Crafts for kids reveal insights into a child’s world. Scrapbooking is a perfect example of this idea. The craft of scrapbooking is incredibly popular, inspiring kits, books, scrapbook products and endless advice from enthusiasts.
A Child’s View of Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is an art which often uses complicated ideas to create visually stunning, perfect displays.
However, one aim of crafts for kids is to provide snapshots of their world. If a photograph is glued crookedly, words are misspelt and scribbles abound, it doesn’t matter, your child has designed something meaningful to them.
It’s their work and the objective is to stimulate their creativity, a child’s scrapbook may never win a beauty contest and nor would it want to! The scrapbook captures thoughts and memories that would otherwise be lost or forgotten. Step back and see what happens.
Equipment for Scrapbooking
Gather items needed and make sure they are to hand so the child’s concentration won’t be disrupted.
The obvious place to start is with the scrapbook itself. There are many beautiful scrapbook products available, some are inexpensive and aimed at the market for children.
Others are incredibly decorative and better suited to grown up aficionados. A perfect idea for children is a ring binder and stiff, coloured paper or card for pages. The child can add to the scrap collection, rearrange the pages or remove those they’re unhappy with. The finished pages can be bound and protected with polythene pockets.
Other requirements are child-friendly glue and scissors. If the child is pre-school age, remember to use safe scissors. Older children may like to try craft scissors. They give a variety of effects to the cut edges, for example, scallops or zigzags. Gather a selection of paper with bright or unusual patterns. These provide mounts, overlaps and backgrounds for things like photographs. They ‘finish’ each page and pull together different themes.
The most popular things to stick in a scrapbook are personal photos. It’s a good idea to give your child copies instead; they allow lots of experiments without the fear of ruining anything. If your child is putting together a scrapbook of a particular event or special occasion like a holiday or party, you could even give children the thrill of recording the events with their own disposable camera.
Keen scrap bookers love to add little decorations across the pages called embellishments. For children, the perfect embellishments are stickers. Available in every shape, size and colour they are another way of creating finishing touches and adding to an overall theme.
Scrapbooking Themes
Scrapbooking seems to work more effectively if you group the pages into particular themes and view them as individual projects. This is why a ring binder and loose leaf sheets in poly pockets are such a good idea. Some of the ideas your child could use are stories of growing, getting taller or changing hairstyles! Or a child could tell the story of a holiday, day trip, their term at school or Christmas holidays.
Things to Include in Scrapbooks
Scrapbooking is traditionally about collecting photos and various memorabilia in one place. In addition to photos, kids could use travel tickets, pressed flowers, stickers, maps or leaflets from places and attractions they visited. Another popular choice is clipping out and adding photos from magazines and catalogues. These could depict things like favourite characters, interests or toys.
If they wish to add something that isn’t easily glued to the paper, place the item in a small envelope, write the name of the contents on the front and perhaps add a sticker or a little doodle. Attach the envelope to the relevant page.
A lovely thing to include are drawings and patterns, these personalise the scrapbook. Children are always drawing or painting and scrapbooking provides another ideal way to store and display their art.
Don’t forget to encourage your child to add labels or descriptions of the photos and memorabilia in their scrapbooks. Make sure the date is clearly marked, too.
Learning Through Scrapbooks
Scrapbooking is a flurry of cutting and sticking, it’s really a form of collage. The simplicity of the activity makes it ideally suited to younger children.
A great way to assist your pre-school child’s learning through the craft of scrapbooking is by creating special scrapbooks. Head each page with a bold letter of the alphabet, a block of colour or a shape. Your child can then create their first ever scrapbook by cutting and sticking photos or pictures that match the theme of that particular page.
Scrapbooking is a fabulously addictive pastime. Remember to support your child and not take over, though. The aim is not perfection but freedom of creativity. In years to come, even the worst mistakes will be beautiful memories and keepsakes!
