Four Timeless Scrapbooking Techniques

Then and Now

One way scrapbooking albums are different from regular photo albums is that they let you add layers of depth and meaning to plain photographs. One way to do is to use the 'then and now' scrapbooking technique which allows you to place pictures of the same people in different periods of time or different people in the same setting side by side.

For instance, if you wore your moms wedding dress on your special day, you can place pictures of your parents and your weeding side by side so that you can capture the beauty of how the dress looks on both of you. Similarly, you can use pictures of your kids at the same family reunion park entrance year after year and see how they have grown as compared to the entrance sign.

Less is More

If you have ever noticed professional scrapbooking layouts in magazines and books, you will see a popular scrapbooking technique that most designers apply is 'less is more'. They do not put every picture from their digital camera or roll of film on one page. They take a focal point, perhaps one large picture or three regular sized ones and work around them. They add color, texture, captioning and embellishment and transform a few photos into a work of art.

Mix Mediums

Rubber stamping and embossing with scrapbooking is a technique many people like because it opens even more doors of possibilities. Paper with fabric, felt with foil, old with new, the options are as exciting or as drab as you want them to be. There is no sacred rule in scrapbooking techniques that you can only use markers or only pastels. Match the material with the theme of your page and take it from there.

Bubble Captioning

Particularly cute when used in scrapbooking for kids, bubble captioning allows you to record exact funny (or embarrassing) phrases your kids used which you're bound to forget as they grow. A special way they pronounced a particular word or a special name they had for pets or cartoon characters help preserve their pictures - and their words.

You can try this scrapbooking technique by printing the exact phrase from your computer or using your own handwriting and placing it in a bubble over the picture just like in comic strips. This way when you look at your scrapbooking albums in an empty nest, it won't just bring tears to you eyes, it will bring some hearty laughs too!