Article by Leah Nerenberg, photographs by Mushky Burghoff

 Scrapbooking is so fun and easy! You get to preserve memories in a creative and cute way. Take a little time out of your day to scrapbook and you will end up with a beautiful and original piece of art!

Step One:

Why and for what are you scrapbooking? Do you want to make a scrapbook of your life, your school year, your brother’s bar mitzvah, or your cousin’s wedding? When you make a scrapbook, it must have a theme. Choose your theme, and then move on to the next step.

Step Two:

Buy your supplies! Art stores like Michael’s, and Amazing Savings both have great scrapbooking supplies for fairly cheap.

What supplies should you have? Here is a list:

·         A scrapbook. Make sure it has at least 15 pages, and because each page is double-sided and you will have 30 pages to work with.

·         Refill pages. If you need more pages for your scrapbook, be sure to pick some up. They usually come in packs of 10 or 20 at any art store.

·         Background paper. Pick up at least one pack, which usually contains 50 pages. Choose a pack (or two!) with solid colors and patterns.

·         Stickers. Buy stickers that relate to the theme of your scrapbook. There are so, so many stickers for every occasion. Letters come in a pack with about 78 letters in each. There are also themed packs, for weddings, babies, or trips. Buy a few packs of stickers, and as you make your scrapbook, you will figure out if you need more or less stickers than you bought.

·         Scissors. Use sharp scissors to cut pictures or paper. Make sure you stay safe!

·         Photo glue. Photo glue is very important to strongly and permanently glue photo paper down to paper. You can buy it at any art store.

·         Pens. Buy nice, pretty pens because they are extremely useful to write down captions under the photos or add swirls or doodles!

Step Three:

Collect your pictures. Ask your parents, friends or grandparents for any pictures they can find for your theme.

Step Four:

Start laying out your scrapbook. The title page should have a picture that summarizes the whole scrapbook. The rest of the pages should have pictures, obviously, and more stickers, papers, and captions.

Step Five:

Start pasting in your pictures. On the first page after the title page you could have the first part of the event. So, for instance, the day you were born, getting ready for your sister’s wedding, or the plane to Israel. On the next page could be when you arrive in Israel, or your first month alive. The whole scrapbook should go according to time order, beginning to end.

Step Six:

Put in the decorations and accessories on the pages. Banner stickers look great on the top or bottom of pictures with captions written on them. The other decorative stickers are so cute on the sides of the pages as decorations. You can use scissors to cut out random shapes and glue them as a collage on your page, and then put pictures on top.

Do you have any artifacts from the event, like an invitation, a baby hat, or a report card? Paste those in to make the scrapbook more personal and fun to look at.

Step Seven:

What should you do with your scrapbook? Scrapbooks are very fun to display in your bedroom, living room or anywhere else! You can buy picture displays made out of metal to show off your scrapbook. 

They also make very good gifts. You could make one for your friend’s Bat Mitzvah, your mom’s birthday, or for your brother’s wedding. Wrap the scrapbook up in tissue paper, put it in a pretty bag, write a nice card and give it to the recipient!

 

Scrapbooks are easy, fun and creative ways to preserve memories! Make one today and see how simple it is, using only seven steps! Have fun and be creative!