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Vintage Scrapbooking – How to Create Your Own Vintage Scrapbook

Vintage Scrapbooking seems first to be a narrow subject, in that some people may think of the Victorian era when thinking upon this term. But, obviously, if you are interested in creating a 1950s inspired scrapbook, you won’t be thinking Victorian.

In an article in Vintage/Victorian – Country Almanac No. 144 2012, the subtitle read “Create Rooms that tell a story with pieces of the past.” This article was about decorating a room, obviously, but, it started me thinking. Maybe for most, vintage equals Victorian. But, it can also mean other “past” time periods, like the 1960s, and for someone like myself who is in their 40’s, even the 1980s can hold vintage value, as in pieces from my own past. I would say it is probably safe to consider anything vintage that is 20 or more years old, although I have heard that it depends on the object.

So, it can be said that to scrapbook vintage is to tell a story with pieces from the past. For inspiring examples of various vintage scrapbooking ideas, this article will address not only the commonly thought of Victorian era, but also review various time periods such as the roaring 20s through the 1980s.

One other way to think about creating a vintage scrapbook is to think of it like building a time capsule. Obviously, you can place any number of objects in a time capsule. But, a time capsule gets buried underground somewhere for future others to see. When you create your vintage scrapbook, your intention is to be able to visit your own past and it’s meanings to you via the craft of vintage scrapbooking.

As I thought on building my own vintage scrap book, I thought of mentioning the stores around town that no longer exist and other businesses. Portray somehow the music and movies of that time and maybe the discussions of the day. We used to have a Hallmark store that had a computer program which would help someone put together a birthday page which listed all that was going on at the time of the person’s birth. This would be valuable information for a vintage scrapbooking page as well.

Another way to find inspiration for your vintage scrapbook pages may be to create a mood board, or a board to inspire scrapbooking. On it you place those things to help you envision what you are trying to get across. Examples of what that could be are sketches, magazine articles, fabric swatches, or found objects as embellishments to create a feeling. It is good to experiment and think through what you want your final creation to look like, to consider all the elements you want involved. In this way you may answer your own questions regarding the gathering of various vintage scrapbooking supplies whether papers or things that make for you the proper vintage scrapbooking background.

I used a craft board in junior college in my interpersonal communications class for a project once as a prop to talk about myself. I did the board up in my crafty way to express my life such as it was back then. That is another idea of how to use a mood board, also a picturesque way of storyboarding.

As to scrapbooking embellishments of a vintage nature and methods thereof, there are tools and techniques for adding an aged look to your scrapbooking page, which works well, usually, for adding an aged look to your scrapbooking page, which works well, usually, for adding a sense of the past visited upon the present moment. One such method is tea staining. Use a brewed tea bag to stain the edges of writing, or photos artistically to gain the aged vintage look.

Tim Holtz is one scrapbook artist who emphasizes the vintage side (Victorian) in his work.

The 80s