Scraps Of Mind

Scrapbook Albums vs Scrapbook Layouts

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What kind of a title is that??

They’re the same thing, I hear you say.

Wee-eeell … yes and no.

Yes a scrapbook album is a collection of scrapbook layouts. But I’m really talking about scrapbook albums with a theme here.

It’s easy to get caught up in the inspiration of individual layouts. And we end up with a collection of stunning, stand-alone scrapbook pages that are not actually visually linked in any way. The album I’m creating that follows my daughter’s life is a good example. I started scrapbooking when she was in her 20s so I’m playing catch-up to build this album. And I do each layout as an individual page, although I do try to color coordinate the pages that sit next to each other in the album. I’m happy to build this album in this way because it’s an evolving story and I like the freedom to try out different things. You may have noticed that if you’re a regular reader of Scraps of Mind.

But when I scrapbook an event with lots of photos, such as a wedding or a vacation, I like to create a themed album that not only showcases the individual photos, but also the whole event in its entirety.

Creating an album with a theme can be a refreshing change to individual scrapbook layouts because there are certain things that you need to think a little differently about. I actually find it quite therapeutic. Possibly because there is more structure to a themed album and once you have planned out the ‘constant’ elements  it can be quite smooth and relatively quick to put together. And there’s a wonderful sense of continuity in viewing themed pages.

My very first experience of scrapbooking was to create an album of a vacation to France. I used a double sided cardstock to keep a two colour theme for all my pages and created matts for my photos out of a choice of three shades of cardstock. I varied the shape and size of the matts to add plenty of visual variety. And I made journal boxes using Word clip art of a scroll, keeping the same font throughout.

It wasn’t an ambitious album, in fact it was very simple. But I feel very proud of it, considering I had never done any scrapbooking before or taken any classes. And by keeping it simple, it meant that the album had pleasing continuity and a sense of ‘wholeness’.

And to add to the continuity I stamped a border of gold fleur-de-lys on each page, either across the top or the bottom.

I made this themed album as a gift for some friends with whom I shared a vacation touring the UK and Ireland. The journey was told through the eyes of our Teddies, who were an important part of the trip. You can see the whole album here and share the journey.

This was created in Photoshop Elements And I chose a set of papers and elements that were used consistently throughout the album. You can see that this still left plenty of room for interesting and varied layouts. And you may notice the little bear footprint trail which was the signature element on each page.

I’ve created four themed albums so far: two with paper scrapbooking and two with digital scrapbooking. And I have to say that I do find the digitally scrapbooked ones the most fun to do. Once the decisions on papers and elements for the album have been made, I love the challenge of making each page look unique whilst still still working within the constraints of the chosen elements. There is such a wealth of variety in the styles and effects that you can apply to make your layouts look different whilst still the same ( I hope that makes sense).