More Photography Tips for your Scrapbooks

by Christina VanGinkel

Use your computer photo editing software to input text directly onto your photographs. Most programs offer the option to paste or type basic or shaped text, and options are often widespread, with choices of font, size, color, shading, bold, italic, and more. You can also use personalized text in this manner as your photo's border.

Consider a picture's features beyond the obvious. One favorite photo I have of my grandson shows him in a pair of rubber boots stomping in a puddle. The picture in whole is adorable. However, by printing a second copy that I had cropped away everything but his booted feet splashing away, I have created a secondary element for a layout about his puddle stomping that is as strong a photo if not more so than the photograph is as a whole.

Mount a photo on a piece of cardstock that is double the size of the photograph. Mount it so that it has a 1/8" border to one side, top, and bottom, but the remaining card stock is exposed. You can use this space to journal or attach a memento that is in correlation to the photograph.

Mount your photograph on something other than paper or cardstock. Consider tearing off one layer from a piece of cardboard, exposing the ridges inside, or use a piece of fabric that has been stiffened. Scan in a three-dimensional object, such as a starfish, and print it larger than your photograph. Mount your photograph directly atop of this print.

Using a picture whose exterior edge does not contain any important aspects of the picture; use a paper punch to create an edging around the complete outer edge, or across the top, bottom, or side. Run ribbon, raffia, fabric, etc., through the punched areas to create a three-dimensional border.

Journal even before the photographs are out of your camera and printed. If you are on a trip or have snapped photos of a special occasion, find a few minutes to jot down your feelings, thoughts, and memories before they are crowded out by another day of making new memories.

If journaling is not something you are comfortable doing, or you just cannot find the words to express yourself, go ahead and add stickers or pre-printed words and phrases if you would like. Remember thought that not every picture has to be accompanied by our thoughts. Sometimes we just have to let the pictures speak for themselves.

If you have a collection that you would like to include in a scrapbook, but the collection is not of a size that would even be remotely possible to include even the smallest sampling of it, photograph the collection in whole and in part to create a collage of the collection.

Create a digital scrapbook online to share with family and friends far away, those who may never have the opportunity to see your hardbound scrapbooks. On the other hand, create a digital slideshow and share it with them via email. Just be sure to check with them first to make sure you do not send a file that is too large for them to receive.