文苑
绵阳市
photo finish
Scrapbooks are By Liz Gibson, Jayplay writer
a creative,
easy way to
preserve
your memories
I never take pictures.
I'm the one in a group of picture-posing friends who always says, "Oh, I wish I had remembered my camera!"
These days, my camera isn't the only thing I forget. Forgetting is all too easy. As time marches on, names, places and events from our childhood and adolescence become obscure. Even the images branded in our heads begin to tarnish. All the more reason to start scrapbooking.
I'm a perfectionist, so the time commitment involved in scrapbooking overwhelms me. Susan Lee Cary works for Creative Memories as a home-based consultant of scrapbook instruction and supplies. She says scrapbooking is about album-making, not art-making. Cary says that once you've gotten a grip on the materials and layouts you can pop out pages in five to 10 minutes. The key is simplicity — details will clutter your design. "Enhance the pictures, but don't overpower them," Cary says.
An album page has three major components: a background, a title and caption. You can make the backdrop with patterned paper, die-cuts, stickers, ribbons or anything else two-dimensional. Keep in mind, embellishments should compliment, not distract.
The folks at Scrapbooking.com magazine suggest using one enlarged image per page, which creates a clean and powerful look. This technique focuses on the people instead of the frou-frou. They also recommend changing a picture with "busy" colors into a black and white photograph in order to draw attention to the people rather than overpowering colors.
You might think that everything we ever need to know about scrapbooking we learned in kindergarten—not true. Although knowing how to cut and paste neatly is a plus, scrapbook preparation involves many techniques.
Courtney Kratina, Omaha, Neb., senior, is an aquateur scrapbooker with eight years of "cropping" experience. (Cropping is starg for scrapbooking.) Her eyes seem to spin in a speechless fashion when I fire my first draft question. Her twisted gaze says: "There is too much to tell," and "Where do I begin?" Bless her heart if she doesn't spaw her guts instead. Sifting through pages and pages of memories, Kratina Indulges me with tricks, tips and techniques of the trade. She suggests listing the themes associated with your pictures before you purchase background paper and accessories. This will save you money and time when shopping.
The next trick is to buy in bulk. Solid-colored paper, pens and some embellishments can be purchased in large amounts. However, and this is important, all materials should be acid-free to prevent pages from naturally deteriorating. To keep spreads crisp and fingerprint-free, Kratina says using clear, protective page slips is a must.
"For all the work that goes into it, it's stupid not to," Kretina says about the page slips. "It's like buying an expensive baseball card and not having a cover for it."
Kratina admits to feeling overwhelmed and disappointed with the making of her first book. She advises first-timers to start small. "Don't do your most important book the first time. It won't turn out how you like," Kratina says. "Take on the little projects."
These words are encouragement to my ears. No need for grandiose displays of pub crawls, formals and the whole college experience, but rather slices of life.
It's not necessary to deactivate the eye, but to display your images.
Cary crops to a similar tune—"Life is a two-page spread."
"Get them in the album now so you can start showing people," Cary says.
Liz Gibson can be reached at lgibson@kansan.com.
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Jayplay 2.26.04