Scrapbooking can be described as a journey of art in which you get to preserve your memories in a creative manner and cherish them in the future.
In today’s time, the digital age has completely changed the way we share and preserve memories. Since we often click pictures on our mobile phones and save or back them up on the cloud, we don’t really take out prints or develop pictures like people used to do in the past.
Earlier, before mobile devices were invented, people used digital cameras and developed photos in studios. Later, they used to arrange the developed photos in a scrapbook album.
In this blog, we will rediscover the art of scrapbooking, understand its historic significance, its benefits and share ways you can create your own scrapbook photo album!
The History Of Scrapbooking
Have you ever wondered, how did scrapbooking start? It can be dated back to the 15th century in times when researchers, writers, and scholars used commonplace books. A commonplace book is a book that consists of all information gathered together.
Over the years, as print came into existence, people began to collect newspapers, postcards, images, etc, and started to preserve them in scrapbooks. This practice slowly grew and soon became quite popular all over the world.
Many families started pressing flowers, pictures, and even hairlocks in order to preserve memories. Later, in the 20th century, people began to recognise photography and it became more accessible to the general public, this led to the rise of scrapbooking as a hobby.
Over time, people began to preserve family photos, decorate them, and even write captions, for example – mentioning the year the photo was taken, or the memory or significance it holds.
In today’s time, digitalisation has taken over but people still enjoy this hobby, worldwide. Some even prefer creating online scrapbooks. The essence of online scrapbooking has given people the freedom to express and decorate their scrapbooks creatively with the help of many online tools.
You can also read about the detailed History Of Scrapbooking: How It All Began!
Benefits Of Scrapbooking
Now that you know about the history of scrapbooking, let’s take a look at some of the benefits it has.
- Relieves Stress
Scrapbooking is a form of art and craft. Art and craft are known to be extremely helpful in order to reduce stress.
Art and craft provides a way to distract yourself by focusing on organising, designing, or crafting your scrapbook according to your choices, and decorating it. Moreover, it also provides a sense of accomplishment which helps you feel motivated and energetic.
- Preserves Memories
Maintaining a scrapbook album allows you to preserve your memories and cherish them in the future. When you open your scrapbook after a long time, you can go through all of your old memories and feel a sense of nostalgia and happiness. This helps you remember the good memories that you preserved, which gives rise to the feeling of happiness.
- Enhances Creativity
Creating a scrapbook is a creative form to express yourself while preserving memories. While creating a scrapbook, you use your imagination, and creativity in order to neatly decorate your scrapbook.
- Allows Customisation & Personalisation
When you create your scrapbook, you can personalise it according to your imagination and thoughts. You can add flowers, momentoes, and images, and write a few lines about them.
Moreover, with the help of an online scrapbook, you can customise many different templates and personalise them according to your choice.
- Provides Connection With Heritage
While scrapbooking, you compile many different images, stories, and memories from the past. Pictures are a great way to tell stories. Hence, when the future generations go through the scrapbook passed on to them, they will be able to understand their culture, and heritage through the pictures and captions mentioned in the scrapbook.
You may also enjoy: DIY Craft: Creating Things Using Recycled Materials
Listening to Podcasts: The Best Hobby to Develop in 2024
How To Create A Scrapbook Of Your Own?
- Choose Your Platform
It is your choice whether you would like to have a digital scrapbook or a handmade one. Choose what is better for you by understanding the pros and cons of each choice and choosing the one that better suits your needs.
Websites such as Canva have pre-made templates that you can choose from.
- Layout Your Design
If you are going with a premade template, you can skip this step. Nonetheless, if you are creating a scrapbook physically, then choose a layout that you will follow throughout the process.
Some common templates are:
a) Month-wise images of the best memories
Suppose you have 4 pages in your scrapbook dedicated to each month (1 page for 1 week), with this, you can stick images that you wish to cherish easily and write short captions, or simply mention the date next to the image. You can also decorate the background with different drawings, doodles, or book-pressed flowers.
b) Journaling
Some people enjoy journaling and combine it with the hobby of scrapbooking. For this, people leave spaces for pictures and journals about the memories to remember for a long time.
- Storytelling
Ensure that you are able to convey a story. Try arranging pictures in a format that helps to tell a story when you visit it in the future. Moreover, write small captions which can help you recall those memories.
Additionally, keep it simple and brief. Doing so will also help others understand the significance of the story that you have preserved.
- Experiment With Styles
Once you have created your scrapbook, you can try out different styles or themes like retro, minimalistic, modern, etc. These themes can help you set a defined style for you to carry out throughout your scrapbook.
Conclusion
Scrapbooking is an art that has many benefits like enhancing creativity, imagination, and much more. Historically speaking, it originated in the 15th century from the concept of commonplace books which was used by scholars, researchers, and writers to gather facts and information.
In today’s digital world, you can create your own scrapbook photo album either digitally, or physically. No matter how you choose to create your scrapbook, you will enjoy the process as in the future when you look back at it, you will feel a sense of nostalgia.
Anshuman