Posted on May 15, 2009 - by Cheryl A.Vatcher-Martin

Recycle Cardboard Items To Create Your Scrapbook

As a scrapbook artist have you thought about trying to create a scrapbook out of materials that you already own?

Recycled items can cut down on unnecessary waste when you are designing your treasured book. Perhaps you may even want to design a scrapbook out of non-traditional items that are readily accessible to you. For example, you may want to provide extra support for your photographs in the scrapbook. You can do this by utilizing extra cardboard that you have from pre-packaged materials. Instead of throwing it out, put it into a supply cabinet where you keep the craft supplies. You could designate a drawer for miscellaneous pieces of cardboard that you can trim for your crafting activities and scrapbooks.

Cardboard comes in all widths, and thicknesses. I find this helpful for many projects as I know that I can utilize an item that I already have. This material definitely comes in handy when I am looking to put a solid backing on my photographs. This way the pictures are sturdy when they are placed in my scrapbook. If you don’t have the exact size in your crafting tool box, it is easy to trim them to fit. Most of the pieces of cardboard that I recycle is bigger than an 8 x 10 photograph.

As I have been paying attention to the whole green movement, I’ve checked out other items that you could use as backing for creative projects. When you are done with a sturdy tissue box, you could cut that into manageable pieces for your scrapbook. I know that some scrapbook artists use paper bags to create their own masterpiece, so, why not use another material that you’d usually throw out?

If any of you are researching your family history or that of others, then, you’ll remember that photographs from a hundred years or more were inserted onto a thick piece of cardboard. The way that these photographs were produced in the late 1800′s and through the turn of the century, is the reason that these keepsakes are in good condition today. The sturdiness in the material is quite evident as the quality is apparent even a hundred years after the photograph was printed. The durability of the material that these pictures are mounted on has made it easier for them to survive through the twenty first century.

I am concerned that if we do not try to protect our photographic images today; they may not be around for our families to see in a fifty years or more. We need to be a bit more proactive in trying to preserve the photographs that we carefully place into the scrapbooks we enjoy making for our families.

It seems like the digital age is here to help us simplify the processing of pictures; yet we really do not know what the long term shelf life is for a digital compact disc storing pictures. Would it be so bad to perhaps use a film camera once in a while as a back up? This way, there is a legacy of printed negatives that can be preserved, and, prints can be made at a later date.

I do believe that if scrapbook artists and crafters try to recycle items, not only are they saving money in a tight economy, but, essentially may be working with materials that a great grandparent would’ve been happy to have had back in the day to perfect their own history book!