Learning the Basics of Scrapbooking

So you've decided to jump on the scrapbooking bandwagon. It's a fun ride, but it seems a little daunting at the beginning. I've just started myself, about a year ago.

Like almost everyone with children, I have hundreds of little envelopes of photos of the family that I've taken over the years. If you were good, you would put them in the magnetic books, but I never even got that far. I had boxes upon boxes of photos still sitting in the film developing sleeve. I did graduate to getting them in decorative boxes that I'd bought at Target. That was an accomplishment for me.

One day I was talking to one of my daughter's teachers. She was telling me about a "crop" she'd gone to that was so much fun. I had no idea what a "crop" was. I found out it's a social gathering where women get together to work on their scrapbooks, chat, eat and have fun. She urged me to get started in scrapbooking. She said I would have a great time and she thought I was artistic and would do really well at it. My husband always said other than cooking I had no other hobbies, so I thought maybe it was time I got a hobby. So I looked into scrapbooking.

The easiest thing I thought to do was to have a scrapbooking party, hosted by myself and a representative from Creative Memories (another of my daughter's teachers). I cooked and baked party food, and invited all of my friends. It was a good starting place for me because I knew nothing about the hobby at all, and I learned some important things to start with. I'll share with you some of the first things you can think about when you are just starting out in the hobby.