A Creative Mess

This weekend I am teaching a friend a little about scrapbooking. They have tons of newspaper articles that have been saved from their children's activites. These date from 1996 to 2010 and include honor roll announcements, school plays, sports, etc. etc, even a wedding announcement. Here's a picture of the mess on my dining room table.

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We have sorted them all by year and are in the process of trimming, scanning, printing. Then we'll have the daunting task of mounting them all on paper and putting them in an album. Did I mention that my friend is a newbie at this craft? He called me from Hobby Lobby with questions about paper, album choices, adhesives---you can imagine. And that is not a misprint, my friend is a HE! Although I don't think he'll be coming to my next card class, I hope that he enjoys reliving the memories as he sorts, and the finished product when its finally done.

Including newspaper clippings in scrapbooks can be kind of tricky because of the acid in the paper. You can purchase a neutralizing spray to treat the clipping with so that your pictures and other paper are protected. It will also help to prevent the clipping from yellowing as quickly. The other option is to scan the articles and print them on archival safe paper.

My friend is scanning most of his articles. The ones that take up a full newsprint page are going to be treated with a neutralizing spray and included in a pocket page. But we are also going to take pictures of the page & focus on the area that talks about his son. Maybe he'll let me share some of the finished pages with you once the project is done. We'll see at that point if he allows me to print his name or wants to remain anonymous. :)