To put or not to put a photo...

Hello everyone!

Just a general question being new to the hobby. Does it defeat the purpose of scrap booking not to add a photo to the page? I ask because I see some layouts that look beautiful just as art.

Thoughts?????

I've seen plenty of beautiful LOs with no picture, especially as title pages to an album

some people have art journals for just this reason ... they can create and try new techniques without worrying about using a picture

For me personally, scrapbooking is about preserving photographic memories, so the only pages I have with no photos are title pages

Thank you for your feedback! I am still fairly new to the hobby so I like to get different viewpoints.
I am by no means artistic, but I love to scrap so far!!!!!

• Apache_Rose Said:

Well, that's the thing - the "purpose of scrapbooking" is different for everyone. For me, the purpose of scrapbooking is preserving memories and telling stories; sometimes that means there's nothing but journaling or memorabilia on a page. And for some people, the purpose of scrapbooking is to make art. Scrapbooking isn't only about the photographs, and I would dare anyone to tell me that the photo-free layouts below defeat the purpose of memory-keeping and story-telling.


Hawaii 2010 - Page 2 - The Backstory By Aquabunny
(This is my favorite example of a photo-free layout from my own stuff - in four journaling spots it tells the story of how our trip to Hawaii came to be, a story that didn't really involve anything to take a picture OF. In the envelope-shaped pocket is the card my husband made to tell me about the trip, the only real memorabilia from the backstory behind the trip. I couldn't make an album of our Hawaii trip without telling this part of the story, photos or no photos.)


Facebook comments for a pet's passing By Aquabunny
(The small cut-out from a photo of the box of ashes is not the focus of the page.)


Washington DC 2012 - Page 1 - Title Page By Aquabunny
(The thing that looks like a photo is an ad cut out from an information booklet.)


Washington DC 2012 - Page 2 - Road Trip (page 1) By Aquabunny
(This was a 12-hour road trip. We didn't stop on the drive to DC except to eat a few times, and there was nothing worth taking up page space with a picture of. There are two of us, both adults, it's not like there were pictures to take of kids in the backseat. But it was twelve hours, a not-insignificant portion of a six-day trip, and it was worth documenting. The closest to a "photo" this comes to having is the five-state map, on which the ribbon more-or-less accurately traces our route.)


Washington DC 2012 - Page 3 - Road Trip (page 2) By Aquabunny


Washington DC 2012 - Page 6 - Eating Out By Aquabunny


Washington DC 2012 - Page 7 - Metro By Aquabunny


Washington DC 2012 - Pages 8-9 - Newseum (pages 1-2) By Aquabunny
(Those are postcards and clippings from an information booklet.)


Washington DC 2012 - Pages 40-41 - Nationals/Phillies Baseball Game (pages 2-3) By Aquabunny


Washington DC 2012 - Page 42 - Nationals/Phillies Baseball Game (page 4) By Aquabunny


Washington DC 2012 - Page 53 - Holocaust Memorial Museum By Aquabunny
(The photographic ad is from a tourism booklet; this page in particular is about a location where photography is prohibited, but I still wanted to scrap about it.)


Washington DC 2012 - Page 60 - Final page By Aquabunny
(There is technically the one tiny photo of the Jefferson Memorial, but it's an embellishment and not the focus of the page.)


"Countdown to Christmas" mini-album - cover By Aquabunny
(From there you can view the rest of a 26-page Christmas Countdown album that is 100% photo-free - the few elements that look like photos are from cards and stickers and do not represent any of my actual memories or experiences.)


NSD 2011 Week-Long Challenge - Pages for Mini-Book of Me By Aquabunny
(Sample pages from my Book of Me - it's a 22-page mini-album and I would estimate that fewer than half of the pages have actual photos on them, because it's easy to talk about things I love without needing pictures of them, especially in a smaller-scale album like this.)

From other people's galleries:


Memorabilia pages By Pugs223

http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/610317/view /3208449/...

http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/196701/view /2523329/...


Animal Crossing By Penny Lane

A quick look at what I have in my gallery and I'm guessing at least a third of them don't have photos. Some have clipart that I've printed and cut, but many are maps and journaling. I do my books to tell a story and a picture may be worth a thousand words, but it doesn't always describe all the background info :>)

I want people to look at my books and know what I would tell them is happening, even if I'm not standing there to tell them...so that means lots of journaling.

Some people let the pictures do the talking...just depends on your style. I think probably because I'm older, I'm realizing more and more that eventually I won't be here to tell people what's happening in the pictures. I look at old, old family photos and have questions, but there is no one left to ask. I'm trying to fill-in the blanks, viewing my books the way people will see them fifty years from now.

I also like to add brochures, tickets, etc. from events. For one thing, I don't have to figure out where I'm going to keep them...I just keep them in my scrapbook so one housecleaning chore is done lol

They're your pages. Do them however you want to, but maybe once in a while try a different technique just to see how it works for you. Some things you'll like and other things...eh...~Judy

some memories there just are no pictures for,,,,doesn't mean they are memories that are any less important to the creator of the page.

It really depends on you. Usually my first page to an album is all journaling. and the last page to an album may not have any photos on it as well. Sometimes you have a ton of memorabilia from a trip that you would to scrapbook and you need a whole page. Again it's all about what works best for you.

No rule says scrapbooking pages have to have pictures. I lot of mine don't. Sometimes they are all journaling or memorabilia. They are whatever I want them to be.

Judy - are you saying that you and I journal a lot becuase we are old?

There could be some truth to that because we both know that looking on old photos, even ones of your kids, the stories are long forgotten over just a few years. Your kids are small one day and you think you will remember the story behind every picture and then one day they are grown up and you don't have a clue who their friends are, what they are doing or anything about the photos. They are just nice photos with no story anymore.

I learned my lesson - when my husband and I were teenagers we were engaged and I made a scrapbook for us. It was 1969 and scrapbooking was very primitive by today's standards. But, it was what we had, no matter how non-acid free or temporary the supplies. I mean, it was all taped with scotch invisible tape!

In 1970 we broke up - a break-up that last 36 years. I didn't scrapbook the entire 36 years - just wasn't interested. When we got back together in 2006 I started scrapbooking again.

Anyway, when we broke up he got our scrapbooks (there were 2 of them) and gave them to his mother when he got married. I'm sure his new wife didn't want them in the house.

WHen his mother died they were in his mother's stuff that his sister inherited. There they stayed hidden under stuff until they were found last year.

Unfortunately the scrapbook was so moldy that most of the pictures were ruined and Walgreens has reprinted some of them.

BUt what was disappointing was that I don't know what was going on in the pictures.

In one we are holding a cake that says "Happy 1st Anniversary". First anniversary of what? First date? First Date? First met? I'll never know. And it looks like it is in a banquet hall or somewhere - but where. And maybe we were holding the cake to surprise someone else. But who?

In another we were at Homestead Air Force Base and Bill is carrying me. Why? Were we just horsing around. Did I twist my ankle? Was I just tired? Were we with another couple? And what we were doing on the Air Force base? Neither of us nor anyone in our families was military at that time.

Every old photo seems to bring up questions and I'd love the answer to them. I'm kicking myself for not writing the story behind the pictures.

Well, Henri, you're a few years behind me, so maybe you're not old yet...but I am! (and you will be!)

I look at my Grandma's pictures and some that were her mother's...these are old pictures, but they leave so many questions. In several pictures there is a guy, maybe late teens/early 20s, sleeping in a bed, right in the middle of the picture. You need to remember that back then not only weren't there digi cameras...most people didn't even own a camera, but had a photographer come to the house to take a dress-up photo of the whole herd. The whole herd is there, but this guy is sleeping in bed.

There is even a name for him on the back of the pictures and my mom asked Grandma who he was and she just kind of scoffed, "Oh that's just ....(whatever his name was)," like that explained it all. Now Grandma is gone and Mom and I don't have a clue. Grandma didn't say it was someone in a coma or someone who had been run over by a wild horse or just someone who slept alot.

I don't want to leave those kinds of mysteries for my kids/grandkids/great...

My mom remembers stories about my kids better than I do. I'd tell her things, then go back to being a busy mom. She was a grandma who treasured those stories, told them to my dad, and remembered them, so I ask her what my kids were doing at different times. Luckily, although she's almost 87, she's more brain-alive than I am most of the time :>) ~Judy, the Elderly

I agree with all that is said. NO rules!!!! If you like it, do it!!!

I like to journal a lot with my photos as well. When I was baby, my mom did a "baby book"- where you write in when, where, first food, when you first crawled, that kind of thing. For me, my scrapbooks tell those stories! And it is even better than my mom's version....it has pictures!!! But not on every page!!!!

Sometimes there are no photos to go with a memory. It's OK to scrap it - it's your memory which you want to preserve.

Sometimes you aren't allowed to take photos at an occasion, but you may be able to find pictures on-line or in a magazine or newspaper, or brochures, programmes, receipts, or other memorabilia. That's OK too.

I have plans to scrap an unfinished piece of cross-stitch from my childhood, and my first ever wobbly piece of knitting. There will be no photos to go with those, but they are important to me. And I don't know what else to do with them!

They are your scrap books, and your memories. You can put whatever you like in them. Just have fun.

Hi! This is my first post on this forum so really don't know where to start. However, I have a question to ask you concerning preserving items like tickets, newspaper clippings, etc. Is there any way to preserve these so that they don't fade or yellow over the years? Perhaps a product?

I have been scrapbooking off and on since 2001 and am getting back into it again, now that my grandchildren and cats are getting older (not to mention, me!). Anyway, looking through some of my older scrapbooks, I am noticing that some of the non-scrapbook items are beginning to fade. One in particular, is the pair of movie tickets to "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" movie that I made an entire scrapbook of. The printing on the tickets has faded so much that the tickets themselves look almost blank.

Another thing would be some newspaper articles that I have saved for the past sixty some years. Can they be preserved and put in a scrapbook? Or maybe I should photocopy them and then scrap?

I would appreciate any suggestions that you may have to offer me. Thanks in advance.

If tickets or memorbilia are on thermal paper (overseas you get that alot) I photocopy them. If the paper is really thin and flimsy and I don't think it is going to last, I photocopy it and use the copy in my books.

For menus and take-out menus and things like that, I photo copy them so I know they are on a good quality paper.

The original stuff I use is always sprayed lightly, front and back with a product called "Make It Acid Free" which is made by Krylon. So far it seems to be helping.

It can be pricy but a can lasts a while. My store just placed an order for me so I bought 3 cans.

I lightly spray the front and back - it dries in seconds. If you oversaturate the ink sometimes runs so use it with a light hand and it will be fine.

I don't like the results on glossy paper, as it puts a white film on glossy so I spray it lightly and if I see the film I wipe it off.

This is supposed to be good and I don't know of any other product out there to preserve papers. However, I haven't used it long enough to know how well it works, but I feel like it is better than nothing.

Thanks for the suggestion, Henri Jean. I will definitely purchase the "Make it Acid Free" by Krylon shortly. I wish that I would have photo copied the movie tickets however, the scrapbook is mainly of my two grandchildren at their first 3D movie and they enjoy looking through it, even with faded movie tickets.

One of my four cats died a couple of weeks ago and I've been working on an album of her life. She was 13 years old and died from complications of diabetes. It broke my heart to lose her however scrapbooking her life and death is part of my therapy. I found a lovely "Rainbow Bridge" story that came from the Vikings and reading that eases the pain. I will definitely add that to her book.

I'm happy to have found this forum and think that it will be helpful to me. I'm amazed at all of the lovely pages that you all have made!

I lost my favorite cat to cardiopathy in 2000 and some days it is still hard so I understand. I will always love my Gina.

• gocatgo42 Said:

I don't have advice, but wanted to say hi I've got 6 kids (2 because they married my kids) and 5 grandkids, so lots of scrapping to do.

I can't give advice on keeping memorabilia because I'm one of those who doesn't do anything with it, except for copying the computer receipts that Henri talked about. Those go blank within a day or two if conditions are right. I have photos that are over 100 years old, a newspaper from the day I was born in 1947, plus other newsprint articles, letters & postcards from the early 1900s and other similar things that have had no care, but are in perfect condition. For me, I'm just going to scrap them as they are, but I wouldn't want to advise anyone else to do it just because I do~Judy

I am probably not the person to ask because I don't preserve anything.....with spray that is! I put it all in my books! I don't freak if it is not acid free. I don't care if my books last 200 years, I just want to enjoy them!!!

I have done layouts without a photo and for me they are as beautiful and meaninful as the ones with a photo.

I'm new to scrapbooking as well (relatively). Does scrapping for 2 months now still count as new?

Anywho...can someone explain what title pages are for? I've only created albums by year so far, so would I need a title page in the beginning of the album?

Here's what use title pages for.

I put them at the front of pretty much every album, to introduce it, especially if it doesn't tell a single story (my rabbit's album opens with a page with just her name and a collage of pictures), but also at the beginning of travel albums - sometimes to summarize the trip (like the DC title page below), sometimes just to say hey, this is where we went and what the album's about, the storytelling starts on the next page (like the Hawaii title page below).

I also sort of do albums by year. Well, first I did one for 2007 to 2010, and each section for a new year had a title page summing up what happened that year, along with tickets or pictures from events either too small to scrap on their own or so big they had their own separate album elsewhere. Since I don't really do anything to celebrate New Year's, there was no specific delineation between sections without those pages. 2011 and 2012 have both had enough pages to need their own albums, but I title page those as well. 2011's title page, for example, has a big journaling area where I list major events of the year that weren't otherwise scrapbooked (death of a pet, our 30th birthdays, a hail storm and the resulting new roof work, along with my usual annual tally of pages scrapped), and also features a sample of the new shingling we had put on our house, a picture of the two of us from my mom's 70th birthday party, and the tickets from a movie we went to (along with the story behind why we went).

I like title pages because they let you know what you'll be looking at as soon as you open the album. Not all albums have covers that allow you to customize them heavily, and it pretty much never hurts to have the additional clarification, especially once you have a lot of albums.

In answer to whether you need one - of course you don't. There are no rules, you don't NEED to do anything. If you feel that you would like to, feel free to do so, but if you don't feel that your albums need title pages or if you don't feel that you want to do them, then don't.

I scrap chronologically so many of mine don't have title pages. HOwever, when I start a new trip or event I put a title page in, whether it is in the front of a new book or in the middle of a book.

"Italy" was a title page for a new book, "Pompeii" was a title page in the middle of a book but it was about 20 pages long.

If something important is in my books that is several pages long, it usually gets a title page on the right hand side before it starts.

When we take a crusie, all fo the ports with lots of pictures gets a title page.

I do like Henri...usually I've been working on a HS Grad album for my oldest granddaughter forever (she'll be a college grad if I don't hurry up) and for that I just have a title page at the beginning of the book.

I'm also working on an album (which will be multiple albums soon) on trips we take to Lake Tahoe. I scrap the trips in order, so I have a title page at the beginning of the book, then I do one for each new trip.

For me, it's a way so I don't have to put the who/what/when/where/why details on each page. If my title page doesn't tell many details, then the next page does...my introduction to that trip.~Judy

What AquaBunny said! I have a couple of albums that are faith albums where what I'm sharing are things that have inspired me or experiences that have strengthened my faith, and what I'm trying to do with the layout is just share the story. I may not have a picture that goes with that story, but I don't worry about it. Instead I'll find or make embellishments that go with the story. What it comes down to is you tell your story in whatever way you feel tells it the best!

Jen