Honestly, I love scrapbooks, but I think their time is coming to an end. At least the kind of scrapbooks where each page is carefully arranged by hand and placed into a plastic page protector and then held in a huge and bulky binder! I probably have about 10 of these because I did one for my husband and started them for my kids, etc. They take up so much space that they are kept in a cupboard in the basement, so no one really even looks at them!
On top of that, most of my scrapbooks are filled with non-digital photographs. So I knew I needed to get them scanned and in my computer in case anything ever happened to them. But all the photos are glued in...so the best thing to do is just to scan the entire page. And then from there, you can always crop to the exact photo you need, etc.
I thought it would make sense to place each page into an online book. Look at the difference between the bulky and the new & crisp hardbound book!
It's pretty much keeping your exact layout..the pages look the same
HERE'S HOW TO DO IT:
1. SCAN every page of your scrap book. This can take some time, but it's not bad. There are also places that will do this for you. But this way you can preserve the page the way you made it and not just the photos alone. Yes, I would probably do the pages different if I were starting over today, but keeping the page as is, is kind of fun. Plus, it took a lot of work at the time! haha
2. CHOOSE who you want to go through to make your book. My pages for this specific scrapbook were 8 1/2 X 11, and so I went through blurb because they were the only one I could find that had an 8 1/2X11 that was a 'portrait' landscape. My book was 46 pages and with shipping and everything my total cost came to about $44.00.
Costco has comparable prices, if not a little bit lower, but as you can see, these were my only sizing options and that didn't work for me, but they may work for you:
Shutterfly is another book company I have always liked to use...but it gets pricey to add more than 20 pages. But again, they didn't have the size I needed anyway.
3. UPLOAD the scanned scrapbook pages into the site that you've chosen. If you've ever made an online book before, it's just like uploading pictures (jpgs).
4. LAYOUT your book so that the photo (your scanned page) will fill the entire page. I preferred to have a small edge around each photo because I was not sure how the final book would turn out, as far as if any of the edges would get cropped. I think it turned out perfect.
5. DRAG & DROP each page of the scrapbook into your new book in the order they were in your scrapbook. You should not have to do much else, as far as adding text or anything because you already did that in your scrapbook! It probably took me 15 minutes to get all my pages in. SO EASY
6. FINAL TOUCHES like the cover and the binding can be fun to customize. I decided to add a picture and did my titling in fun fonts. You can also add the title to the binding.
7. ORDER!! I highly recommend what they call an IMAGE WRAP hardback book. Your picture and title are printed onto the cover....it's great quality and then you don't have to worry about one of those "dust jackets" that just always fall off and get ruined.
I was so excited to get mine in the mail!! Now I just have to do the rest of my scrapbooks! It is a little pricey, so I might have to spread it out maybe doing one a month or every other. I struggled with whether or not to throw out the bulky scrapbooks now, just to clear space. But I can't bring myself to throw them out because they contain the "actual" letter, or the "actual" concert tickets. haha. I guess I'm a little too sentimental. ;)
