Scrapbook Themes

By Christina VanGinkel

Whether you are new to scrapbooking or have been at it for years, choosing a theme to scrapbook can sometimes be hard to do. We might have files full of photos, yet knowing how to categorize all of them is not always easy. Some pictures are self-explanatory, such as photos of our children, and might even fall into a sub-category, such as when those same children are caught smiling at their own birthday parties. However, other pictures might leave us staring at them so long we end up tossing them back into the box or closing the folder, we are viewing them in, because no matter how much we might want to scrap them, we just cannot figure out a theme to use with them.

When those times happen, consider a few of these less common themes:

All about Me

The theme All about Me could include photos of you or a family member that are obviously all about that person. If someone has captured a photo of someone doing nothing more than being themselves, maybe standing in the yard, sitting reading a book, playing with a lone toy all by themselves, instead of setting the photo aside because it does not really tell a story, use it as the center of a page that is full of journaling all about that individual.

Home

Do you have various snapshots of your house that do not correlate into some other theme such as the holidays? If so, and they are snapshots that have managed to capture you house as you would hope future generations might remember it, or even your own children might love to look back at when they are all grown up, then create a layout called Home.

Faith

If your church is an important aspect of your life, take the time to create a layout or even a whole album that is about your ties to your church. If your kids are active in youth group, or sing in the choir, if you have helped with a drive for the needy, or worked in the kitchens to help feed hungry people during the holidays, record some of these special times. Even a few snapshots can further be embellished with journaling to make a record of just how important your faith and the church have been to you.

Nature and the Seasons

If you are like half the camera carrying population, you have at least a few photographs of the fall leaves, the snow banks piled high during the winter, the first flowers of spring, and the storm clouds moving in on the hottest days of summer. Take all of these and create a scrapbook about the seasons or your love of nature herself in all of her various presentations.

Dreams

Possibly similar to the All about Me theme, especially if you did the All about Me about yourself. Dreams is a great theme for anyone who has snapped photographs of places or activities that they would someday love to see or try themselves. If you have dreams of parachuting and have attended every balloon festival you could find, then a layout about your dreams to be up there yourself someday would make a great layout. A Dreams layout might also be about your personal dreams and aspirations for your family, your job, your life in general. Some might say subjects such as these belong in a journal and not a scrapbook, but there are those who would disagree. A journal can seem more personal than a scrapbook layout. So contributing a layout on this subject to a scrapbook that you create can lend a much different aspect of who you were to future generations who find it within a scrapbook than they would in the pages of a private journal.

What is so great about scrapbooking is that really any subject can be scrapped. If something is of interest to you, go ahead and create a layout about it. There are no rules when it comes to scrapbooking, no set of laws governing what can, and cannot be included. Family, friends, jobs, houses, what you love, what you hate, the holidays, the foods you eat, absolutely anything can be included in your next layout, so get busy scrapping!