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Scrapbooking is an activity that has gained popularity in recent years. It is a way to detox from technology, stress and just dive into a crafty and creative hobby. But what is scrapbooking? And how can you incorporate it into your busy life?
Scrapbooking is a combination of preserving and arranging personal memories in an album, a box or a notebook. It can include photographs, drawings, receipts, tickets, artwork, newspaper pages and so on. Despite being a hobby that dates back to the origins of photography in the mid 1800s, scrapbooking has gained popularity in recent years. The majority of the population often feel overwhelmed by technology and find themselves in need of a way to reconnect with a tangible way of storing one’s memories.
Scrapbooking is a hobby that is shared by many, and can be enjoyed even if one has little to no decorations. However, in recent years, the scrapbooking community has come up with specific techniques to make one’s scrapbook as comprehensible and embellished as possible. A variety of websites can be found about this, covering every aspect of the activity: from what scrapbook to pick, to what ornaments one needs, to what material is needed in terms of felt tips, crayons and stickers.
The scrapbooking expert website “The Spruce Crafts” even explores five different ways one can scrapbook. Most of them are photograph based, simply providing advice on how to lay out one’s photos on the page and how to decorate the background with scraps such as newspaper cutouts, old pieces of fabric, drawings, lettering. All the different techniques have their own particularities. For instance, one focuses on no cropping, avoiding the hustle of cutting photos and decorations, while another one focuses on how to layer decorations on top of each other to create a more satisfying sensory experience. Furthermore, several websites have designed scrapbooking templates for users to download for free, to make the hobby even easier and more accessible.
A very cool scrapbooking style that is currently emerging and getting more and more attention is scrapbooking combined with journaling. This means implementing a few prompts with the goal of telling the story behind a picture, or giving a brief description of the travel or adventure one is scrapbooking about. For some it can simply be a date and a place, for others it goes as far as filling half of the page with the story behind the photo, or some fun facts about it that would otherwise be likely forgotten over time.
After all, this is what scrapbooking is about: cherishing one’s memories!
But how can a busy student or a young professional incorporate scrapbooking into their life? Firstly, scrapbooking is all about creativity and intuition! Once you have a photo album, whether it is a cardboard one or a fancy coloured one, you are already halfway through. This makes it the perfect hobby for everyone, even a student on a tight budget. Additionally, the fact that anything can be used as decoration, from a newspaper, to an old wrapping paper, makes it even more cost-effective.
Then, choose how much time you want to dedicate to this hobby. Whether it is an activity that you want to do only after you come back from a trip, to cherish the memories you made abroad, or whether you want it to become your Saturday afternoon ritual, it is an amazing way to disconnect from the pressure of nowadays’ busy life. You can work around every detail and personalise your album in any way you want. That is the best thing about scrapbooking: not only do you get to preserve your memories, but you also get to relive them while you decorate your album!