Scrapbooking for Caregivers

• Plan your craft experience around the abilities of the care recipient. Don’t attempt to do too much in one session—a page at a time, or perhaps a card instead—and don’t get frustrated if the person doesn’t participate very much in the actual scrapbooking process. “If they have dementia, they may get distracted or not remember stories about the pictures,” Cotton says. Of if they have a physical illness, they may tire easily or even fall asleep. But they may also enjoy watching you work, or looking over the page you’ve created.
• Choose a theme. Rather than attempt to scrapbook a shoebox-full of photos that have been squirreled away in a closet for 20 years, be selective. Choose a few photos that revolve around a special theme—a wedding or anniversary, a holiday gathering, a favorite vacation or another event. If you’d like to do a memory book (usually a small-size scrapbook commemorating someone’s life), chose a couple of photos from each decade of a person’s life and create pages around the snapshots, suggests Stacy Croninger, former editor-in-chief of PaperCrafts Magazine (www.papercraftsmag.com). Often, the photos will help you decide the color of paper you’d like to use to cover the page or as matting for the photos (a process of adhering a photo to a piece of paper leaving a border around it, to make the picture stand out on the page). For instance, if you pull out a photo of your family opening Christmas presents, you might opt for a red and green color scheme. Just be sure to choose colors that complement those in the photograph.
• Start a page with a main photo and build from there. Add a title to the page and the person’s name in pen, with stickers or rub-on lettering. Add additional photos (most scrapbook pages have three to five photos on them). Then jot down a few notes about the photos, or mix in a ticket stub, newspaper article or a letter the person wrote or received that relates to the theme. “I find that an odd number of elements on a page looks better than an even number,“ says Croninger.  Before you paste anything down, check that the design moves naturally from one element to another. You want your eye first to go to a focal point—usually your main photo—and then travel in a natural flow that mimics the letter Z, according to Creating Keepsakes magazine (www.creatingkeepsakes.com).
• Mix it up. Don’t just cut paper and photos, tear them into irregular shapes for a textured look. Add different size mats to your photos.  Place type on the page both horizontally and vertically. Set items off-center and on the diagonal.
• Add embellishments. Fancy up the page with ribbons, metal charms, rubber-stamped images, die cutouts and buttons.
• Sign the project. Record the date and the names of the people who worked on the project so you’ll remember how you felt and what you shared while creating it.

Tools of the Trade