If you are just getting started in heritage scrapbooking, you might feel a little overwhelmed by what papers and embellishments to buy. However, heritage scrapbooks should be kept simple for the most part. The journaling, and the photos and memorabilia need to be honored, and adding a lot of embellishments may take away from that.
But, when you go into your average scrapbook store, you may not find what you are looking for. The more modern styles of scrapbooking pages don’t mesh really well with the older photographs and artifacts that you are probably wanting to scrapbook. So, what do you do? There are options out there for you.
I have blogged before about companies like Karen Foster designs who makes pages specifically designed for your heritage scrapbooks. There are lots of companies out there that make great products that you can purchase. But, if you are a beginner, then you most likely don’t want to spend a lot of money on supplies. There is a solution: Free printable scrapbook pages.
Yes, there are places all over the internet that you can download free scrapbook pages. Simply search for free printable scrapbook pages, and you will most likely find many different types of papers to choose from. I found one link that actually features heritage scrapbooking printables. One of the great things about these free printables are that they are full of beautiful frames and papers that will honor those old photos that you have. It will make your heritage scrapbook pages look like they were meant to go with the photos that you are scrapbooking. Go here to print your free pages.
The problem you can run into with this is that you really need a good printer to make this worth it. Of course you want to print in color, or the point of these beautiful pages and frames is lost. I personally would not print these from my home computer. I know the quality would not be that great. So, what is the solution?
A good solution could be to download these printable pages onto your computer, and then transfer them to a memory stick that you can take with you. If you don’t have a memory stick, or don’t know what it is, it is simply like your old floppy disk. It is a way to store files on a portable device and transfer them to another place easily. And, for this purpose alone, you can purchase them for fairly cheap. They go up in price depending on how much memory they can store. So, you don’t really need a lot of storage space if this is all that you will be using it for.
Once you have transferred the files on to a memory stick, you can take them to your local store like Staples, or Kinkos and have them printed there. Purchase your own high quality paper first and take it with you to cut down on the cost. Call around first and find out which place has the best prices for printing your pages.
While this may seem like a lot of work, the beauty of this way of scrapbooking is that you can use these same papers and files over and over again. Over time, this will cut down on your overall cost. Where the average scrapbook paper may cost you anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar per page, you can’t use a page you purchase over and over again like you can a file.
This is just another way to scrapbook those pictures, and precious family memories that are so important to your family history.
Meredith Ethington is the author of this blog. To learn more about Meredith, and her history with Scrapbooking and Genealogy, go here.
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