Sticker Tips

Here are some tips to avoid scrapbook pages that look like a sticker factory exploded all over them!

Scrapbooks are priceless treasures that will be treasured for years to come. It is a pictorial and journalistic chronicle of major events in your life as well as your family’s history. You’ve created fantastic borders and gorgeous cardstock backdrops for your professional-looking photographs and the themes have been planned down to a “T.” But in one fell swoop, you have ignored your inner scrapbook instincts and made the mistake that many unknowing scrapbookers have fallen prey to: tacky sticker overkill.

We’ve all seen it or have done it ourselves and winced. You open a scrapbook page and BAM! Cherub stickers are everywhere next to heart stickers next to stickers of angels and interspersed with stickers of puppies in love. You are looking frantically all over the page and thinking either one of two things: “Where is the main picture?” or “I don’t even know what to be looking for!” What was supposed to be a scrapbook page devoted to a couple’s most recent Valentine’s Day outing has tragically turned into an advertisement for your local craft store’s upcoming sticker sale extravaganza.

Fortunately, it is a common mistake made by many first-time scrapbookers, so there is nothing to be ashamed of. So you got a little carried away by the 50% off sale on stickers? So what? There are simple ways to avoid sticker overkill on your pages.

Well-Thought Out Design

Your scrapbook is a display of your family’s life, not a collage, so don’t think that you need to fill in every blank space on your page. Before you even begin a page, pick the pictures that will be displayed on that picture and then decide on a theme. This will determine both the borders you choose to use, as well as any kind of cardstock backdrop you will be using for your actual pictures. Once you have laid out the design and taped it on, then and only then should you start to even consider pasting stickers onto your page. Use stickers sparingly because you want the focus of your page to be the actual pictures and the journal entry that goes along with it and not the sticker over the picture that jokingly says, “What’s that smell?”

Avoid Stickers That are Overwhelming

I’ve seen scrapbooks that have a sticker the size of my palm placed dead center and the photographs placed around the centered sticker, almost as an afterthought. Always bear in mind that the pictures are what people want to see, not the five inch by five inch sticker of the teddy bear in the center of the page.

Avoid Buying Stickers Beforehand

A lot of scrapbookers make the mistake of buying stickers for their scrapbooks beforehand. For example, a scrapbooker who is working on her wedding album may visit the local sticker sale at the craft store and stock up on all kinds of wedding-oriented stickers. Then while working on her scrapbook, she will feel compelled to use up all the stickers since she already purchased them all. Design and layout your scrapbook first and buy the stickers afterwards as enhancements. This way you won’t feel like you have to use ALL of the 32 heart stickers you bought for two dollars last week. Just remember, stickers are meant to enhance, not to distract.