Creating A Photo Book

Scrapbooking is a tough hobby. While there are people who love it, many others find that it is difficult for them to learn to design the themes and to make everything work out right. Creating a scrapbook is not the only way to preserve your memories, however.

One option that you have is to create a basic photographs book. You can start by deciding on a life theme. Perhaps you want to make a book about one of your children or about the great vacation you took last year or about Christmas traditions in your family. Once you have a theme selected, then you can begin your book.

Go through the pictures that you have and pick out the ones that will work for your photo book. You can take any pictures that need work and blow them up or crop them. Get a number of really great photographs. You should pick one photograph to be the cover of your book.

Next you will need to pick an album. Count the number of pictures that you have and get an album that will work with that number of pictures. At some stores, you will find albums that do not have any pages in them. You will be able to buy the exact number of pages you will need. In most cases, however, you will be picking up a ready-made album, so you need to know how many pictures you will need.

You should look for an album that has a place for comments. That means that there are little spaces between the top and bottom picture. Many people think that this space is for negatives, and they will indeed fit into that space. It is much better when it is used as a place to write cute comments or notes about the pictures above and below, however.

Once you have the album, you will need to organize the pictures. Perhaps you want to do them by date. Perhaps you want to do them by subject. It really does not matter, but you should pick out the pictures that you want to put into the album and in what order.

The next part of the project will take the longest but is the most fun. You will sit down with some scrap booking paper. This paper is easy to write on and is tough. You should cut the strips to the size that you will need to fit into those spaces between the pictures. You will then write down something about each picture. It may be cute sayings or an explanation of who or what is in the picture. Be sure that you include a date and location on at least the first picture of the album if you are doing a vacation.

These comments are your place to let others who will view the album know what they are looking at. It also will be great fun when your children are older or you are getting on up there to think back to the fun times you have had. The pictures, and what you have written, will help bring back some good memories for you.

Now you will need to put the pictures into the album. That part is probably the easiest but will be great fun as well. You will get to look at the pictures as you are placing them in the album.

When you are done, this album will make a great centerpiece for conversation in your living room. You also can give it as a gift to someone who would really enjoy the pictures. Of course, you could do a combination. Keep the albums for yourself now but plan to give them to your children at their weddings, for instance.

These types of keepsake albums are much easier and less expensive than scrap booking, but they are wonderful fun just the same. They are great ways to make the memories that you have last for a lifetime and will be where you can easily remember them. Instead of just sitting in a box where no one will see them, you will be able to show your pictures to other people so that everyone can enjoy a little piece of your memories.

By Julia Mercer