With the economy the way it is, now is the time to learn to create personalized cards and scrapbooks. What better way to let loved ones know you care than to send a card or give a scrapbook as a gift.
By making them yourself, you’ll save a lot of money, and it will mean a lot to your loved ones to know you cared enough to spend the time to make them a homemade gift or card, just for them.
To help get you started, we’re featuring a few excellent books that offer great tips, ideas and example pages.
Make handcrafted cards
Creative Card Making for Scrapbookers, from Memory Makers Books, offers 226 ideas and techniques for making handcrafted cards for birthdays, holidays, special occasions and more.
The beginning pages of the book cover basic tools and supplies to get you started, as well as ideas for embellishing your cards.
Chapter 1 features instructions for making New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas cards.
Chapter 2 includes cards for children and adult birthdays, as well as birthday party invitations.
Chapter 3 focuses on directions for making special occasion cards, including graduation, bridal shower, baby shower and wedding invitations, wedding and anniversary, new job, new home, new baby and retirement.
Chapter 4 is dedicated to “Thinking of You” cards. Included are best wishes, congratulations, sympathy, get well and thank you themes.
Also included is a list of quoted sentiments and sayings that can be included on your cards.
Organize, visualize, create
Get it Scrapped!, by Debbie Hodge, tells you how to organize, visualize and create beautiful scrapbooks that preserve your precious memories.
Organizing your photos is the first step in getting them put into scrapbooks, and the author dedicates a whole chapter to showing you how to organize your photos in a simple yet detailed way.
The remaining chapters focus on six basic scrapbook page types: events, everyday life, collections, moments, yourself and your world.
Event pages include birthday parties, vacations, school ceremonies, holidays and travel. Everyday life pages focus on hanging out with friends, around the house and gardening, to name a few. Collection pages include photos that can’t stand alone but work well when combined with other photos that are related in theme.
Moments pages consist of photos, insights and messages that tug at your heartstrings. Yourself pages are pages that focus on you, including facts about yourself, as well as your feelings, habits and achievements. Your world pages feature photos and remembrances from your childhood to the present, including information about the towns you’ve lived in, favorite family foods and more. They are the pages that leave a record of your life.
Showcase your memories
Scrapbooking Family Memories, from Memory Makers Books, features a list of recommended supplies and a few tips for making lasting scrapbooks. It also includes seven themed chapters full of ideas to help you create wonderful family memories.
The first chapter, Mothers, features example pages that showcase the unique bond between a mother and her children, and celebrates her for the loving woman she is. The second chapter, Fathers, includes layout ideas for honoring fathers. Example pages feature our favorite hero as a guiding hand, a playmate and a teacher.
The third chapter, Immediate Family, shows example pages that hit on the heart of the family. Along the same lines, but including grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, is the fourth chapter, Extended Family. Proving that family is our greatest blessing of all, the examples in both of these chapters show how to honor those we love most.
In the fifth chapter, Family Gatherings, the examples focus on showing fun and laughter as families gather for good times. Family Homes is the sixth chapter, which features ideas on how to showcase the love and warmth of the places you’ve called home. And in the last chapter, Family Pets, attention is focused on creating pages that show off your beloved four-legged pals that have – or have had – a special place in the family.
These books are available online atwww.FWBookstore.com, or by calling 1 (800) 258-0929.
