranging your photos.

I like to organise my photos into themes and I find the best way to do this is to have separate filing cabinet sleeves that I label. So I might call one sleeve "vacations" and another "birthdays". And slowly, bit by bit I sort through all my photos and put them into each folder.

Also if you're really keen you can create folder beneath those more general folders, so instead of stopping at a folder called "birthdays" I would have a sleeve inside that and label it "kids birthdays" and include all the relevant photos there.

Arranging your photos means you won't waste time looking for the right photos for your layouts!

2. Settle On A Subject Matter

You need to be clear on what your page is going to be about. When I approach a new page I ask myself questions - how many photos will I use? Will I include journaling etc.

The clearer you are about what you want your page to look like the easier and faster it will be to create!

In fact a lot of professional scrapbookers recommend that you sketch your page out first BEFORE you glue anything down. This is a great technique that can really help your designs.

3. OK... NOW you can go shopping for supplies!

If you're off to the store, make sure you have a budget in mind BEFORE you walk through those doors. Scrapbook stores are amazing places, and it's so easy to get side tracked and end up purchasing half the store.

If you're new to the craft, then you need to get yourself some basic equipment like scissors and some nice card stock. But careful you don't spend a fortune.

Also you might want tot pick up a paper trimmer (this saves a heap of time), plus some general quirky embellishments such as buttons and stickers.

4. Make Up Your Mind About Materials And Get Started...

So at this stage you should have a pretty good idea of what you want your layout to look - so now you need to get your materials.

By materials I mean paper. And one of the best tips I can give you about this, is to take your photos into the supply store and sit them next to paper to see what compliments and what doesn't. This way you're never in danger of getting home only to find that nothing co-ordinates (this has happened to me before and boy is it frustrating!)

As a side note - if you want everything to blend nicely it's a good idea to get a scrapbooking kit. They include paper and embellishments that are all designed to look good next to each other. It's a great shortcut and always guarantees you a good layout!

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