Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a great way to preserve your personal and family history. Scrapbooks can provide a snapshot of your life at a certain point in time or an extensive history of your heritage, containing objects as varied as ancestry obits to birthday cards. The typical scrapbook will include photographs, printed media, and artwork.

You may be surprised to know that records of scrapbooking go back as far as the 15th century in England! Common place books contained recipes, quotes, letters, poems and more.

The most important piece of scrapbooking equipment is the album itself, which can be permanently bound, or allow for insertion of pages. There are other formats too, such as mini albums and accordion-style fold-out albums. Some of these are stuck to various containers, such as matchbooks, CD cases, or other small holders. When scrap artists started moving away from the “page” and onto alternative surfaces and objectives, they called these creations “altered items”. This movement circles back to the history of art from the 1960s when Louise Nevelson was doing “Assemblages” with found objects and recycled parts.

In addition to creating a physical scrapbook with pages, the advent of the digital age allows you to create your own digital scrapbooks.

You’ll find all you need to know about scrapbooking within the pages of this site. Enjoy!

We’re always keeping an eye out for other useful “crafty” websites to bring to your attention. Earlier this month, we found The Craft Witch, which is is host to a plethora of craft tips and advice. If you have a craft site we should know about, please let us know. Or better yet, share your own craft knowledge by starting your own website. First, find a suitable domain name using a tool like Namefresh. Then spend some time designing your site (or hiring a developer to do it).