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HOW I BECAME A SCRAPBOOKING FANATIC

Do you remember those days as a kid pasting newspaper clippings onto paper and bundling dozens of papers together with some fancy ribbon or a string? Do you also remember all of your hard work falling apart two months later?

Now there’s a grown up way to save and preserve your treasures: Scrapbooking.

I discovered this fascinating hobby while thanks to a long bout with Excessive Daytime Sleepiness, which kept me at home for long periods of time.

The concept behind scrapbooking hasn’t changed since grade school. You still can preserve memories such as photos, tickets and news clippings in a scrapbook. Baby announcements, recipe books, gift cards, grandparent books, and even educational toys can be made with new scrapbooking techniques.

However, scrapbooking techniques and tools have matured substantially since you were a kid. Scrapbooking albums have replaced the messy bundles of paper. These albums usually are placed in a three-ring binder or, sometimes, bound. In this way, your hard work won’t fall apart. Also, you get protection from the outside elements from new, specialized covers.

Paste is also a thing of the past. (When is the last time you heard a radio advertising, running radio commercials for paste?) Your treasures can be mounted effortlessly with the help of glue dots and two-sided tape. Many of these products are so strong that you can now decorate your scrapbook pages with ribbons, feathers, flowers, or even metal charms.

There are many scrapbooking supplies available on the market. But you don’t need to spend much money to create your first scrapbook. Basically, all you need to scrapbook is an album, some glue, a pair of scissors, and some photographs or newspaper clippings. Your scrapbook easily can be embellised by using ribbons, fabrics or pieces of leftovers from previous projects.

As you get more acquainted with scrapbooking, you will find products that save you time and frustration. Many of these products are well worth buying. Certainly an exacto knife has to be at the top of this list. This strong and versatile blade allows you to cut almost anything into any shape. Just be sure to place the object you plan to cut onto a mat or wad of newspaper before using the exacto knife. Otherwise, the knife will cut right through not only your scrapbook page but also the very table you’re working on.

The next best tool is a pair of tweezers. Trying to pick up and place small gluey pieces is a hassle. Tweezers enable you to manipulate even small pieces easily.

Speaking of gluey pieces, various glues and affixing options are available. These quick and less messy options include glue dots, two-sided tape, Xyron, acid free photo tabs, and polypropylene corners.

To increase the preservation of your scrapbook and your treasures, look for albums with acid free, lignin free pages. Overall deterioration and the fading of photos are accelerated by both lignin and by acid. Lignin is the name of a chemical that is found in the cell walls of plants. A result of lignin not being removed when the paper is manufactures is the gradual yellowing and crumbling of the paper. You can find acid-free and lignin-free products in virtually any color and texture.

See what I mean? The age-old art of scrapbooking has gone high tech!

Art Morrical’s Ribbon Cutting speech