Winter Scrapbooking - Creating a Winter Wonderland Scrapbook

by Sharon Olvera

Scrapbooking Your Winter Solstice

Winter scrapbooking themes and layouts are a spectacular way to envelope the spirit of the solstice season into your celebrations. Ever thought about creating your own winter wonderland scrapbook? What does your winter solstice mean to you? Winter brings many wonders, including the rain, bare trees, and sometimes a clear, cold night sky blanketing the earth with heavenly lights.

For astronomers and others, the connection between astronomical events and the season held great importance. Archaeological sites such as New Grange in Ireland and Stonehenge in Britain are two examples of the stories that have grown up around our understandings of the winter season. Similarly, we build our own meanings into the pages of our winter scrapbook of what this winter season means to us.

Winter scrapbooking usually brings on thoughts of the holidays, the most prominent among others, being Christmas, New Years, and Valentines Day. These, of course, are sprinkled with many other celebrations such as Chanukah, Kwanza, Epiphany, President's Day, and Ash Wednesday. Touching on, for the most part, the three most recognized holidays (or etymologically speaking, "holy days,") in our winter scrapbooking, will be Christmas, New Years and Valentines Day. The scrapbooking projects ought to be applicable to any given holiday though. Again, as the focus is on creating a winter wonderland scrapbook, consider in what way your own holiday holds meaning for you and how you can show that in your page. Following are some idea sparkers.

Check out these winter scrapbooking projects for Christmas.

Not sure what to do with old Christmas and other holiday cards? Create scrapbooking gifts tags for the next year. Cut out the front of the card in creative shapes, like stars, letters, toys and more. Write to and from on the back. Cut out the main picture on the card (such as Santa or the Nativity), punch a hole in it and tie to your packages.

Not sure how you can afford the stamps for sending cards this season? With some creative scrapbooking, you can make post-cards out of those old cards (whether holiday, birthday, anniversary or other). It can be pretty, humorous, whatever you want it to be.

You can also make gift bags for the following year as well as scrapbooking embellishments, table place cards and tree ornaments for your next holiday party.

Finally, you could donate your cards for scrapbooking and other craft projects to local schools, senior centers, church groups, a local scrapbook club, and various youth centered groups such as the girl and boy scouts of America.

New Years Scrapbooking

New Years winter scrapbooking projects include creating a scrapbooking timeline or what has also been called a time-capsule. Included in this year in review for your scrapbook might be headlines of important news events of the past year, receipts showing the price of various grocery items such as milk and bread, brochures or postcards from family vacations, your children's drawings and any other type of memorabilia to capture the vintage moment of that present time.

Ideas for your scrapbooking treasures can involve your best and worst memories, a favorite movie, past-time, and major milestones. Scrap your New Year's resolutions and the hopes and dreams for the coming year. Use photos in your scrapbooking timeline as you photograph your home, car, clothes, furniture pieces and hairstyles.

Valentines Day Scrapbooking Ideas

The month of February brings with it the celebration of Valentines Day. There exist many things about this day to love. Here are a few Valentines Day scrapbooking ideas to consider for your Valentines Day scrapbook or for a valentine gift idea.

Find a photograph. The photo does not have to have been taken on Valentine's Day. One from another occasion of the both of you will work just fine. For instance, I have a photo of my husband and me at my sister's wedding reception before we were married. That would be a lovely picture in a Valentines Day scrapbook page.

Choose a page title. Pick something, for example, from a favorite or popular love song, a phrase from a poem or a novel or use common terms like Soul-mates, Sweethearts, I Love You, and Be Mine.

Choose romantic page elements such as hearts or roses. Other scrapbooking elements for a romantic theme would be white lace, satin ribbon, red bows or Victorian-style accents. For an entirely different project I used small dried roses in a layout and it turned out beautiful. These elements work well when you are working with shadowboxes.

Add color. Red is a popular color for Valentine's Day. For something different, try more white and pink using red or even black as an accent. Scenes from Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink come to mind for ideas in color and colorful phrases.

Add your Valentines Day cards for decoration. Make a pocket on the page for holding the cards you gave to each other. Include your children's Valentine Cards and how they feel about the holiday as well. Return to it and read the sentiments inside anytime you want.

This next one is a favorite of mine. Write love letters. Do this through journaling in your Valentine layout. Use title ideas for prompts in your scrapbook journaling. Also include handwritten love letters given at any time of the year or further back. A form of this idea I have on one of my scrapbook pages. During the time my husband and I were dating, we left quick little notes to each other using photos from Webshots in our emails. I saved these and put them on at least a couple pages of my scrapbook. I used the phrase "You've Got Mail" from a movie title with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Finally, dedicate a page in your winter wonderland scrapbook to your Valentine expressing the reasons why you love him or her.

Again, in your winter scrapbooking quest, whatever you choose to reminisce in your winter wonderland scrapbook, remember that it is your winter solstice you are scrapbooking and journaling about. Let these ideas inspire you this winter season to create a dialogue between you and those you love or at least open awareness to your own thoughts and feelings. Happy Scrapping!

Sharon Olvera is passionate about all things scrapbooking and feels strongly that family memories are very important and worth preserving properly. She started scrapbooking in the year 2000, beginning with family photos of her much loved nieces and nephews. She believes one of the most important things in life is to remember and be remembered and that is, in part, what scrapbooking is about.