Scrapbooking | Crafts and Scrapbook Ideas

The new year has come and gone already, and that means that it’s time to gear up for the next major holiday – Valentine’s Day! And yes, we know that Christmas and New Year’s JUST finished, but when it comes to making a scrapbook, you need all the time you can get to make the best scrapbook you possibly can to give to that special someone for Valentine’s Day!

Usually, people give flowers and candy to their loved ones or take them out to a movie or a fancy dinner date on Valentine’s Day, which is all lovely and good, but man, it’s cliché. Why not do something a bit unconventional, something that will last forever, something that will say “I love you” or “You mean more to me than you could ever know”? Make a scrapbook for your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day!

Ahh, but where should you start? You’ve got a huge collection of pictures of the two of you, some paper, lots of markers and utensils, but no direction! What will you do?

That’s easy. First of all, be sure to have a Board Book album on hand. Don’t have one? Order one! It’s super easy to do; just go to our website at and order online or call us at 1-800-506-9683 to get your very own album! You have a nice selection of colors, and each album holds up to 20 4”x6” pictures, along with one 4”x5” photo for the front cover. The pages are sturdy and kid-friendly, too, in case any little ones get their hands on the photo album.

Now that you have the photo album, you need to pick the direction you want your scrapbook to go and just go with it. Make a plan of attack if you need to. You can simply make a Valentine’s scrapbook that features you and your love together at different times and different places throughout your relationship. Be sure to feature other fun things like ticket stubs to events you’ve attended together, rose petals from your first bouquet that you shared, cards, stories, letters you’ve written one another, and favorite song lists or lyrics in your scrapbook!

If you don’t mind that your significant other sees or knows what you’re making for him or her, ask that person to help you with the creative process! You can have input on which pictures and objects to use, and you can also get both sides of the story about a photo or a trip that you both took together. For example, if you include the first picture of you two together, he could mention how he fell head-over-heels in love with you the moment he laid eyes on you, and you could write how you thought he was charming and how he opened his card door for you, and so on!

If you want to make your surprise Valentine’s scrapbook specific, then why not showcase fun vacations or holidays that you and your honey have shared together? Be sure to include lots of pictures of the scenery and the two of you having fun together in your scrapbook! Provide captions underneath or to the sides of your photos and add cute embellishments of your photos.

Do you have kids and want to tell the story of how your parents, grandparents, or even your great-grandparents met and how deeply they fell in love and stayed in love? Well, why not make a scrapbook for that? If you have any pictures of your ancestors together in their youth (for example, a photo of your grandparents’ wedding), use them in a love-story album! Your whole family can see how their elders met and grew to be crazy about each other, and it would be a heartwarming story to read every single time, let alone a good way to remember their stories.

Be sure to get a head start on your album! Call us today at 1-800-506-9683 or visit our website at www.boardbookalbums.com to get started on your Valentine’s album right away!

The year 2011 is already ending right before our eyes! It seems that as soon as we get used to writing out 2011 on our checks, assignments, memos, and other important documents, the year ends and we must get used to writing 2012 instead!

Now 2011 is leaving us for good, and all that we’ll have from the year are our memories. Luckily, we have several means of preserving memories from times past – photos, social media, articles, and so much more! And while you COULD leave your photos and mementos unattended or shove them in a box only to languish in a closet for several years, why not put your preserved memories to good use and make a scrapbook out of them?

Many people enjoy making scrapbooks of their personal years past, and you can definitely do that! This is the time to go through all the photos you took this year or the photos that friends of yours have taken throughout the year and pick out the ones you want to use in your photo album! You can include shots of your friends and loved ones during the year, holidays you celebrated, fun days and nights out spent together, fun times out and in, pets, and anything else you think belongs in your photo album! You can also include any movie tickets, concert tickets, symphony tickets, sporting events stubs, and other mementos from any events you participated in with loved ones and friends over the year!

Our Board Book Album, which is thick, durable, and kid-friendly, holds up to 20 4”x6” photos, and it also includes a 4”x5” opening on the front cover for a photo. The pages are also durable enough that you can decorate your album pretty much however you like – with stickers, markers, scrapbooking material; just about anything you can think of will work!

And who says you have to just make a personal album? There certainly isn’t some rule that dictates what you have to do with your Board Book Album! You could even make an album about 2011 in general, highlighting the most important events that occurred in the year. Check out this link to for some ideas!

If you choose to do a 2011-in-review scrapbook, you can save newspaper clippings you might have acquired or you can print out stories and photos from the Internet to showcase the most important events of the year. Of course, if you have a personal memento to add from one of the many big events that happened this year, you can include them in your scrapbook, too. Were you at one of the many Occupy protests? Were you involved with one of the several earthquakes and severe storms around the world? Did you help clean up Joplin, Missouri after the deadly tornado struck in May? Be sure to include photos and mementos (if you have any) from those events and others, too!

If you’re ready to get started on your 2011 scrapbook, then don’t delay! Give us a call at 1-800-506-9683 or visit our website at www.boardbookalbums.com. Have fun making your new scrapbook, and have a Happy New Year!

There’s no doubt about it – December is a stressful month for many people. Many of us are inundated with long Christmas lists, crowded shopping, insane amounts of get-togethers, and nearly insurmountable numbers of family holiday parties that go with the last month of the year.

In spite of all the anxiety and pressure we adults tend to face this time of year, the month of December is one of the most beautiful months of the year – IF you look at it in a positive light. There’s nothing like the thrill of seeing the first untouched layer of snow, smelling warm baked Christmas cookies fresh out of the oven, and seeing your children’s eyes light up as you display your Christmas tree. In short, December, believe it or not, is chock full of memories that will last you a lifetime. All you have to do is take the time to look for them… AND take a picture of those memories.

And why simply take pictures? Resist the temptation to leave the photos you take inside your camera’s memory or shoved in a box somewhere in an upstairs closet. Put them to good use – make a winter-themed scrapbook with one (or two!) of our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums!

Our blank albums are available in white, black, blue, and pink, so you can choose your album’s color on how you want to emphasize your winter album (white for snow, blue for the cold, etc.). These child-friendly, chunky board book style photo albums hold 20 4”x6” photos, so you have plenty of room for displaying your winter memories with your family!
Below are some ideas of what you can include in your winter scrapbook album!

-  Let your kids make their own gingerbread house by using graham crackers and frosting, hard candies, sprinkles, chocolates for decorating and for tasting. If you’d like to go the healthier route, you can use dried fruits, nuts, and seeds. Take pictures of the works in progress and of the final touches!

-  December is the time in which kids write letters to Santa Claus. You can either feature their letters in the albums or take pictures of them setting out their letter with the milk and cookies the night before Christmas. For added fun, you can even write your own letter to Santa, too, and feature it somewhere in your album.

-  One of the most beautiful things about winter is the snow. Be sure to photograph your kids, your spouse, your pets (and yourself, of course!) enjoying the snow. Make snow angels, take pictures of snowballs in flight, and capture snowmen on film after they’re created. For a cool effect in your album, convert your photos to black-and-white and use bold colors like a bright red, blue, or even green to accentuate the photos against the background.

-  You know what else happens in December? Christmas break. Be sure to capture the memories of relaxing with your family. Take pictures of the family sitting together on the couch in pj’s, watching favorite Christmas movies with one another. These can be the best pictures to look back on in the future years.

-  If you’re the artistic type and plan on sending out holiday greeting cards of your family, you can include your cards in the photo album as well!

-  Be sure to add photos of your family enjoying the holiday decorations and the tree as well! You can even include your favorite cold weather recipes for family meals and get-togethers, and, of course, a photo of everyone enjoying the recipe!

Ready to get started on your winter scrapbook? Then what are you waiting for? Call us today at 1-800-506-9683 or visit our website at www.boardbookalbums.com!

It's now December and the chilly autumnal wind has been permeating the air, sending the masses to seek shelter in their jackets, scarves, and gloves. Even though Thanksgiving has just been celebrated and many people around the country are preparing for the wintertime merriment of Christmastime, decorating their homes in red and green, penguins, Santa Claus figurines, Christmas trees, and polar bears. In addition to the decorations and lights, many people have Christmas picture frames filled with photos of Christmases past out on display for all to see.

While displaying a simple Christmas frame or two is nice in its own right, possessing and exhibiting several favorite, framed Christmas memories can take up quite a bit of space in the home. Instead of cluttering your home, why not simply display a whole Christmas album for all to see?

The best part is you don't even have to go spend a ton of money on scrapbook materials and albums to make your Christmas album look good. You can simply order one of our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums and make a scrapbook or photo album of your own, filled with your favorite Christmas memories!

All you need to do is gather the photos of some of your favorite Christmas memories or print off any digital pictures of your favorite Christmas memories from your computer, Facebook account, or digital camera! It's as simple as that! You can order your photos in a chronological order from when you were a child to your current age to show those who look at your photo album your life through your Christmas memories.

Next, you just need to put your photos in one of our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums! Order an album in your favorite color, and place your photos within the album! Our albums contain 20 pages that hold 4x6" photos, and the cover holds a 4x5" photo, so you'll have room to showcase 21 separate photos! Be sure to include pictures of you with your family, friends, and, if you have any, children!

After all of your photos are collected and placed inside the photo album, you have the option of decorating your album! The pages are thick and sturdy, making them perfect to decorate with markers, highlighters, stickers, scrapbooking material, and so much more! You can provide captions underneath each photo of your Christmas memory, which provides who is in the picture, when and where it was taken, and any other pertinent information you can recall.

And no worries, this photo album is completely kid-friendly. The pages are easy to turn and even have notches in them to facilitate page-turning even more. Their fortitude is equivalent to that of a typical children's book - thick, durable, and able to take all sorts of tough love from children.

Be sure to display your Christmas memory album during the holiday season, especially on Christmas day! After the Yuletide merriment has calmed down a bit on Christmas day and Christmas dinner has been eaten together, it would be the perfect time to break out your album for friends and family alike to look at and discuss. Loved ones will look back on Christmases past with fondness and warmth, and many stories of the past are bound to spring up to be relived and relished once more.

And children, while they don't have many memories or experiences of Christmases past, shouldn't feel left out of the whole magical process. Kids can use our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums to showcase what Christmas means to them! They can even make our photo albums into a rockin' wish list for Christmas shopping, providing captions that include where one can find the potential gifts, the descriptions of the gifts, and, potentially, the price. It's always easy to shop with a visual aid so we know what to look for!

Are you ready to get started on your memory book or ultra wish list? Then give us a call here at Board Book Albums at 1-800-506-9683 or visit us at our website at www.boardbookalbums.com. Let this be the most memorable and enjoyable Christmas season yet for you!

Thanksgiving is coming just around the corner, and everyone is gearing up for the holiday by decorating their houses with pumpkins, pilgrims, and cornucopias. Families and friends will be gathering together in just a few short weeks to dine with one another on turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, and more delicious food.

In a society in which work and material possessions hold so much priority in our lives, it is vital to stop, look around you, and count the many blessings that you have. Too often we go on with our lives complaining about what we lack and envying what others have instead of remembering the many good fortunes in our lives, which come in the form of beloved people and pets, health, happiness, and more.

This year before the Thanksgiving festivities kick in and you get busy cooking, planning, and stressing out in general, why not take a little bit of time to show what you're really thankful by using our Take Your Pix Board Book photo album?

All you have to do is find some photos of what you are thankful for. This can include photos of your family and friends, pets and other favorite animals, things that you are grateful you own, or even favorite locations and musical artists. You can use old photos, take new photos, or find photos on the Internet of the people and things you're thankful for and print them out.

Next, order one of our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums from our website www.boardbookalbums.com in your favorite color! The album holds 20 4x6" photos and has a slightly smaller frame on the cover (4x5"), so you can find 21 photos of people and things you're thankful for to include in the album.

What about decorating the album? Feel free to embellish the album with all sorts of things including markers, stickers, scrapbooking material, and so much more! You can include captions below your photos, which can include descriptions of the people, places, or things in your photo are and why you're thankful for them. If you're an artistic soul, you can draw objects pertaining to your photo on the side or above the picture, too.

This can be a fun project for the whole family! You can make an album for yourself, or you can help your children make their own "What I'm Thankful For" albums with their own Take Your Pix Board Book albums. The albums are kid-friendly for all ages! They have thick, durable pages that can endure many degrees of "tough love," and their easy-to-turn pages allow children to turn pages much more simply than other photo albums!

After you are all done with your album, you can keep your album or albums out for the holiday for all to see! Display them on a mantle or end table, or come Thanksgiving, you can even bring them to the table before or after Thanksgiving dinner and show what you are thankful for and why. This could even be a fun activity for your entire family to partake in, and it can truly help make the holiday mean much more than turkey and an afternoon football game.

Are you ready to make your own "What I'm Thankful For" album? Visit our website at www.boardbookalbums.com or give us a call at 1-800-506-9683 and get started right away! Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

How do you celebrate Halloween? Do you take your kids around the neighborhood to go trick-or-treating? Do you and your friends get together to have a good time and enjoy the festivities? Do you dress up your dog to go out somewhere or to just prance around the house and show off to any visitors you get?

However you celebrate the holiday, you can take pictures of your festivities, costumes, and crazy get-togethers and immortalize your Halloween memories in pictures with our Take Your Pix photo albums!

There are so many ways that you can record your Halloween memories in our Take Your Pix albums! You can decorate them by writing captions underneath your photos with markers, putting stickers next to photos, or even make them into a legitimate, bona fide scrapbook! You can check our website for cool scrapbooking ideas if you've run out of ideas or are just starting out in scrapbooking at www.boardbookalbums.com.

Not sure how to get started? Here are a few ideas to help you out:

If you have children and are going trick-or-treating in your neighborhood this year, be sure to break out that camera of yours and take loads of pictures! You can take pictures of your child in and out of his or her costume, where you go, any spooky scenery if it's light enough outside, your friends and neighbors in costume, and the stash of candy your child brings home at the end of the night. Print out all of your photos after Halloween night, and then order one of our famous Take Your Pix photo albums in your favorite color.

Here's another creative idea: Each year take a picture of your child's Halloween costume, from their first Halloween in costume as a baby to when they reach maybe 20 years old. Our Take Your Pix albums can hold 20 4x6" photos, so you can put in 20 Halloween costume photos. For a fun present, surprise your child with the album after it's full of many years of Halloween memories.

If you don't have children, you can still use our photo albums to document your fun Halloween parties and get-togethers! Invite your friends over for a Halloween party (make sure everyone wears a costume!) and take pictures of everyone's costumes, the decorations, where you go to eat (in costume, of course), all the shenanigans you get involved in that night, and anything else fun and Halloween related. Put the best pictures in one of our albums, decorate it, and put it out on display in your home next year at Halloween (or whenever your friends come over) so you can relive the memories together.

If you have a dog or a cat, you know that it's super fun to dress them up in silly costumes every year! Dress up your pet in a neat costume, let it roam around the house, visit with people, or take it for a walk to the park. Take pictures of it sitting, playing dead, greeting others, or running. Take pictures of it in the beautiful fall foliage, near a shoreline, by a cornfield or a pumpkin patch, with children, with other pets, or during sunset. Print out the pictures afterward, put them in our Take Your Pix photo albums, decorate it to your heart's desire, and display it as a "brag book" for all of your guests to see when they visit you.

So do YOU have a Take Your Pix photo album? If not, what are you waiting for? Go online at www.boardbookalbums.com and order one right away or give us a call here at 1-800-506-9683. Start making memories and preserving them today! Have a happy Halloween!

Weddings. Vacations. Pets. Family get-togethers. What do all these things have in common?

Why, pictures, of course!

After a wedding, a vacation, or a fun night out with friends, the first thing people ask is, "Where are the pictures?!"

Of course, you can always upload your pictures to Facebook so people can look at them and comment on them there, but there's just something about printing your photos somewhere and holding them in your hands to look at them that makes your experiences more real. The clean, crisp look and the hues of all the colors seem richer when printed. And what better way to protect those photos than in an album?

Or how about immortalizing your photos in a personalized scrapbook?

Scrapbooking is one of the most widely practiced pastimes here in America. For years and years, people all over have taken the time to commemorate their memories in their own special way, and they will continue scrapbooking for years to come.

But how much is known about the HISTORY of the pastime? Where did it come from? Why do we spend so much time placing stickers and labels by a photo, writing captions, or drawing photos within the pages?

Believe it or not, scrapbooking originated from the beginning of the 15th century in England, though its beginnings were a bit different from the hobby we all know and love. Scrapbooks began as what was called a "commonplace book" in England, which was a way to gather and store information. They could include letters, poems, quotations, recipes, and more. These commonplace books were unique to the creator's own tastes and interests.

Later in the 16th century, friendship albums became really popular. These albums were actually more on par with today's yearbooks. Friends could write their names, titles, and a short message or drawings if the owner of the album asked for it - just like signing each other's yearbooks at the beginning of the school year! In addition, the albums were usually made as souvenirs of European tours and would usually include coats of arms or works of art commissioned by local artists.

In the late 16th century, people would incorporate colored plates in their friendship books or commonplace books, depicting popular scenes such as Venetian costumes or carnival scenes. The colored plates were more affordable than having an original work of art made, and the plates were specifically used for embellishments for the albums.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, modern photography took wing, and people were able to incorporate photographs into their scrapbooks instead of solely relying on written word or illustrations. The actual industry of scrapbooking exploded around 1980's and 1990's, and the industry doubled in size between 2001 and 2004.

Here at BoardBook Albums, we continue the longtime hobby of scrapbooking with our Take Your Pix Photo Album. You can decorate and personalize your photo album any way you like, showcasing up to 20 4x6" photos. You can easily scrapbook your wedding, a fun time with your friends, college memories, vacations, and so much more!

Check out our selection and get started with your scrapbook today! Call us here at 1-800-506-9683 or check out our website at www.boardbookalbums.com to see what we have to offer you!

If you have kids, then more than likely they are involved in some sort of sport oractivity, be it soccer, football, baseball, music, marching band, dance, or some other sport or activity. As a proud parent, not only do you go to those matches, games concerts, parades, and recitals to support your child, but you also take pictures of them at work at their activity – LOTS of pictures.

The question is – what are you going to do with all those photos? Will they be printed out only to languish in a desk drawer, collect dust on a forgotten bookcase, or remain hidden from the world in your memory (your camera’s memory, that is)?

What better way to honor your child’s activities and show off the hard work that they do than put them in one of our Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums?

We have all sorts of colors and styles available for you to document your child’s sport seasons, seasonal concerts, recitals, or anything else he or she is involved in. Our Take Your Pix Board Book photo album holds up to 20 4x6” photos and can be decorated to your liking in many different ways. You can make it into a scrapbook, or you can customize it to give as a gift to your child or another close relative.

You can even ask your child to get involved in commemorating their activities! Your child can help decorate the album by adding their favorite stickers and stamps and use markers to create their own little masterpieces within the pages as an embellishment for their photos.

Not sure how to get started? No worries! First off, be sure to take lots and lots of pictures at your child’s activity or activities and either wait till the end of the season to get your photos printed or print as you go! After you have your photos printed and ready to go, why not call us at 1-800-506-9683 and order your own Take Your Pix photo album? From there, insert your photos into our thick, durable, kid-friendly pages and decorate your album however your heart desires.

Is your child involved in multiple activities? Who’s to say you can’t do multiple scrapbooks? We have several different colors to choose from so you can easily differentiate amongst your child’s designated photo albums, and there are so many scrapbook designs to choose from! The Take Your Pix Board Book photo albums would make wonderful birthday or holiday gifts to your child or even to your loved ones. Remember, grandparents are huge fans of photos of their grandchildren, so your personalized Take Your Pix Board Book photo album would make a perfect gift for your parents or in-laws!

So what are you waiting for? Get those photos printed and call us today at 1-800-506-9683 or order from us online at www.boardbookalbums.com and get started on preserving your little one’s childhood (and a little bit of family history for generations to come) today!

There have been a lot of great things going on here at Board Book Albums this summer!

First of all, we are delighted to say that we are a winner of the Pitney Bowes Small Business Makeover contest! It was an honor to be selected among many other small businesses!

Not only did people (and our fans!) vote for the company they wanted to win, but also judges reviewed each entry and selected the winners based on three things: the entrant’s dedication to his or her business and its growth, the overall need for improvement, and the passion and energy each entrant possessed for his or her small business. Thank you to Pitney Bowes and all the voters who helped make this possible!

You may check out the winners here!

Secondly, we have recently been featured on Fox 2 Detroit and ABC 27 Madison, WI on The Gift Insider’s “Back to School” segments. Featured was our product, the Take-Your-Pix® Board Book Photo Album.  As explained in the video, I created this photo album because I wanted to help teach my daughter new vocabulary words, as her speech therapist encouraged.  Because I couldn’t find a photo album suitable for a toddler’s small fingers, I invented a photo album – one that was sturdy, durable, and able to withstand “tough love.”  We’ve been selling them online since 2008 to parents, scrapbookers and gift-givers worldwide!

Our photo albums, which have also recently won Dr. Toy’s Best Vacation Children’s Products Award and the Kidlutions Preferred Project Award, are a wonderful idea for children of all ages. They have thick cardboard pages with rounded corners and notches on the page edges, so that children may turn pages with ease. Don’t worry about photos getting damaged, either – the pictures fit inside the pages, protected by clear plastic coverings, so they will not get wet or get fingerprints all over them!

Although these photo albums were originally designed for young children, it certainly doesn’t mean that children are the only ones that enjoy them! These make fantastic gifts for older children, and adults, too. You can display college memories, wedding photos, family photos, and so much more in these cool new photo albums!

For more information on Board Book Albums, please “like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BoardBookAlbums or visit our website today.  Remember, our photo albums aren’t just for beating to dog days of summer and heading back-to-school, they also make excellent gifts year-round!

To view our recent video segments, please click below!

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Summertime for many families is vacation time, with many families returning home with digital cameras filled to the brim with photos of their time away.

Who in your family is usually taking these pictures? Mom? Dad?  With the rise of digital photography, many children are now curious to put themselves behind the lens.  If your child seems to take an interest in your camera and is asking to experiment, let them take it – you could have a future professional photographer on your hands!

Young children learn faster than we sometimes realize, so teaching your child about framing, composition and tips on photography can be beneficial to them and can be a fun way to spend time together.
Here are a few tips to get you started!

You would think with the digital movement of the new millennium that scrapbooking would’ve been thrown by the wayside. But, despite everything going digital these days, scrapbooking is even more popular than ever.

Let’s face it, even if you don’t scrapbook, you know someone who does scrapbook. It’s almost like an addiction, once you start scrapbooking you can’t get enough! This would explain the nearly 4 million “scrappies” in the U.S. and the whole section dedicated to the craft in many popular stores like Michaels, Walmart and even Target.

Scrapbooking is certainly here to stay, and here’s why...

Check out these cool scraptastic ideas for making a mini board book album. Our albums make it easy and fun!  See what you can do!

Mini Board Book embellished to be too cute!  Done in 2 hours flat!  Check out these fun ideas!

Thank you "Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking" by Katie Scott

A few years ago when my daughter Lucia needed a photo album to help her speech development, I searched all over for an album that she would not easily tear apart. Unsuccessful, I decided to create a sturdy cardboard album like her board book story books. I thought that other parents and children could also benefit from this durable kid-friendly album. Along the way, I learned from parents of children with autism that our albums work well with the PECS system that many autistic kids use to communicate. Board Book Albums strives to enhance the lives of children and families and we hope to bring you valuable information and ideas on our blog. Here’s some information about photo books and the PECS system.