Making a photo album with your own hands for a child. Making a photo album with your own hands: non-standard ideas. DIY scrapbooking cuttings
Who said that with the advent of digital photos, the days of paper photo albums are gone? My friends are convinced that printing digital photos is an unnecessary waste of money. “Of course,” I agree. But only if the printed photos then lie in an unsorted pile in a desk drawer. And it’s a completely different matter if you put in a little effort and imagination and make a photo album. A well-thought-out photo album of the most interesting photographs is much more pleasant to show to friends and relatives, who, in turn, will not have to look through hundreds and even thousands of not always interesting photos on your computer.
I invite MirSovetov readers to consider what modern photo albums are like.
Classic photo album
I consider three types of classic photo albums:- with cardboard sheets on which photographs are pasted;
- with magnetic sheets;
- with plastic pockets where photographs are inserted.
The situation is completely opposite with the less practical cardboard album, which you can design to your heart's content. Well, at least with the size of the photos and their location on the page.
Albums with “magnetic” sheets also allow you to use a creative approach and you don’t have to struggle with glue or adhesive corners - you can place photos of different formats on the sheets, and subsequently change their location. But over time, the magnetic sheet turns yellow and gets scratched, and the photos begin to peel off.
I offer the readers of MirSovetov several rules, adhering to which when filling out a classic photo album, you can achieve excellent results.
Each event has its own album.
It is better to dedicate a separate album to each significant event in your life: “My baby” (for the first year of a child’s life), “Our wedding”, “Kindergarten”, “Trip to the sea”, etc. If you are keeping a photo chronicle of your family, dedicate one album to a specific period - a year or 5 years.
Choose your cover carefully. The choice of covers is now very diverse: oilcloth, from various fabrics, with decorative elements, from fur, from artificial and natural leather, etc. Assorted covers with flowers, kittens and dogs are no longer in fashion; choose more stylish solutions. In addition, there are special thematic albums dedicated to a particular event - pay attention to them. In my opinion, a very interesting option is if the entire family photo archive is placed in several numbered albums in the same style, a kind of “collected works.”
Connecting sheets in an album. Paper sheets, for example, can be joined using glue or book method, and the second is much stronger and more convenient. Both plastic and paper sheets can be connected using a spring (easy to view) or a ring (you can swap pages, remove excess, add).
Place the photo in the album immediately after printing. Otherwise, unsorted photos will accumulate and accumulate, frightening you with their quantity.
Observe the time principle. Place photos in the album according to the chronology of events. It’s strange if at the beginning of the album your child is 5 years old, in the middle he is a year old, and at the end he is depicted as seven years old.
Choose only the most interesting photos for the album.
Those that are of aesthetic value or are simply very dear to your heart. Avoid similar photos! If you have 300 wedding photos on your computer, they don't all have to go into a photo album.
Elementary computer photo processing. For example, some photos could benefit from cropping or adjusting the contrast (Microsoft Office Picture Manager and other more complex image manipulation programs can do this).
Agree, the household appliances visible on the right side do not suit this photo.
Create in photo editors. Working in Photoshop requires serious skills, but even in basic photo editors you can do a lot of interesting things. For example, turn a photo into a pencil drawing or add an interesting texture.
It is also interesting to insert some photographs into a frame - and send it to print along with it. Both Photoshop and online resources allow you to insert a photo into a frame.
In my opinion, this photo greatly benefited from a well-chosen frame.
Create compositions. This recommendation is for photo albums with magnetic and cardboard sheets. Of course, you can just post a photo, or you can use some invention and combine them according to some principle. For example, in a children's album, one page can be devoted to baby photos of all the child's closest relatives. It will certainly be clear what traits the baby inherited and from whom. And for the men's album - how the main character goes in for sports (with a barbell, with a kettlebell, jogging, in the pool).
This is what I came up with when I was preparing small posters for my husband’s birthday.
Ready-made thematic photo albums
These albums are most often sold in bookstores and are a cross between a book and a photo album. Usually such albums are dedicated to a specific event (“I was born”, “For the first time in first grade”, etc.). Those. The book contains empty spaces for pasting your photos and signatures.These albums have undoubted merits. Firstly, this is an excellent workmanship: typographic printing, durable book covers. Secondly, everything has already been thought up for you. Thirdly, this is more than a photo album, it allows you to make various notes, for example, about when the baby cut his teeth or what kind of juice he likes. But the disadvantages often outweigh the advantages, here are just a few of them:
So, when purchasing such a photo album, do not be too lazy to carefully study all its contents right in the store. And for children's albums, do not forget to fill it out as the event occurs - mothers very quickly forget when their baby began to hold his head up or sat down confidently.
Scrapbooking
Albums in the scrapbooking style are now gaining great popularity.So, scrapbooking (“scrap” is a cutting, “book” is a book) is handicraft, the production and design of photo albums from a variety of materials. Not only photo albums are made in the scrapbooking style, but also postcards, invitations, diaries, etc.
In such a photo album, along with photos, you can put whatever you want - memorabilia, magazine clippings, signatures (handwritten or printed) and even voluminous ones (buttons, beads, braid, etc.).
You can find ready-made scrapbooks on sale, but fans of this hobby prefer to do everything with their own hands - even making the album itself. For this purpose, you can find special blanks made from chipboard (thick cardboard), acrylic, or any cardstock (painted cardboard) will do. In principle, any classic album with cardboard sheets can be used for scrapbooking.
Scrapbooking is perhaps becoming a whole science; entire styles and individual techniques have emerged. Scrapbookers use many special materials, tools and decorative elements. For a novice scrapbooker, this variety can even be intimidating. I will list just some of the materials that may be needed when working on a scrapbook.
1. Paper.
Even in regular office supply stores you can already find special paper for scrapbooking on sale. You will be amazed by its variety: it can be one-sided (with a pattern on one side) and double-sided, regular and embossed, with sparkles and iridescence, with certain designs for thematic albums. But you can also use paper for watercolors and colored paper for pastels.
2. Tools:
In my opinion, skillful hands can create a scrapbook from anything, having only scissors, glue and a pencil in their arsenal. However, so that the flight of fancy is not limited by anything, it would be nice to have the following devices:
- mock-up rug (it spreads on the table);
- rulers, pencils (simple, preferably mechanical);
- regular scissors of different sizes and a set of curly scissors;
- breadboard knife and roller cutter;
- tweezers;
- devices for corrugating paper;
- figured hole punchers, corner and edge punchers;
- various types of glue, tape, glue gun;
- various paints and brushes;
- crop pipe (for installing eyelets);
- stamps, etc.
- contour and volumetric stickers;
- buttons, rhinestones, beads;
- anchors, eyelets;
- ribbons and braid, waxed cord;
- felt figures;
- chipboard decorations (blanks made of thick cardboard in the shape of various figures, frames);
- carnations;
- flowers, leaves, etc.
Scrap albums, in my opinion, have two significant drawbacks - their creation requires a decent amount of money and time. The financial issue, by the way, can be resolved quite easily. To create and design your first albums, you can easily make do with improvised means; in any home there will be some stickers, old beads, unnecessary magazines, felt-tip pens, paints, sheets of cardboard, and scissors. But, of course, special materials for scrapbooking are much more aesthetically pleasing, and also more practical (they have archival quality - they do not oxidize the photo, and do not fade on their own).
Here is an example of a scrapbook postcard that did not cost me any money. I made it many years ago, without even realizing that I used the scrapbooking style.
The advantages of such photo albums are obvious. This is no longer just a collection of photographs - it is an expression of your creative self. Scrapbooks are real works of art, they are unique, individual, and also very informative, because here you can make notes about events, insert poems, songs, etc.
Thanks to the Internet, more and more people are getting into scrapbooking. There are special sites dedicated to scrapbooking, a lot of useful information can be found on the forums of sites for moms, there are even master classes and online scrapbooking schools - free and paid. And, of course, online stores, domestic and foreign, where you can buy everything you need for this handicraft (it can be difficult to find what you need in regular stores).
It is also worth noting that the hobby of scrapbooking can develop into an income-generating activity; hand-made is in demand today.
Photobooks
And finally, the last type of photo albums that I want to talk about are photo books. They come in two types – Photobook and Printbook.Photos for Photobook are printed in a single spread, then they are glued onto a plastic or cardboard base. The choice of covers for such photobooks is very large (laminated with any image, leather, fabric), and the Photobook itself can be of various sizes. These photo albums are not very popular because... extremely expensive, and I advise you to do them only for especially important events or to emphasize your status.
Photobooks of the Printbook type are printed on printing equipment, their pages are sewn into a spine like a real book. On the Internet you can find special services offering to create such photo books; any amateur photographer can understand them. These photo editors contain templates for photo books of various formats and different themes (“Amor... Amor...”, “Our Baby,” “New Year’s Tale,” “Soldier of Fortune,” etc.).
Printbooks can also come in different formats, with soft or hard cover. Laminated, leather, fabric covers and even dust jackets are used.
You can take a ready-made template, for example, on the theme “First-graders,” and just insert your photos. Or you can create by designing each page yourself from the proposed elements (choose your own background, frames, decorations, signatures, etc.). In addition, you can add your own elements downloaded from the Internet to Printbook. In this way, working with Printbook turns into real electronic scrapbooking. This area of scrapbooking is also very popular now, and the most suitable program for it is Photoshop. Just like for classic scrapbooking, on the Internet you will find many lessons and recommendations for creating electronic scrapbooks, and you can also download or purchase numerous clip-arts, frames, brushes and Quick Pages.
The main advantage of Printbook is that it is affordable, unique and allows you to express your creative potential and create an interesting chronicle of your family. Ordering a Printbook is very easy, you simply send your layout via the Internet, and in a few days the finished photo book will be delivered to your home by courier or regular mail.
I hope my story inspired MirSovetov readers to create their own photo album. I wish you beautiful photographs and original photo albums!
If you want to make a photo album with your own hands, but you don’t know where to start, then this article is for you.
First we need materials. There are now hundreds of scrapbooking stores, small points of sale or online stores. We recommend this store
Then you can work on the album:
1. Decide on the theme of the album (wedding, birth of a child, family, personal, etc.)
Children's album
Wedding Album
Family album
New Year's Album
The chosen style will determine the color scheme of your future album.
For example, for a children's album, the following bright sets of paper may suit you:
Album in the style of "shabby chic"
American style album page
3. We decide whether ready-made photographs will be used or whether the photographs will be inserted into the finished album in special places for photographs. It’s easier to work with ready-made photographs; it’s easier to choose decoration, background color and page layout.
Album page with photo backgrounds
4. Decide on the number of photographs (the number of pages and binding will depend on this). If you decide to work with ready-made photos, you need to print them.
5. Depending on the number of photos, we determine the album format and binding.
For a mini-album you will need 5-6 photos 10x15. There may be 1-2 photos per spread. Then the number of pages will be 3-5. The page format can be 15x21cm (half of A4). You can use both ring binding and simplified book binding. The basis for the album pages can be either pastel paper or cardboard.
Album blank for 4 spreads
For a slightly larger number of photographs (10-20 pieces in 10x15 format), an album measuring 20x20 cm is well suited. Then each page contains 1 photo, 2 per sheet. You will need 10 sheets. With this number of sheets (up to 10-15), you can use ring binding. It is easier to perform for beginners, but requires special tools: hole punches, eyelets, crocodile and the rings themselves.
There are blanks for albums of various sizes. Such a purchase will save you from making the base for the album yourself. You can buy the blank
Ring album
You can replace the rings with ribbons threaded through the same holes. In such albums, the pages can be based on pastel paper or thin beer cardboard. You can also use book binding. In a bookbound album, it is better to use beer or binderboard as a base for the pages.
Album on tapes
For a large number of photographs and large-sized photos, an album format of A4 or 30x30 cm is required. The page includes from 1 to 3 photos 10x15 or 1 - 13x18. For a large number of photos, you can use expandable photos, when 2 more are placed under 1 photo. Thus, in 1 place under the photo you can place as many as three.
There are now a lot of ways to secure opening photos: photo anchors, satin ribbons, laces and brads. You can choose to your taste! I find it most convenient to secure a photo using a cord and brace. It takes much longer to view a hidden photo using a photo anchor or satin ribbon.
It is better to use attached photos on album sheets, the basis of which is thick cardboard. And it is better to make the photo backings themselves from the thickest paper, since photo anchors can damage the edge of the paper if closed frequently.
Photo pockets
Waterfall design helps you fit 9 photos on one page
6. Decide on the cover: fabric or paper, with a clasp or with a ribbon. Choosing fabric and decorations for the cover.
You can buy fabric in the online store for handicrafts.
8. Making a blank cover.
For an album with a book binding, it is better to make the cover after the inner blank for the pages is ready, in order to know the size of the binding. And you should decorate with volumetric elements only at the very end, when the inner part is glued.
There are no restrictions for an album on rings or ribbons; you can immediately design the cover and decorate it with three-dimensional elements.
But! From experience, I can advise that it is better to design the cover after the pages have been completed, so you can catch the “mood” of the entire album and convey it in the cover design. Moreover, you can use scraps of paper and decorations left over from page design.
9. In accordance with the chosen style and theme of the album, select paper for the album pages. We select paper for photo backing. Decorations. Stamps. Journaling.
We prepare the necessary materials for work
10. Decide on the sequence of photo layout and journaling (if any).
11. Let's start making pages. First, we put everything we want to place on the page (without glue). In order not to forget the page layout you liked, it is better to photograph it. It is most convenient to use a small camera or phone; the photo quality does not have to be good.
If you like the result, we start gluing. Where necessary, we do machine stitching: edges of pages, photos or backgrounds for photos. It is possible without it. First, we glue all the flat elements: backgrounds for the photo, the photo itself, journaling, etc. Keep it under pressure.
In an album with rings and ribbons, you can immediately begin decorating the pages with three-dimensional elements. All that remains is to thread the rings!
In this article you will find ideas for creating a wedding photo album with your own hands.
Creating and decorating a wedding photo album is not only symbolic, but also a very pleasant activity for people in love. Of course, you can sew pages made of thick cardboard yourself with ribbons or canvas thread, but the most common classic “glue” photo album (blank pages without inserts, onto which photos should be glued with glue) is suitable as a base.
Before you start decorating the pages and cover, you should decide on the style and select all kinds of decorations. You can buy them at any hardware or craft store. You will need:
- Satin ribbons
- Lace
- Sequins
- Sequins
- Organza
- Mesh
- Crystals and rhinestones
- Pearl
- Beads and half-beads
- Bows
- Roses
- Frames
- Patterned cuttings
- Decorative figures for sticking
- Satin fabric
- Guipure
You can decorate not only the cover. An album in which a certain theme can be traced until the last page looks much more impressive. Such an album can be safely displayed in a trellis so that it is the pride and highlight of your family, and every guest can admire it.
How and how to decorate a photo album:
An album with photographs decorated with voluminous and textured patterns, for example, flowers made of foamiran or satin ribbons, will look impressive and very festive. They can be laid out in the shape of a heart and complemented with a variety of beads, sparkles, and rhinestones. Remember that such decor is the main and brightest accent and therefore it should prevail on a simple background (lace, satin or guipure).
Volumetric decorations in the form of flowers, leaves, petals or bouquets will help you create an elegant style for your photo album. It’s not difficult to purchase these at any craft store. Just place them on top of the cover in the way you think is most beautiful, and then start gluing them.
You yourself determine what style your photo album should be. Focus on the photographs themselves, for example, if the wedding was in a classic style, you cannot do without lace, satin ribbons and pearls. A Greek or beach wedding will go perfectly with turquoise colors, shells, and stars. A wedding in a retro style “loves” bright colors and images, cutouts, bows.
In addition to the photo album, you can also make a box or case to store it in the same style, color or with similar patterns.
It is completely unimportant to sew the pages together yourself to get a unique photo album of incredible beauty. You can purchase the simplest store-bought version and decorate it to your taste by covering it with fabric, embroidering it with beads, gluing lace or other decorations.
Of course, the decor of a wedding album cannot do without symbols of love and marriage. Hearts, cooing doves, wedding rings, a kissing couple, hearts will do. They should be sewn or glued, playing with different decorations.
If you want to create a certain mood every time you look at your wedding photo album, try adding phrases and words to the album decor, famous quotes and sayings about love, marriage and family. They can be written by hand, cut out from postcards or printed on paper. This is the perfect decor not only for the cover, but also for every page.
In modern handicraft stores you can easily purchase words, drawings and patterns cut from thin wooden plywood sheets. This decoration will perfectly complement the cover of a photo album in the spirit of minimalism, but it always looks impressive.
How to beautifully design the cover of a wedding photo album: ideas, photos
Ideas:
- Scrapbooking – This is a technique of volumetric decoration using different types of decorations: dried flowers and fruits, burlap, cards, clippings, ribbons and beads, wooden patterns, buttons and much more. This decor always looks very impressive and is perfect for decorating a wedding album.
- a nice way to decorate an album. It can be glued in the center, and around it can be decorated with any decor in the form of lace or sparkles, voluminous roses and petals.
- Embroidery – if you know how to embroider, you can embroider the words with beautiful gold thread on white fabric and then cover the cover with it.
- Wedding color – modern weddings are sure to have color and style. These settings can also be followed when creating an album.
- Creative – creative albums will tell about the couple as a creative and unusual family. You can find decorating ideas at any arts and crafts store.
- Book - modern printing houses will easily print for you a photo album with colorful photographs in the form of a book, but you can decorate the cover yourself to suit your taste.
How to beautifully design the pages of a wedding photo album: ideas, photos
Ideas:
- Designer paper – Depending on the style you're going for, you can choose several types of beautiful paper with patterns or words and make a background on each page of the album.
- Words and inscriptions - print phrases, beautiful words about love or poems on plain or designer paper using a printer (in a beautiful font). Paste them next to each photo.
- Paper lace - You can buy special sheets of lace paper or cut them yourself and then decorate the pages.
- Decoupage – Any design can be cut out and applied in advance to each page of the album.
- Stickers – You can find themed stickers in the store with hearts, declarations of love, images of the bride and groom, wedding cake, and so on.
- Envelopes – On each page, along with photographs, you can also place small paper envelopes in which all kinds of notes or things associated with the wedding day should be placed.
How to beautifully arrange wedding photographs: ideas, photos
How you can decorate photos in albums:
- Satin ribbon bows
- Dried flowers and petals
- Cut lace patterns
- Sparkles and golden sand
- Decoupage
- Rhinestones
- Half beads
- Clippings
- In verse
- In words
- Wishes
Words for decorating photo album pages
What captions to write for wedding photos: tips, ideas
Your photos and album pages will be complemented by beautiful words and wishes. Browse through the available options to find the one that suits you best.
Options:
Design of wedding photo albums and photographs: the best examples
To get ideas for decorating your album, you can look through finished works. Album No. 5
How to buy a ready-made wedding photo album in the Wildberries and Aliexpress online store: links to the catalog
If you prefer a store-bought version of a photo album to something you can make yourself, pay attention to those options that can be purchased on the pages of a modern store Wildberries. Here we collect only the highest quality products, stylish designs, with inserts or with adhesive pages.
In addition, if you are looking for a special album that will be unusual and stylish, browse the store's assortment Aliexpress, where there are many affordable and extraordinary options for albums for newlyweds, as well as many options for their decor, and a variety of decorations.
Video: “Wedding album in scrapbooking style”
In order to create an original photo album with your own hands, you need to stock up on the necessary tools, materials, imagination and a small amount of free time.
Prepare:
- Sheets of thick paper. The quantity depends on how many pages there will be in the future photo album.
- Thick cardboard - 2 sheets. You can take beautiful designer cardboard.
- Colored plain paper or with drawings.
- Tape. Half a meter with a width of at least 6 mm will be enough.
- Hole puncher
- PVA glue
- Several binders
- Scissors
- Ruler
Once you have all the tools ready, you can start working. Step-by-step master class with photos:
- You need to cut the cardboard sheets so that they become the same size as the future pages of the album. After that, draw two lines on each of them using a ruler and pencil. They should be vertical and located at a distance of 2.5 cm from the left edge and 3.5 cm from the same left edge.
- Now cut the strips you drew from each sheet.
- Our cover will be decorated with colored paper. To make it, you need to take two sheets of colored paper, which should be four centimeters wider and longer than the sheets that will later become the pages of the book. Place one sheet of construction paper, inside side up, and draw a square. Each side should be located 2 centimeters from each edge.
- Now you will need glue. Use it to glue colored paper to cardboard. Its edges should clearly coincide with the lines you drew earlier. In order to do this beautifully, you need to apply glue to the entire surface of the paper, but if it seems too thin to you, apply it to cardboard.
- Carefully fold the corners of the colored paper and also glue them carefully.
- At this stage you need to make the inside of the cover. To do this, take colored paper and make two pieces, which should be one and a half centimeters shorter than the future pages of the photo album. Glue these pieces on the inside to the cardboard.
- Now you need to put together a photo album. Fold all its parts: two covers, sheets. Align them and secure them with a binder. Take a hole punch and make two holes. One of them should be located at a distance of 4 centimeters from the bottom, the second - from the top.
- Take the ribbon and pull it through the holes. This way you can hold the album together.
That's all, the album is ready and you can safely paste your family photos into it. As you can see, the process is not at all complicated, and the result will completely satisfy you. In the same way, you can decorate a children’s album with your own hands, an album for a wedding, or as a gift to relatives and friends. Depending on the purpose, use your imagination and create a unique design for each of them.
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When you open an album with childhood photographs, a wave of the warmest memories comes flooding back. I want to plunge into those carefree times and feel the taste of childhood. To evoke especially vivid emotions, you should approach the design of a children's photo album in a colorful and creative way. First of all, this concerns the baby’s first year album. It is at this time that many important events happen and the baby grows up rapidly. The album design can be timed to coincide with the celebration of the first birthday.
So, we offer some tips on how to “revive” and make your first photo album interesting.
Pregnancy photo
Start the album with photos of your pregnancy and baby's ultrasound.
Surely your child will want to know what your family was like before he was born. And it will be even more interesting for him to see what he was like before birth. Paste these photos onto the first page of the album. For a complete collection, you can also put a pregnancy test there - the first “snapshot” of your baby.
A pleasant surprise for your baby will be photographs of his parents at the same age. Place them at the beginning of the album as well. This is the best way to see the external resemblance of parents and baby.
Growing up
Show how your child grows up:
- creating collages from photos,
- hand and foot prints.
If you want to highlight how quickly your baby is growing, photograph him with the same toy or against the same background 3-4 times throughout the year.
Place these photos together on one page of the album - and you will clearly see how your child is growing up. It is better if these photos of the same type are taken close-up.
A wonderful addition to the collage would be the child's hand and foot prints at the beginning and end of the year. For this purpose, you can take finger paints or some kind of bulk material (sand, flour, etc.).
Sequence and theme of the photo
Combine two ways of maintaining an album: chronological and thematic
The ideal option for designing a photo album for the first year is to organize photos by topic, but in chronological order.
For example, the micro-theme “I eat” can demonstrate the child’s first complementary feeding and the first independent sitting in a high chair.
The next page of the album will reveal a different topic in chronological order. There can be any number of such micro-topics, the main thing is that chronology is maintained between them.
The most common of them are:
- "My family";
- "My achievements";
- "My first steps";
- “I am a researcher”;
- “I’m swimming” and others.
Make the album “alive” and bright
Call on your imagination to help and “revive” a children's photo album. Decorate each page with pictures, patterns, frames, or stickers.
The designs can be very different: hearts, suns, flowers, butterflies, trailers, etc. Add ribbon bows, draw pretty frames around the photos, or make them in Photoshop before printing the photos.
By the way, you can also add an element of creativity to the photographs themselves: let them be both black and white and color; of different shapes and with wavy edges; not only serious, but also funny.
Description of the child's character
Place a description of the baby in the album: his character, preferences, characteristics of growing up.
The design of the first photo album should be associated with the achievements of the baby.
- Describe how your baby grew up: when his first teeth erupted, what his first words were, when he first rolled over, crawled, sat up, walked, etc.
- Draw height and weight scales in your album and mark your child's monthly changes on them.
- Select a couple of pages to characterize the baby: the meaning of his name, his zodiac sign.
- Also, don’t forget to include the little creator’s first drawing, the text of his favorite song and nursery rhyme, and a description of his favorite game.