Scrapbooking Ideas - Making a Mood Board

Mood boards are a great way to begin building up a scrapbook page for a particular picture or series. They help you get a feel for your project and help you choose a colour scheme. To make one all you need is a piece of cork board or even a piece of cardboard will do. Set up your mood board somewhere that you will see it regularly. Carefully attach your photograph to the center of it using backing tape or even better put your photograph inside a plastic sleeve and attach the sleeve to your board. Over time as you come across things that help you remember how you felt when that photograph was taken attach them to the mood board around the photo.

Try and avoid being critical during the gathering stage. You are waiting for the picture to speak to you. Pieces can be thrown away later if they don't fit, so collect anything that catches your eye. You might even use pieces for another project if they aren't used for this one.. Your collection at this stage can include magazine pictures, scraps of cloth, paper, words, anything really that matches or expands the mood of the picture in some way. Remember that at this stage you are doing nothing more than collecting ideas and feelings, so anything is possible. Some amazing projects can emerge from a mood board that might not appear if you simply scrap book in the traditional way.

There Is no need to rush this step. Simply continue gathering things for the project until you feel it is complete and you are ready to begin arranging the collection on a page. Usually a colour scheme will have suggested itself to you, but if it hasn't then simply pick out a primary colour that runs through the whole collection and search online for a colour palette that matches your primary colour choice. You might also want to go to your local paint shop and ask for some of their colour swatches. Don't feel you have to stick with a theme. If you want to do something different with your project give it a try and see if it works. Sometimes a picture needs to make a statement and you can do this by breaking the "rules" of colour.

Your mood board is finished and you have lots of great scraps, ideas and decorations to add to your projects. You have chosen your colour scheme and collected any extra card stock, ribbon and decorations you need to complete the colour pallete, so what now?

This is where you put it all together. Lay out your base card on another piece of cork board or cardboard and arrange things on the page until it looks about right. Do this on a protected surface where you can leave it for a few days. Cover the layout with a large sheet of plastic and pin the plastic down around the edges of the cork/cardboard base.

Leave it intact for a few days, and come back to look at it regularly. If at the end of this time you are still happy with your design, make a sketch of your layout, then begin putting it together,