Using keepsakes in my scrapbook pages is a key part of my style. They are more important to me than paper styles or color choices. I wish more scrapbookers would use them!
I think my grandkids will be more amused to see old newspaper clippings and flyers rather than ribbon I picked out to compliment them. Who am I kidding here? I have no idea if any future offspring will want to look at these. Moving on.
What do you do when a keepsake is too big to put in your scrapbook? Yes, too big even for me and I use 11×14-inch scrapbook pages.
My answer? I cheat.
If something isn’t going to work on a page, I scan it and print it on my photo printer.
When to Scan a Keepsake:
- Item is too big for the page
- Keepsake just won’t work with layout
- Item is displayed elsewhere but it would help tell the story in your layout
- Keepsake isn’t two-dimensional
Take a second look at the picture of the homecoming poster. The original poster is 16.5 inches wide! I scanned and resized it to 6.5 inches and it really compliments the layout without overwhelming it.
This layout is from the set of football layouts I showed last year. Since I was using the same basic layout for all 6 football pages, it wouldn’t have made sense to disrupt the pattern by trying to fit some of the original poster on the page.
The example below is of a three-dimensional item: a refrigerator magnet. I couldn’t glue the magnet to the page and it was already living on our refrigerator.
But don’t these printed items just look like another picture on the page? Not really. Since I use a satin sheen photo paper instead of glossy, the printed keepsakes don’t look like photos at all.
Have you tried this before? If you haven’t what ideas does this give you? I hope this enables you to use more keepsakes in your layouts!
Almost Never Clever 