Romantic Scrapbooking Ideas

Romantic Scrapbooking 101
by Cijaye DePradine

There is a common term that a photo can say a thousand words, but Scrapbooking your photos can provide more than just words, it can preserve memories and momento’s much more profoundly than a photo ever would on it’s own.

Scrapbooks are a way for people to reminisce about their past (forever) and to share those memories with their children, grand children, great granchildren and onwards!

Do you know how your parents, grandparents or even great grandparents met – or how deep their love really was? Wouldn’t that have been a heartwarming story to read?

What about you? What about your love story? Nothing is as impressive or a more fitting compliment to a partner than a scrapbook that is created just for them or about the two of you and your profound moments together.

Think about it for a second, a scrapbook that creatively tells a story with pictures and journalled memories of the time you have spent with your partner – is much more than a box of photos and a few cards or letters.

The person you feature on your Romantic Scrapbook pages could be your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your wife or husband. It is not subjective to certain people.

A scrapbook is an amazing gift for any occasion, and is probably the most personalised present that one person can give to another.

Now…if you are new to Scrapbooking, you may be like many other people who believe that scrapbooks are just another way of putting photos together with a few titles, captions or summarized details.

But once you have been exposed to the exponential opportunity of this craft, you will know simply that this is not true. There is so much more that an individual can do with a scrapbook.

Your scrapbook album can be a way of saying ‘I care’, ‘I love you’, ‘You mean more to me than you know’ and then some! It can help you express you love for someone in ways you never could before.

Romantic scrapbooks can provide the voice for you if you need one and they can bare the soul for you if you are afraid to show yours.

The first step in making a scrapbook for your partner is choosing the right scrapbook album; there are so many different types of scrapbook albums available but depending on what you plan to do with the album or put onto the scrapbook pages, you will need to choose a scrapbook album that will be just right for you. *To learn more about this…please preview Lesson One of our Scrapbooking Tutorial.

Step two: Once you have bought yourself the right album, the most inspiring step is putting your scrapbook together.

There are no restrictions on what you can put in the scrapbook. All you need to do is gather everything that means something to you and then let the pages reveal themselves.

A typical scrapbook will most likely have photos, cards, letters, stories and the like.

Sounds easy enough doesn’t it? But what if you want to be really creative, and not just create a standard Scrapbook like everyone else. What if you really want this Romantic Scrapbook Album to mean as much to your partner as it does you?

Here are some quick ideas on how to make your romantic scrapbook something to talk about!

Much of Romantic Scrapbooking is creating the scrapbook together as a couple. You could decide together what goes into the Scrapbook and what that means to each of you. You can even tell he said / she said stories.

*My wedding Scrapbook does exactly that. In fact we started out that way.

With the engagement party photo’s – we built up the story of how it all went down (it was very romantic and a complete surprise to me). I even included a digital disc of the engagement itself and then in the later pages – the wedding disc was revealed.

NOW…we never have to look for those videos again, we always know where they are – and the photo’s, journaling and accents tell the rest of the story!

In your Couples Romance Scrapbook you may wish to include some of what I just mentioned and / or all of the following:

• Flower petals from the first bouquet shared between you
• Gift wrap from the first gift shared between you
• Media clippings of events you have been to together (or tickets or reciepts)
• Flyers or business cards from places you frequent together
• Favorite recipes
• Favorite song lists (or lyrics) or poems

But if this romantic scrapbook is about the person you love – and not so much about you…you may want to take an “About You” approach and dedicate an album to them – profiling their life!

For example…if your partner is a big community player and is in the press frequently – or just so happens to have a lot of photo’s with him / or her in it (like my husband – the sports coach), a scrapbook of all his / her events/ appearances would be an ideal way for you to say that you love him / her.

OR…If your partner has a big family – maybe a scrapbook including photos of his / her family members and stories of why they love him / her is just the right sentiment!

The most important point is that there are no restrictions on what you can put in the scrapbook, the only limitation is your imagination.

Bottom line is: scrapbooks are a great way to say you care and are a fantastic way of showing love and affection, as they are personalised and are a very initimate means of sharing past memories with your partner.

The next time you are planning that next romantic gift for your partner, maybe you can make it a scrapbook!

It might just be the most sentimental gift you have ever gifted to your partner, and is guarantee to be one of a kind!

Happy Scrapping.

Cijaye DePradine.

P.S. Do you have any other Romantic Scrapbooking tips to share?  If so please click on “leave a comment” in the top right hand corner of this post and leave your comments here.  In fact, if your comment is BOOK WORTHY – we might even publish it in the “Romantic Scrapbooking Secrets” book we are currently working on!

Scrapbooking Ideas – What to Scrapbook.

Want to scrapbook but don’t know WHAT to scrapbook?  Do you have too many ideas and need some direction or do you simply need scrapbook ideas because you are fresh out?

Why not…consider creating a scrapbook around the following:

1. Graduation Scrapbook Ideas (supplies / quotes):  Make the cover of the scrapbook a grad cap with the tassle, or make the entire scrapbook digital – print the pages  & then present it as a scroll with a nice graduation style seal on it.  You can also select your titles, journal entries or simply get inspired from one of the many inspirational graduation quotes we found from quote garden.
2. Love Scrapbook Ideas (supplies / quotes):  Make the album from heart shaped chipboard (bought at any scrapbook supplies store) or form the album from a 3×6 album with the letters LOVE on the front. (You can even use thin wooden letters (or chipboard) and make some of them bleed off of the edges).  Of course you can also go wedding album style if you are already married or are planning to share your love scrapbook at your upcoming wedding.   Don’t forget to include old cards, photo’s of gifts or precious moments shared on valentines, birthdays or holidays. Of course you could also add a few traditional love poems or love quotes to your romantic scrapbook album too.  Don’t forget another option (if your significant other is willing to be crafty) is to create a couples album.  That’s a nice way to celebrate your love too.  The two of you working together on a he said | she said album can be a LOT of fun! For more romantic, love scrapbook ideas – click here.
3. Baby Scrapbook Ideas (supplies / quotes):  Make a diaper album!  Yes, that’s right – you can get really creative with your next baby album by lining a diaper (yes, I said a diaper) with a chipboard album, wrapping the front and back covers with ribbon and tying that ribbon and fringing it on the tops and bottoms of the covers….!!!  (A crop-a-dile will do the trick of punching the wholes through all materials quite nicely too (yes, some trimming might need to take place depending on the make of diaper – but if you are a creative person, I am certain you can figure out how to make that work .  Then, you can use a hot glue gun to stick titles and / or embellishments on the front.  If you wish to ditch the diaper for a moment, you can also create a vertical baby bottle shaped scrapbook – or even a simple 3×6 album with the word BABY on the front. For more baby scrapbooking ideas – click here.
4. Travel Scrapbook Ideas (supplies / quotes):  Traveling is way too fun!  And scrapbooking about travel is even more fun.  You can take any old daytimer / calendar and turn it into a scrapbook (as long as it’s built well).  You can also shape / decorate your album like luggage or beach towels. (I would wrap my cover in beach towel if I were scrapbooking about travels somewhere hot and sunny).  Furthermore you can use a whole string of luggage tags and make an album out of those together (very small pages mind you – but different).  Don’t forget to include your ticket stubs, local brochures and any other memorabilia you collected on the trip as well.  The travel quotes are endless as well – but here are a few to get you started.
5. Disney Scrapbook Ideas (supplies / quotes): Now who doesn’t absolutely adore Disney.  Okay – maybe if you have never been to disneyland or disneyworld the novelty of it all fades to gray most days…but if you have been there…you know that it truly is one of the most magical places on earth!  I fully comprehend why so many people want to work there…but I actually want to LIVE there!  I would love to spend my weekends riding the coaster at space mountain or enduring the journey of Indiana Jones and breaking the mystery of the big ball (and how they do that!!! ????)…so why not preserve the memories of it all in a scrapbook?  I can not think of any valid reason why not.  It’s scrapbookers heaven! The photo’s are full of life, adventure and color!  The theme packs and paper packs and even albums are one of a kind (literally).  You can go full bling or totally earthy and there is still a place for disney amongst it all.  Disney is for everyone.  Just take a peek at any Disney Travel website and you will not.  For all intents and purposes your disney scrapbook can be anything you can dream of. You can create a mickey mouse album shape (a little harder than pancakes mind you – but creative nonetheless) and call it a day or you can simply gather everything and anything disney scrapbooking related  that you can find and let those supplies guide you!  The ideas and supplies are endless.  You can find something disney in your local scrapbooking store or even on ebay.  I do recommend searching the supplies first and then building from there. Or you could start with Disney Quotes too.

Happy scrapping….

Style At Home Organizing for Scrapbookers

Okay crafty ladies I KNOW you are going to love this one since so many of you have visited my Organize a Scrapbooking Room page,  emailed your comments and idea requests to me personally. I thank you for that PLUS I take your HINTS and offer you this as a follow up….

Today, I received my regular release of the “Style At Home” newsletter and was immediately excited to view the 99 Home Organizing tips they had to share.  You can view the page here: 99 Home Organizing Tips .  What I absolutely LOVE about this list is that it’s SIMPLE, its completely open to interpretation and for someone like myself who is really crafty – it makes me feel like I can take the tips to a WHOLE new level and make them EVEN BETTER than their original form.

For example…

Tip #1 suggests to :  ”Use old baby-food jars to hold spices. Stash them in a drawer upside down so this recycling trick looks sleek, not cheap. ”   Being a Scrapbooker, I immediately envisioned spray painting the lids and creating customized circular label tags that I could adhere to the top with the name of each spice on them.  I also envisioned creating labels for the jars themselves and laying them on their side – label up in the drawer.

This weekend in fact, I turned an old, unused IKEA Billy CD rack into a spice rack.  I love how it looks now, but can totally see the baby food jars looking amazing in them too! I might have to get another for the other side of the Billy Bookshelf I placed beside it (this will balance the display wall out better too). IKEA here I come!

Another thought that just came into my mind as well – is how great those baby food jars would look with my insane stock pile of buttons, brads, clips and fasteners in them too.   I could even see a use for at least 4 more of these IKEA CD racks to display those accents for easy access.

WOW!  What a fun little project each of these would be and how NICE my assortment of accents would look on display somewhere!  Sooo COOL!

Next… Tip #2 was to: “Store all your instruction manuals in one binder in the kitchen or pantry.”  Okay – admittedly I am pretty bummed that I never thought of that one.  I have drawers and baskets all over my house containing warranties and instruction manuals – but placing them into an album (that I could pretty up the cover for) is such a great idea!  I can even go to town scrapbooking title pages onto page dividers so that I can sort the contents by “appliance” or “electronics” — OH YAY!  I am even MORE excited now! Yet another really cool project to do that will make something plain and boring look way better!

Tip #3 was to: “Collect your takeout menus in a binder. Or stuff them into a Ziploc bag and stash ‘em – where else? – on the fridge or in a cupboard.”  Now instinctively I jumped right to the idea of Scrapbooking another customized album for these loose papers that will forever be on an expiration list – but then I was conflicted about how I would sort them so that when they DO expire they would get tossed.  That’s when it hit me!  I remembered the Tickler File (introduced to me by Simply Productive).  The tickler file is a really cool accordion file that  is tabbed by DATE and MONTH.  So using this I would have CHOICE to sort by MONTH first and then depending on what month it is – I could move each stash to the exact DATES each coupon is to expire.  All I need to do with this filer is customize the cover.  Awesome!

Tip #43: “Those ubiquitous Danish butter cookie tins can be both an art project and art storage unit for kids. First let your child decoupage it. Then use it to hold crayons and pastels. ”   I use these for my embossing powders, colored wires and for my brushed velvet glitters. It’s absolutely perfect for these!  A little spraypaint on the exterior and some decoupaged paper piecing / titles and labels etc. goes a long way to turn these handy tins into the BEST scrapbooking supply organizers ever!

Anyhow…I am sure you can find inspiration in this Home Organizing list too.  Please comment if you have something new to add.

 

 

 

Halloween Fun For Scrapbookers

Okay fellow scrapbookers – I need to share with you how incredibly excited I am that Halloween is nearly here.  At the current time myself and my son are couch ridden with signs of the flu – but just the idea of  Halloween being around the corner gives us the willpower to fight through this.  We want to have FUN this Halloween.   We do every other year – but this year promises to be even better.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. We have way more Halloween Games to play this year.  Thanx to our updated Halloween Games Book
2. We also have quite a few more Halloween Cards to choose from – which we tend to give out to close friends as we invite them out to our Halloween Party
3. AND we have recently moved into a new area – that boasts of the best Halloween Trick Or Treating and Halloween Costumes every year.  I wrote about it in my Halloween Fun For Kids Blog - but long story short – we have been forewarned by our new neighbors to expect 350 children in Halloween Costume at our door this year – and to anticipate the outdoor noise levels to be pretty high.  I am all for a block party I tell you that – but I am even more excited to get out there and start taking photo’s!  I can’t wait!  I suspect this will be a Halloween to remember for sure.

I hope you have a great Halloween Planned as well.

Warmest regards. Cijaye DePradine.

Back To School Scrapbook

Are you excited that your child is going back to school in less than a few weeks now?  I know I am.  I am excited for them – and I am excited for myself.  They are bored when they are just sitting around at home doing nothing – and I feel bad that I am working when they do that.  (Even though I work from home full time – I STILL WORK!  I don’t take much time out to PLAY with them when I am in that mode).

I think I am also excited because when they are at school they are PRODUCTIVE.  They are learning new things, using their brains and socializing.  That’s not always the case during summer.  Someday’s they simply lounge around and don’t need to form a complete thought for any specific reason.

So, with all of this excitement – I thought I should be planning ahead for the Back To School Scrapbook I hope to make. Planning is key here!  This year what I would like to do is get really smart and creative about it.  I want to create a Back To School Scrapbook that either looks like a school binder, school agenda or a school annual.

If I take the back to school scrapbook binder approach, all of my background papers will be lined for sure.  I might vary them, ie: single space, space and half, double space or half space and I might even add graph papers. I would probably also make them different colors. White and Yellow for example.

Then I would have to make sure that I have ruler embellishments, paper clips, crayons, pencil crayons, tape, glue and so on.  I would also add one of those cool little zipper pockets for free scraps and maybe decorate it in some cool way.  I will also add TAB’s OF COURSE!  And there will be ton’s of random doodles everywhere.

 

If I make a back to school scrapbook agenda album (from scratch) it will be the same size as the agenda (I might actually have to trim my own papers down and create a custom ring binding for it).  The pages will have days and dates – with lines and a lot of random educational quotes or facts.

It will also have a lot of clipart types of images.  I’d probably choose humorous ones myself since this will be MY version of the school agenda.  And without doubt it will FULL of doodles and cut outs of things!  All of my agenda’s were just full of random stuff.

I may just have to take some of my favorite kids or parenting magazines out of their dusty boxes for this.

I could also do a Smash Book if I wanted to.  I find these pretty reminiscent of all of my agenda adventures as a kid and they are designed VERY similar to the agenda’s now anyhow.

As far as creating a back to school scrapbook annual goes…this one will take WAY more planning time and a whole lot more work. I would literally have to pool together a long list of photo’s to throw into the book.

Maybe in THIS case, each page would be dedicated to 1 of my kids school friends.  With their parents permission I would probably take about 30 different photo’s of them – with all sorts of fun facial expressions and such – and then I would crop them all down to the same size and post them in clean rows and columns just like you might see in an annual.

Another option would be to create a one pager of each of them – with a larger photo and some blocky all caps school font.  I might put their jersey #’s if they are on a team, and a “best known for” blurb under each.  This is probably the most preferred option.  It would certainly be simpler to design.

 

What do you think?  Are you putting together a back to school scrapbook album this year?  If so, what will your scrapbook design be like?  What will go into it?

 

 

 

Summer Scrapbooking Ideas

Wow! Has it ever been a long time since I posted to this site.  I feel HORRIBLE about it – but as some of you may know, my primary line of business is consulting (eCommerce / Internet Marketing consulting to be exact) and needless to say 2010 was my best year EVER in this business and 2011 has already come very close to beating it!  I am so grateful for this – but it saddens me that it takes me away from my hobbies and crafts.

This summer however, I have become re-inspired.  The sun in British Columbia has been no where near as frequent as I like, but I HAVE taken full advantage of it.  I have not yet been able to dedicate the time to create my scrapbook pages on the summer fun – but I thought I would take the time to share my summer scrapbooking ideas with you – and even ask you for yours so that we can inspire each other.  Are you okay with that?

Okay, so here it goes, here are my Summer Scrapbooking Ideas for 2011:

1. Summer Scrapbook Album #1 – This would be a summer scrapbook dedicated to all of the amazing new recipes I have tried.  I have lost 10 pounds over the summer because of them and I have become so much more confident that I believe I owe it to myself to celebrate those recipes and remember to use them again next summer!  *My favorite is a Long Island Smoothie!  (A vodka smoothie is good too).  For some reason, these hard alcohol’s helps speed up my metabolism – and when I combine them in a blender with banana’s, strawberries, mango’s and orange (or apple) juice and some ice – it’s like the PERFECT summer drink!  I love it!  Another favorite recipe of mine that is most definitely going into the summer scrapbook album has to be the  Almond Butter Smoothie!  I usually do the same ingredients as above (minus the alcohol and mangos) (perhaps with mixed berries instead of just strawberries) and add about 1-2 heaping tablespoons of Almond Butter as well as a tablespoon of Hempseeds and voila – a MEAL TO GO!  This magical smoothie is so full of yummy goodness and it fills me up for at least 4 hours afterwards!  It’s amazing and I feel like a million bucks drinking it!
2. Summer Scrapbook #2 – The entertainment album.  It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a MASSIVE entertainment geek!  I love my music! (Reggae, Reggaeton and Hip Hop/R&B mostly, but I also like the soulful sounds of artists like Colbie Caillat, John Mayer, Adelle, Xenia (from the Voice) and so on).  I make 1-3 new summer compilation CD’s of my favorite songs every year too. *Copies of these would HAVE to go into the album for sure!  I also LOVE my movies.  I recently spent an hour and a half posting my movie reviews via Flixter (to my facebook wall).    So I was thinking that this particular summer scrapbook album could profile all of my favorites – possibly even lyrics and artwork. And give me a place to archive those CD’s (that I know I will love for years to come anyhow).  PLUS I always find myself say “what song was that” or “what movie was that” etc.  Creating an album like this would give me an easy way to look back.
3. Summer Scrapbook Album #3 – Our Family Adventures.  This one is a given of course. Everyone needs to have one of these. Even if you didn’t take a whole bunch of photo’s while on your summer adventures – you can still reclaim the memories by getting photo’s from the locations themselves.  For example, we went to California just a bit before summer this year.  We shopped till we dropped AND we spent one day at Universal Studios.   I am just now collecting all of the photo’s from the shopping malls we went to (because some of them we most definitely intend to RETURN to) – and I am also collecting photo’s of the rides at Universal and some of the professional photo’s of it that I couldn’t possibly have taken myself.   We’ve also done some trips to the waterslides, some mini-golfing, some scenic drives and tried out some new restaurants this summer.  All while putting down some SERIOUS renovations on our land.  This summer is FULL of great stories and the summer scrapbook I intend to piece together will be a great one.

I still feel like this is not enough though.  What am I missing?  What are you doing with your Summer Scrapbooks?  Maybe I can get some more ideas from you.  I would love to hear them.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-13

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• Make 1 card, scan it, upload it and send it as a print on demand Holiday Greeting this year: https://www.sendoutcards.com/storefront/cijaye/ #
• It's killing me that I have no time to make cards or scrapbook http://aweber.com/b/1t2XC #

Want to compliment your scrapb…

Want to compliment your scrapbooking income? Become a distributor https://www.sendoutcards.com/storefront/cijaye/ – DM today if interested

Daughter says: If I won Wipeou…

Daughter says: If I won Wipeout I would keep all the money and just buy some ice cream! AWESOME!!!

My Side Wiki Is Live…Check i…

My Side Wiki Is Live…Check it out: http://www.google.com/profiles/cijayed#sidewiki

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