You Can Learn To Scrapbook

Let's talk a bit about Cardstock and B&TP. These two items will be the foundation for your scrapbook pages. You will use these as the base, the accents and the photo mattes of each page you create. So having a supply of these materials on hand is very important.

Choosing which paper to use is also equally important.
You MUST use products that are acid free, lignin free and buffered. I will be discussing this in detail in my next lens. But don't worry. Most of the products out there for scrapbooking come this way. It's a known fact now that acid destroys paper and photo's so its not in the products sold to scrapbookers.

When choosing the Cardstock and B&TP for your projects I have 3 basic rules:
1. Choose colors from a color family you are most drawn to. For example, do you like springy pastels, rich winter colors, bright summer colors or subdued fall colors. To see what I mean, visit this page of Scrapbook Color Palettes , and choose which season you are most drawn to.

2. Once you know the color family you are drawn to, pick 2-3 colors from that family that coordinate and compliment the photo's you are working with.

3. Choose Cardstock and B&TP that go together, and are from the same color family. If you buy CS from one place, and the B&TP from another, you will waste a lot of time trying to get the blues to coordinate for example. If you purchase everything from the same line, at the same time, it will be a snap to get going. To see what I mean, visit this page with shows coordinating Scrapbook Paper kits that include the Cardstock and the B&TP all in one handy package.

The last thing you will need to consider when getting started is how you will display these beautiful pages you create. Therefore, a Scrapbook album is a must have. But which one? There is a wide-variety of albums, album sizes and album styles available in the marketplace. There is also a big price range you can choose from. For my scrapbook albums (and I have purchased several different brands) I have learned this: You get what you pay for! Spend a little extra to get a quality album that won't fall apart, rather than buying a cheap
album that you will have to replace in a year anyway. Go for quality every time and you won't be disappointed.

Let's talk about album sizes.
There are many, but for all practical purposes, I will outline 3 sizes that are quite popular:
1. 12x12 Albums- this is the most popular and standardized size. I highly recommend you start here as it is the easiest to work with as well. You have a perfect square shape to create a layout with. The majority of products available for scrapbookers cater to this size.

2. 9x9 Albums- A little smaller and great for theme albums or for kids to scrapbook with.
6x6 Albums- small but makes a perfect gift album, that is fast and easy to put together.

Now lets talk about styles of albums. By styles, I am talking about the way the pages go into the albums. This is important to know and decide upon, because you will be the one adding pages to your album regularly.

Styles of Albums
1. Post-bound- the most popular, and easiest to use. You simple add your pages onto posts. You can add extender posts to these albums to expand them, thus increasing the amount of pages you can add.

2. Strap-Hinge- These are more complicated and require special pages that have an attachment on the size for the pages to be strapped into the album.

3. Three-Ring Binders- easy to use, but not as pretty to look at.

The choice is really up to you. It's a personal preference, so have fun with it.