History and meaning
Where scrapbooking comes from and what it does for you. The questions scrappers ask most often, with a short, honest answer.
What actually is scrapbooking?
Scrapbooking is keeping memories in an album by putting photos, bits of paper and words together on a decorated page. What sets it apart from an ordinary photo album is the story: you write down what happened, who was there and why it mattered.
On a page, also called a layout, you usually combine:
- one or more photos
- background paper and decoration (embellishments)
- a title and journaling, the words that go with the photos
- sometimes real keepsakes, like a ticket or a receipt
You can do it on paper, digitally on a computer, or as a mix of the two. There's no right or wrong way.
Where does scrapbooking come from?
Scrapbooking isn't a modern invention: people have been pasting and writing memories into blank books for centuries. In the Renaissance, scholars kept notebooks full of quotes and facts, and students asked friends to write something in an album amicorum.
In the nineteenth century, the scrapbook really took off. Cheap printed material appeared, such as newspapers and coloured pictures, and people cut it out and pasted it in, along with letters, poems and, later, photos.
The hobby as we know it today, with acid-free paper, special albums and dedicated shops, began in the United States in the 1980s and then spread to Europe.
Read also: The history of the scrapbook, from Victorian scraps to journals
Why is scrapbooking so relaxing?
Scrapbooking is relaxing because you're busy with your hands and your attention stays on one thing. Cutting, arranging and sticking can work like a kind of meditation: many people worry less and are more in the moment.
It also does something for your mood:
- you look back at lovely moments, which often gives you a warm feeling
- you finish something you can hold, and that feels good
- writing about what you went through can help you come to terms with it
Many scrappers find it works best when you don't try to make it perfect. As soon as a page has to be a certain way, the calm disappears.
Does a paper scrapbook still make sense now that everything is digital?
Yes, especially now. You rarely look back at the thousands of photos on your phone, while an album sits on the table and gets opened without you even thinking about it.
A paper book has a few things a screen doesn't:
- you can hold it, leaf through it and look at it together
- you can keep real things in it, like an entry ticket or a note in someone's handwriting
- it doesn't depend on an app, an account or a file format that might not work in twenty years
Digital and paper don't rule each other out either. Many scrappers first pick their best photos digitally and print only those for their album.
Read also: Scrapbook, photo book or photo album: which suits you
What came before the scrapbook?
The best-known forerunners are the commonplace book, the album amicorum and the poetry album.
- Commonplace book: a notebook where you collected quotes, poems, recipes and interesting facts, organised by subject.
- Album amicorum (Stammbuch in German): a friendship book from the sixteenth century, mostly kept by students, in which friends and teachers wrote a motto, their name and sometimes a drawing or coat of arms.
- Poetry album: the later, homelier version, with little verses and glossy scraps.
On top of that, in the nineteenth century people pasted cuttings and pictures into scrapbooks. The scrapbook grew out of all these habits: a book where you bring words, pictures and memories together.
Read also: From commonplace books to autograph albums: the roots of scrapbooks
Can scrapbooking help with grief?
Yes, for many people it can help, though it doesn't work for everyone. Making an album about someone you've lost gives you time to think about that person, and your grief takes on a shape you can do something with.
Scrappers often say it feels like briefly visiting the other person. The result is also something you can share with family, for example after a funeral.
A few tips:
- start small, with a few photos that are dear to you
- write memories down while they're still fresh
- feel free to leave out blurry or duplicate photos
- take a break if it gets too much
If the grief keeps overwhelming you, look for support from someone else too. An album is no substitute for help.
Read also: Scrapbooking through grief and loss
Is scrapbooking used as therapy too?
It's sometimes used as a tool, but scrapbooking isn't therapy in itself. Its elements, though – creative work, looking back and writing – are used in care and support.
A few examples:
- with older people and people with dementia, photos and albums help bring back memories and get conversations going
- in bereavement support, a memory book helps people come to terms with a loss
- writing about what you went through can help reduce stress and sort out what you feel
For you, it can simply be a relaxing hobby. If you're struggling with low mood, anxiety or trauma, it's a lovely addition to help from a professional, but not a replacement.
Who invented collage?
Collage as an art form is usually credited to Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who began pasting paper and other materials into their Cubist work around 1912. Braque stuck wood-grain wallpaper onto a drawing, and Picasso worked a piece of oilcloth into a still life.
But sticking with paper is much older. In Japan, calligraphers were pasting pieces of paper onto the backgrounds of their poems centuries earlier, and in the eighteenth century the Englishwoman Mary Delany made hundreds of flowers out of tiny scraps of paper.
The word collage comes from the French coller, to stick. After the Cubists, the Dadaists among others took it further, with photomontages made from cut-out photos.
Read also: How collage began: from Picasso and Braque to Hannah Höch
What does Mark Twain have to do with scrapbooks?
Mark Twain found pasting things in such a hassle that he designed his own scrapbook, which he patented in 1873. The pages already had a layer of dry glue on them. You only had to moisten it to stick a cutting on, a bit like a stamp.
The scrapbook was sold in several versions and was one of his most successful business ideas. It shows how normal it was in the nineteenth century to keep newspaper cuttings and pictures.
For anyone scrapbooking today, it's mostly a fun fact. The glue back then wasn't acid-free, so old scrapbooks like these discolour and often turn brittle.
Read also: The history of the scrapbook, from Victorian scraps to journals
Why was the scrapbook so popular in the nineteenth century?
Because for the first time there was lots of beautiful, cheap printed material to keep. A new printing technique, chromolithography, brought colourful pictures, cards and advertising prints, and people cut them out and pasted them in en masse.
More and more people could also read, and newspapers and magazines became affordable. Whatever you found beautiful or important, you cut out: poems, articles, recipes.
It was mainly women who kept scrapbooks, as a kind of visual diary. Friends swapped pictures and showed each other their albums. The glossy scraps that later ended up in poetry albums come from that tradition. When photography arrived, photos gradually joined them.
Read also: The history of the scrapbook, from Victorian scraps to journals
How did scrapbooking become a proper hobby?
That happened in the United States in the 1980s. Interest in genealogy and family history was growing, and at the same time people were realising that photos in ordinary albums were fading and getting damaged.
Companies started selling albums and paper that were safe for photos, along with advice on how to make a beautiful page. Workshops, scrapbooking shops, magazines and get-togethers where people worked on their albums side by side followed.
From the 1990s, the hobby spread to Europe, including the Netherlands and Belgium. Later came digital scrapbooking, social media and new forms such as junk journals.
Read also: The history of the scrapbook, from Victorian scraps to journals
Is scrapbooking out of fashion?
No, but it has changed. The peak, with big scrapbooking shops in every town, is over, and at the same time new forms have appeared: junk journals, pocket scrapbooking, travel journals and digital or hybrid scrapbooking.
What remains is the wish to hold on to memories in something you can leaf through. Precisely because photos now mostly live on phones, many people are rediscovering pasting things in.
It comes in waves for individuals too. Many scrappers go years without doing anything and then start again after all, often in a different style or a smaller format than before. That's part of it.
Do you scrapbook for the memories or for the art?
That's up to you, and most scrappers do a bit of both. A large group are mainly memory keepers: the photos and the story come first, and the decoration is only there to show them off.
Others scrapbook mainly for the making itself. They work with paint, stamps and layers, and sometimes don't even use their own photos. That's close to art journaling.
A handy question to ask yourself: do I want someone to understand this in thirty years? Then names, dates and a few sentences matter more than yet another layer of decoration. If it's about enjoying yourself today, it can just as well be purely creative.
Read also: Art journaling: how to get started
Is scrapbooking something you do on your own?
No, it has always been a sociable pastime too. As far back as the nineteenth century, friends showed each other their scrapbooks and swapped pictures.
Today there are several ways to scrapbook together:
- at a crop: an afternoon, evening or weekend when scrappers bring their own supplies and work on pages together
- at home with a few friends, or with your children or grandchildren
- in a club or workshop
- online, by sharing your work and joining in with challenges
Working together often sparks new ideas, and you get more finished than on your own. For a family album, it also helps that others can fill in names and stories.
Read also: Scrapbooking together: crops and crafty afternoons
What is a commonplace book?
A commonplace book is a notebook where you collect everything you find worth keeping: quotes, poems, sayings, recipes, letters and facts. It was popular mainly from the Renaissance onwards with scholars, students and writers.
The difference from a diary: a diary follows the days and is about how you feel, while a commonplace book is organised by subject and meant to be looked things up in later. It often came with keywords and an index.
It's seen as one of the forerunners of the scrapbook and of the modern journal. If you keep a little book of favourite quotes or a bullet journal with collection lists, you're really doing the same thing.
Read also: From commonplace books to autograph albums: the roots of scrapbooks
What is scrapbooking called in Dutch?
There's no set Dutch word for it; most people simply say scrapbooken or scrappen. The older word plakboek comes closest, but that makes people think more of an exercise book full of newspaper cuttings or pictures.
Scrapbook comes from the English scrap, a snippet or leftover, and book. So it's literally a book of cuttings.
Other languages have adopted the English word too. Terms like layout, journaling and embellishments are usually used in English in Dutch as well.
Read also: Scrapbooking terms explained, from brads to vellum
What's the difference between collage, papier collé and assemblage?
The difference lies in the materials and the depth.
- Papier collé: a work made only from pasted paper. The term comes from the work of Braque and Picasso around 1912.
- Collage: the broader term, using paper as well as other materials, such as fabric, photos, paint or drawings. It usually stays flat.
- Assemblage: the three-dimensional version, in which real objects are put together, such as buttons, wood or metal.
You'll come across all three in a scrapbook or journal. A page with only layers of paper is a papier collé, add photos and fabric and it's a collage, and as soon as you stick on chunky objects, you're moving towards assemblage.
Read also: How collage began: from Picasso and Braque to Hannah Höch
Do you need to buy lots of supplies to scrapbook?
No. That idea comes mainly from the industry that has been selling albums, paper and decoration since the 1980s, but at heart all you need is photos, paper, glue, scissors and a pen.
In the past, people simply stuck in whatever they had: newspaper cuttings, cards, pictures and letters. That still works. A junk journal is even built entirely on things you'd otherwise throw away.
Many experienced scrappers warn against the pressure to do it properly with the latest supplies. It's about your story, not your collection. It is smart, though, to use acid-free paper and photo-safe glue for photos, so your album lasts a long time.
Read also: Scrapbooking on a small budget
Do old family scrapbooks have historical value?
Often they do, even if they look messy. An old scrapbook shows what someone found important, which pictures were in fashion and what everyday life looked like. That's rarely written down like that anywhere else.
Even so, many albums get lost, because nobody wants them or because they're awkwardly large and brittle.
What you can do:
- keep the album intact and don't take anything out
- store it somewhere dark and dry, not in the loft or the cellar
- scan or photograph the pages, so the family can look at it without damaging it
- write down what you know about who made it
A local archive or heritage organisation is sometimes interested.
Read also: How to make a family album with old photos and documents
Why do people scrapbook more in uncertain times?
A common explanation is that keeping things gives you something to hold on to. In times of war, illness or fear, people are more likely to keep diaries and scrapbooks, because it lets them bring order to something that's otherwise beyond their control.
Scrapbooking helps with this in a few ways:
- you focus your attention on something small and manageable
- you look at what was good and what stayed
- you record what's happening, for later too
It's not a rule, but you might recognise it in yourself: in a busy or difficult time, an hour of cutting and sticking can bring a lot of calm. Nothing beautiful has to come out of it; the making itself is what counts.