Remember those photo albums with the plastic sheets you pulled back to reveal a hard board covered with lines of sticky glue? You'd place your pictures on the sticky line board, and then smooth the plastic sheet back over the pictures. That was pretty much the extent of creativity when it came to putting together photo albums years ago. Times have certainly changed!

First of all, photographs and the way they're taken have changed considerably. Gone are the days of the little Kodak Brownie camera, carried in an old fashioned camera case, giving us a roll of black and white prints to be developed and carefully placed in our photo album. The digital camera allows us to see the the image before we take the actual shot and edit out the unwanted photographs. And, the quality of the photographs we are able to produce today, with our personal cameras, are of professional quality.

Even the name has changed. Today it's called scrapbooking and it's possibilities are limitless, restricted only by ones imagination and creativity. In fact, there are very few similarities between the photo albums of yesterday and the pages of scrapbooking of today. One similarity is that they both contain photographs, however, today's photos are more then likely taken with a digital camera. Another likeness is that they both are chronicles of memories put together lovingly with the intention of passing on those memories to future generations. That's pretty much were they really begin to differ; where the incredible creativity of scrapbooking begins to shine.

On your next vacation, pack your camera case with your digital camera and accessories and fill those memory cards with priceless photographic treasures. Once you get them home, the true fun begins. Sort the photos deciding which ones you want to work with. Depending upon how many pages you plan on making from your group of pictures, choose some key photos to use as the focal picture for each page. Then match as many of the remaining pictures with each central picture as you'd like. This is a good time to layout each page, as you're selecting your photos, keeping in mind that you have plenty of time to make changes before securing the photos to the page.

You'll want to choose colors that will compliment your photo content. Using more than 3 colors on a page tends to detract from the picture and causes the page to appear "busy"; try to stay with 2 to 3 colors. Matting your pictures gives your pages a finished, professional appearance. Your mat colors are also very important. You may want to consider using neutral colors for matting, such as black or white, to avoid overkill with your color scheme.

One of the things that definitely sets scrapbooking apart from a run-of-the-mill photo album is "journaling". It adds another element. The pictures and the words tell the "whole" story. This is very important when you begin sorting you old family pictures. The journaling tells the history and leaves a legacy that you can pass down to future generations.

Once you've been bitten by the scrapbooking bug, you'll be taking that camera bag full of equipment everywhere you go. Don't miss any opportunity to capture an unforgettable photograph that you could make into a beautiful page in your scrapbook. When you walk out the door, have your camera case with you.