Scrapbooking 101 – For Beginners

Now that you have chosen your container and layout for your cherished memory, you now need to get your pictures ready to fit into your layout.  We call this cropping and there are an abundance of tools at Stampin’ Up! you can use to crop your photos so that they will fit into your layout.

To get started with cropping, you simple need a Paper Cutter that can handle all kinds of
paper sizes and types.  Remember you will be cutting thick cardstock as well as thinner
paper such as Stampin’ Up!s designer series paper.  The paper cutter I prefer for
beginners is the one in the Stampin’ Up! catalog where you can remove the blades when
they get dull.  The cutter also comes with a nifty scoring blade in the refill pack that will
help you score (create folds) in papers when you create embellishments…  For advanced
scrapbookers I recommend a Carl Cutter with the rotary blade.  I have one and love it and I can cut through multiple layers of cardstock with ease.  And again the blades are removeable when they get dull…

If you need to do an oval or circular crop, I highly recommend the oval and circular
cutter by EK Success as well as a glass cutting mat to use it with.  I recently purchased this and am in love with it!

Most of the time when a person begins to scrapbook, their first instinct is to crop everything. Sometimes cutting the person totally out of the photo and placing it on your page works aesthetically. But generally, cropping around the tops of heads is not very pleasing to the eye.

There is nothing wrong with cropping your photos, but it is not necessary to crop them all.  You end up with a much more eye-pleasing layout when you crop very little or crop multiple photos using same shapes.

Here’s some cropping tips:

• Do mat your focal point photo ( the main photo on the page). Make sure your mats are beautiful and compliment the photo’s color scheme.  Keep your mats simple enough so they do not overwhelm your photos.
• Avoid cropping photos taken with an instamatic camera or heritage photos taken before 1950.  Both types of photos have layers sandwhiched between the back and front of the photo.  By cropping you could cause the photo to come apart over time.
• Do Crop when the main aspect of the photo is off center.  Remember to use the rule of thirds – Divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically. The points where those lines intersect are good starting points to place the main subject.
• Avoid amputations: Generally, cropping off people’s limbs at joints makes them look like amputees. It’s okay to crop off a hand, leg or even portions of a person’s head or face, but consider the other cropping and composition factors when doing so. The minds eye can fill in many blanks to complete a person’s torso, limb or part of their face or it can stop and wonder what happened to those parts.
• Do Experiment: Cropping for Dynamic Effect…This is perhaps where cropping can be the most fun since we get to bend the rules. Experiment with different aspect ratio’s, shapes and sizes. A circular or oval cameo can be a delightful way to crop out unwanted faces from a crowded picture while adding some aesthetic appeal. Choosing cropping aspect ratio’s which compliment the subject can help reinforce the composition and create a very dynamic image. Being brutal to focus the viewers attention and capture the essence of an image can create images which are truly dynamic.

Cropping is a fundamental tool in composing interesting and compelling images and today’s digital tool box makes experimentation safer, easier and more fun than ever. There are a variety of reasons why an image might be cropped and we’ve only touched up a few of the more common one’s here.

Once you have cropped your photo, you need to frame it.  Framing your photo simply
requires a ruler, your paper cutter and a few contrasting cardstock colors.  You simply
need to measure roughly1/4″ from each edge of the photo and create your photo mat using your paper cutter.

Mounting your photo to your frame is a matter of personal preference.  If you are going to
be removing the photo a lot, use photo corners to mount your photo onto your frame. Otherwise I prefer to use a photo-safe adhesive to mount my photo to the frame.  Ensure that the adhesive you choose is photo-safe containing no acids that would cause your photo to corrode over time.

Have fun mounting your photos with various colors and shapes. Create unique albums and unique pages by using your own imagination and creativity to decide how you’ll mount your photos.