But lets be honest, most people get bored at slide shows and the trinkets end up falling behind a book shelf or end up in a box somewhere. What you need to do is something different, something that will make people sit up and take notice of your holiday memories. You need to make a travel scrapbook.



Your first stop is to collect all your photos and memorabilia into one place, you might have a lot so make sure your container is big enough. Don’t forget to include thinks like maps, bus and train tickets, your plane ticket and things that are specific to that country such as candy bar wrappers and tourism pamphlets.



Secondly, if you went to only one country, great! That will make your task easier. If you went to multiple, make sure you keep the country pages together. People looking at your travel scrapbook will be confused if the order goes something like, Italy, France, Germany and then Italy again. Group the countries and make sure you clearly label the page when a new country starts.



Lastly, try to capture the feeling and essence of the country you were in. Was it a warm tropical climate, make the pages yellows, oranges or warm greens. Was it cold, snowy or rain a lot? Blues, greens and greys here are your friend. The aim of your travel scrapbook is to give people the feeling of what it was like to visit that country.



Following these simple steps, you will be able to give your friends a glimpse of the experiences you had on your world adventure!

In a traditional travel scrapbook the lead character would usually be you or I as we voyage from place to place. However, in order to create a story that’s larger than life we need a protagonist other than ourselves, we need to find a “something” that can transformed into a “someone”. Someone that we can tell our story through.

What I’m suggesting needs to be nothing more than an ornament, or a stuffed toy.

Now, I know this may sound silly, but if you release your imagination and let it run wild, you’ll discover that your scrapbook becomes more than just a dry slideshow of popular landmarks, It’ll be an adventure packed journal filled with revelations, discoveries and new perspectives.

But how do you to tell a story through the eyes of a character? Well for illustrative purposes I’ll explain how using a plush bunny as the protagonist. I’ll also give him a name, lets call him ‘Brain’ (Brain the Bunny).

The first step would be take photos of Brian the Bunny at all of the places you visit. You could also take pictures at food stands, shops, and in transport vehicles. What happens through doing this is a story begins to build through the eyes of the toy.

Now, obviously I’m not suggesting that you refrain from taking photos of yourself nor am I suggesting that you make the sole purpose of your holiday about something other than yourself. But rather I’m suggesting that you take a few extra photos while you’re traveling so that when you return you’ll have the means to add twist to your travel album by telling your story through the eyes of a character.

A Scrapbooking album has no set number of pictures on each page. There can be simply one image or a whole collage of images. The idea behind scrapbooking is to create a theme and fit the pictures into it. This is done through elaborate decoration of the pages around the pictures to enhance and convey the theme.

Before starting, you will have to have a collection of photos around a certain theme. This can be an event, a celebration or just a collection of memories of a particular part of yours or someone else’s life.

With celebration themes, these may be for things like graduations, sporting victories, weddings and milestone birthdays such at 18th’s 21st’s 50th’s and etc. You will usually have a collection of photographs in a short time span for these kind of events.

For the collection kind of albums, you will find that your pictures tend to have been taken over months of years. Things that fall into these albums might be things like, childhood memories, school years or someone’s time in the army. There really is no right and wrong when it comes to these kind of albums, they are for any kind of memories.

Once you have your album planned out, you then set about decorating and arranging the pictures as you see fit. Really the limit here is your imagination. You will want to look up a more detailed guide on decorating a scrapbook for specific examples.

Let me be the first to welcome you to the world scrapbooking and wish you happy scrapping!

What is a Travel Scrapbook?

A travel scrapbook is branch of scrapbooking that holds the visual memories of your trips away. These can include family vacations, honeymoons and other expeditions.

Whether you spent time in the jungles of the Amazon or strolled down the Bois de Vincennes in Paris, a scrapbook can be a great way to bring you back to that time and place. Scrapbooking used to be strictly book and paper, however nowadays with everything becoming digitalized, digital travel scrapbooks are becoming increasingly popular.
 

When to Create your Travel Scrapbook?

When and how you create your scrapbook is entirely up to you. Some people prefer to enjoy their trip and concentrate on building their scrapbook when they get home. But they will safely store away momentos and photos that they feel will go well inside their scrapbook. That way they can take their time and find photos and other precious items during their vacation.
 
For other scrapbookers, they want to capture the moments as they go. They consider their scrapbook as their travel diary. For them capturing special moments when it happens is essential in keeping alive the spirit of their experience.
 
You don’t have to decide one way or the other. You could do a little while on vacation and finish the rest when you return home.
 

Travel Scrapbook Ideas

One of the most exciting things about traveling is visiting locations that are foreign to you. Different customs, traditions and languages are interesting to learn experience and learn about. For your scrapbook paper, you could purchase Italian paper that you got while in Italy. You can add currency that you used while in India. Menus, local flowers, hotel stationeries are just a few things that can go into your scrapbook.
 
And of course, you can’t forget about the photos. Historical monuments and famous landmarks are always popular photo choices. If you captured your loved one doing something funny, special or exciting, while in a foreign place, these images can bring back the feelings of that moment every time you look at them.
 
Lastly, why go at it alone? Throw a scrapbook retreat with friends and family. Have everyone bring his or her pictures and souvenirs from the trip and as a group, you all can decide what will go into the scrapbook. Not only is it a good way to relive the memory of vacation, but once again all of you will create memories that will be told together in your travel scrapbook.

Scale

The first thing to consider in your design is the scale. This usually refers to the size that the actual scrapbook will be-will it be a small 12×12 or will it be a much larger custom size. Some things you could consider when making this choice include where you’d like the scrapbook to be displayed, as well as how many and what type of photos you’d like to be in it.

Repetition

Repetition is the second aspect you must determine when designing your scrapbook. You must always remember that scrapbooks are mediums not only made for yourself, but for others as well. So try to mix it up a little and avoid creating too many pages with very little differing elements.

Just as you would avoid repeating a story several times, so too you should prevent yourself form wasting too many pages on the same activity, theme, or event in your life.

Spacing

Spacing refers to the distance between the individual elements on the on page layout and can be difficult matter. There is a fine line between having a balanced scrapbook page and a gaudy mess. If items are too closely spaced your reader will feel overwhelmed. If your items are spaced too far apart your viewer will feel short changed.

Look at your page. Close your eyes. Open them again. Does your page look cluttered? Does your page have more photographs than background? Are your embellishments drawing the focus away from your mementos? Then, you need to simplify your page a bit and increase the spacing between objects. Remember you can always add more pages.

Is your page bare? Is your page uninteresting and colorless? Then, think about adding some more mementos and colorful embellishments. In this way, you can decrease the spacing between objects making your page more energetic.

Stability

Stability is when a page appears to be well balanced. This is largely a matter of how the arrangement makes you feel when you look at it. If it looks ‘lop-sided’ or too busy on one side, then you may not have your page balanced.

If, however, you want to create a feeling of unease, try putting your elements close to one side or the top. You might try this if you were assembling a page on mountaineering for instance, to create a feeling of height.

Janette

P.S. If you’d like more great scrap booking tips like these then secure your copy of the Secret to Simply Stunning Layouts now and get your FREE Bonus Over 150 Scrapbooking Hints, Tips and Tricks.

Boy scrapbooks don’t have to be limited to blues, greens, browns and / or dark colors like you might think.

Especially if you are doing baby boy scrapbooking. Baby boys are still so soft and gentle. Their boyish scrapbook pages deserve a calm look and feel. Yes, you can use random splashes of dark trim, matting, borders, accents or embellishments to bring a little more dark into the layouts. But overall your color theme should include soft, or subtle washouts of traditional boy colors / backgrounds as well as a decent amount of white (representing purity) and the occasional soft yellows (representing friendship).

Baby boy scrapbook layouts deserve the same. You can – if you are a veteran scrapbooker get away with much more (such as creating mosaic or collage scrapbook pages – where the layouts are complex and cluttered) but if you are not at such a level…its a good idea to keep these baby boy scrapbook layouts as soft as the newborn gentlemen are themselves.

Sure, you can do single or multiple pictures on each page…but you still want to keep the alignment of your photo’s calm and subtle.

New born baby boys have not quite grown into the rough and tumble boys that you might scrapbook about with solid and structured color as well as crazy random layouts when they hit age 8 and up.

As for the 8 and up boys…no holds barred! That’s right – you have full reign and all of my express permission to go wild. You could go goth even if you wanted to! (If this young man’s personality demands such a bold message).

Your job will be to capture the essence of this young dude to ensure that your boy scrapbook pages are perfect. If for example your young boy is a truck and car kid…you can use anything from ashphalt grays, yellow and white (road marking colors) and stop sign reds – to muddy browns, grassy greens, tire blacks and a lot of dusty textures.

If he is a dinosaur fan…your scrapbook pages will be full of desert colors and earthy greens. As well as scaly textures and the like. If he is a fantasy fan – and favors movies and books like Harry Pottery and Eragon – your boys scrapbook layouts will be dark and mysterious as well as starlit and whimsical. (You may even wish to add a lot of unique compartments and envelopes to make this magical boy scrapbook a mystical story all in and of itself!

As for the all boy scrapbook layouts – this is where it gets really fun. Boys are by nature quite random and sporadic. They love to mix things up. They love to play. They love to get dirty. So be playful with your layouts. Defy convention. Crop your photo’s into monster truck or TRex shapes. Scatter tire marks over everything. Splatter mudd. Embellish with gum wrappers. Matt or fringe with torn and dirty denim. But most of all – lose your inhibitions.

Be creative! Be boyish! Be fun!

Happy Scrapping!

About the Author
My name is Cijaye DePradine. Scrapbooking is by far my favorite hobby – I have been refining my scrapbooking skills since the early 90′s (before it was even a mainstream craft). Through my website you can find scrapbooking ideas and directions for beginners as well as tips for making money with scrapbooking …please visit: Scrapbooking Directions & Scrapbooking Directions Blog for more scrapbooking ideas now.

Scrapbooking is usually defined as the method of creatively preserving and displaying photos, along with journaling and other memorabilia. There are a wide variety of ways to do this. It's no surprise that many people are not sure what to include in scrapbook page layouts? These six basic elements are the foundation for great scrapbook pages.

There are many ways these elements can be used in your pages. Most pages include these elements, but occasionally you will find that a page may not need them all. There are not too many hard and fast rules in scrapbooking. Using these as a guide you can come up with some beautiful pages. We'll look at these basic elements, then you can decide how to make them work in your page layouts.

• Photos – These are usually the essence of the page. Although, we may occasionally create a page with no photos. Choosing instead to focus on a piece of memorabilia or journaling. Photos should be the focus of the page. All of the other elements should compliment and enhance them.

• Scrapbooking Page Titles – The page title conveys the theme and often the mood of the page. The title can be positioned anywhere on the page, but is usually a prominent feature. Quotes and sayings can be used as scrapbooking page titles, as well a names and simple phrases. There are many options for creating a page title. Some of these options are, handwriting, using stencils, stickers and stamps, and computer generated or preprinted titles.

• Journaling – Journaling tells the story in the photos, often including events you cannot see in them. Don't forget to include the names, dates and places. You can also include events and your thoughts and feelings. Poems, quotes and sayings are also part of journaling. Sometimes a page can focus more on the journaling, even having no pictures at all.

• Photo Mats – A photo is traditionally matted by placing a paper behind the photo with a small border all the way around. This can emphasize a photo or help it stand out. You can double mat a certain photo for extra emphasis. Photos can also be partially matted by a paper. You can mat all or several photos, or only the focal point photo.

• Embellishments – Stickers and other embellishments, such as brads, eyelets, and ribbons; can spice up your scrapbooking page layouts. Embellishments should enhance the page, not overwhelm or distract from the photos.

• Borders – Borders add visual interest to a page. They can be placed at the sides or the top and/or bottom of a page. Many materials may be used, such as pen, stamps, paper, stickers and much more.

Whew, we made it through the list. It wasn't so bad was it? Now let's get started on that scrapbook you've been dying to make. Remember these are some of the basics. Don't be afraid to experiment with these, develop your own personal style, and most important…have fun!

About the Author
Melanie Hansen simply-stunning-scrapbooks.com Simply Stunning Scrapbooks
Melanie Hansen is an avid scrapbooker. She loves to share the ideas, tips and techniques she has learned. Visit Simply Stunning Scrapbooks to stay up-to-date with ideas, tips and tutorials on traditional and digital scrapbooking.