THE CRAFT OF SCRAPBOOKING Creating a scrapbook is one of the most powerful ways to celebrate our lives and the lives of loved ones. And the occasions for making a memory album are endless: the joyous birth of a new baby, a romantic, elegant wedding, a long-awaited move to a new house, a fun-filled family vacation, a child's carefree summer at camp, a tribute to a dedicated school group, a pet that's really like a member of the family, and most enduring of all, the preservation of the memory of those you love in a family album that is built over many years. Any event or person close to your heart, any occasion that you especially cherish - all provide perfect reasons to start planning a beautiful, archival album that will ensure that your memories will be preserved for all the years to come. Before you even begin to approach the construction of a scrapbook, remember this: Enjoy yourself. You don't have to be an accomplished craftsperson to reproduce any of the projects in this book. Don't worry about making your album "perfect." And don't feel that you have to do everything at once. Begin by just getting the photo-filled shopping bags out of the closet one afternoon.

That's all. The next day, you can take all the photographs out of one bag and begin to sort them into categories. You can sort pictures by even ("Judy's Wedding," "Our Trip to the Coast." "The Smith Family Reunion") or by subject ("Our New Home" "The Three Jones Sisters," "Angela Learns to Cook," "Mom," "The Elm Street Church Choir"). If you're a photography buff, you might want to organize your pictures into broad categories, such as portraits, landscapes, or animals. As for the "right time," well, there is no right time. There's only your time. You can designate one day a year for uninterrupted scrapbook making.

Or maybe one day isn't enough and you want scrapbook making to become an ongoing part of your life. Perhaps you'll want to set aside every Sunday to do some scrapbooking. Or, who knows? You might be so bitten by the scrapbooking needs and desires, and you will create a schedule that fits your lifestyle. Whatever your level of interest or enthusiasm, you should congratulate yourself for having gotten the ball rolling. Excerpted from Scrapbook Workshop. Copyright c1998 by Cynthia Hart. Reprinted with permission by Workman Publishing.