Clean Scrapbooking Simple

When Less is More in Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a wonderful and creative means to be able to preserve life's most treasured memories and share them with family, friends and your generations long after you're gone.

To make a scrapbook, one should be able to create a visual and tactile delight by showcasing photographs along with other "scraps" or bits and pieces of events that when put together tells a complete story of that particular slice of life depicted in the chosen (digital) photo.

For instance, a photograph of a person, or group of people, hardly tells a story at all; especially if the photo has no other particular merits or characteristics other than it containing a face.

Creatively making a layout of it in a scrapbook allows you to add journaling notes and page topper titles to tell the story behind the photograph. By adding other elements and embellishments from different mediums, you can help explain the photograph and recall the memory behind it without using anything as blatant as actual pages of text.

The challenge of scrapbooking is in being able to utilize various elements and embellishments to enhance a photograph while being limited to a finite area.

Sometimes, in our zeal to tell a story, we tend to clutter and create a busy layout for our scrapbook. While there is no right or wrong way to layout a scrapbook, it may be important to note that sometimes, and for me... it's only sometimes that less is more.

Perhaps it is important to remember that when we do scrapbooking, the inclusion of "scraps" or other creative scrapbook elements and embellishments into a layout is done to enhance a photo and tell a story that the photograph simply cannot do on its own.

Our layout of the elements we incorporate, however, should not take away from the photograph. Remember that they are there only to improve its capacity to convey a thought or treasured memory and not steal the show entirely.

While I don't mean to say that this is always the case, for example, a wedding invitation can be used with other embellishments to create a scrap book page with no photo's at all.

This means that although there are no set rules in scrapbooking, from time to time, it may be a good guideline to maintain a clean and simple layout for scrapbook projects.

I know from my personal experience just how easy it is to get lost in the scrapbook page project and with all the items and "scraps" both, collected from the event and commercially available for use in scrapbooking endeavors, we must always keep in mind that a clean and simple layout may be more manageable to create and to maintain in years to come.

By a clean and simple scrapbooking layout, we don't mean that you necessarily use less materials resulting in a Spartan like or anemic look to your scrapbook page. A clean and simple scrapbooking layout simply means that you incorporate more synergy and symmetry in your layout instead of a haphazard collection of images, textures and colored embellishments.

The look and feel of a scrapbook is subjective to the viewer (that's your future generations), which sometimes makes it even more important to maintain a clean and simple layout in your heritage scrapbooking.

What looks like creativity to you now, may look too chaotic to family and friends in the future. This is why, being guided by trying to achieve a clean and symetrical  scrapbooking layout now, when it's being planned, is a good way to ensure that your scrapbook and cherished memories can be easily shared and enjoyed by yourself along with your friends and loved ones for generations to come.

Just remember, a clean and simple layout for (digital) scrapbooking cannot be achieved by curtailing creativity. Instead, more creativity should be exercised so that you can craft a better, more visually appealing layout.

If however you are new to scrapbooking or you are not sure about what clean and simple scrapbooking layouts really mean, you can use ready made (digital - downloadable - printable) scrapbook layouts or use a software for scrapbooks.

You don't necessarily have to convert your scrapbooks into digital forms but you are sure to be able to get wonderful ideas from these computer scrapbook layouts. 

And, computer or digital scrapbooking offers you the ability to:

• Make multiple copies with only the touch of the print button as many times as you need
• No setup, no mess, no cleanup and you are never out of the scrapbook background pages you need... just print more
• The ability to create multimedia slide shows and movies with moving still images
• The ability to have your scrapbooks made into Real Hardbound Books
• The ability to create just the backgrounds and embellishments to print and hand scrap or to choose to create the whole page on the computer... it's never an all or nothing proposition with digital scrapbooks.
• The ability to start and stop at a moments notice and the ability to create your scrapbooks with as little as 15 minutes of time here and there throughout your day
• Best of all, as much as an 80% savings in costs over purchasing all your supplies in scrapbook and hobby stores

You can even try digital scrapbooking out absolutely FREE by checking out The Most Incredible FREE Digital Scrapbook Gift... EVER!  Free training, free templates, free unlimited use scrapbook software link and lots, lots more.

If you are looking to create some of the most beautiful scrapbook pages you have ever seen with limited or no artistic abilities... you owe it to yourself to check out digital scrapbooking and all it has to offer.