How to Digitize Old Scrapbook Pages (and Why It’s Worth It)

Confession: making scrapbooks is hard for me.

I’m a technical editor by training. I’m the one making sure every I is dotted and every T is crossed. Designing with an “ooh, that looks good” mindset? Really hard. All of my books are fairly basic. Pocket sheet protectors were a lifesaver.

It’s hard for me to finish one scrapbook page. And I have 5 children. Somewhere along the way (maybe #3) I realized that the “How My Parents Met” sections of the baby books are exactly the same. I started wondering, “How can I duplicate this for each kid? I need a scrapbook scanning service or something!”

So when I tell you I digitize scrapbook albums now, know that it isn’t because they’re works of art. It’s because of what happens when people open them.

Why do scrapbooks matter more than how they look?

Somewhere along the way, in all those years of scrapbook retreats, I realized it wasn’t about what the book looked like. It was about slowing down to make it. To recall the memories.

Then I’d come home from the weekend and watch my children want to see what I made. That was my wake-up call. They didn’t pay attention to the design. They didn’t check whether the colors matched. Nope. They looked at the pictures, and the pictures triggered stories, and they told those stories and relived the memory.

Our daughter is 11 years younger than our oldest. There are scrapbooks from events she wasn’t even alive for. But her brothers have told and retold some of those stories so many times, she can walk you through the books as if she was there, front and center.

If I had to grab one in a fire? The year of road trips. We took road trips nearly every year, but there was one year that we took several: to visit colleges, to visit DC, to visit family in two or three states across the country, and stopping to see friends along the path. That’s the one I would grab.

What should I do with all my old scrapbooks?

When I talk with women in workshops and consults, I hear a few different worries.

“Who gets them?” Families like mine wonder this. I can’t split the books up or photocopy them for each child. So who becomes the keeper of the memories?

“I know where they are… until I don’t.” You move. You pack the scrapbook box. You know exactly where it is. Then the boxes and the decisions pile up, and there’s the Room of Boxes you’ve been unpacking for, well, too long. And now you have no idea where the scrapbooks went.

“How do I share what I inherited?” A friend recently inherited her mother’s scrapbooks. They’re gorgeous and creative, and some are unfinished. Now she’s carrying the job of keeping them, finishing them, and sharing them with her own kids, her siblings, and their children. “How? What are my options?!” On top of losing a parent, it’s a heavy load.

As I helped a senior member of our extended family relocate, we were flustered as we came across old scrapbooks, like vintage-level I didn’t know these existed! Digitizing is the way to preserve old scrapbooks, especially for the genealogist in the family.

Every one of those worries gets lighter when the pages are digitized.

Can you scan 12×12 scrapbook pages at home?

You can. It’s just not easy.

I thought the quality would be fine, but the color doesn’t always come through well. If the scanner’s resolution isn’t high, reprinting the pages feels like doing the images a disservice. Good scanners are pricey, and the whole process is time consuming.

And I’m a stickler for things being level. The slightest degree off and I’m redoing a page. Multiple times. The plastic sleeves can affect the scan too.

It’s just… cumbersome and frustrating.

How do I digitize scrapbook pages without scanning them myself?

Send them out. FOREVER has a Scrapbook Pages Box made for 12×12 pages: you pack your pages, mail them in, FOREVER scans them, and your pages come back to you. The digital files are yours to keep, share, and print.

Is it safe to mail my scrapbook pages away?

“What if they don’t come back?” That’s the biggest fear I hear.

But the real question, to me, is: what’s the alternative? Leave them on the shelf? Risk losing them forever?

There’s a level of trust involved. There’s a level of trust in everything. Like I tell my kids: we can wash the produce and cook the meat a few extra minutes, but we can’t control it all. There’s a reason we pray over our food. Do you trust that prayer or not?

Same goes for the scrapbook.

Besides, once your pages make the first trip, they’re digitized. Even if something happened on the way home, the memories are saved.

What can I do with scrapbook pages once they’re digital?

• Share them. Send links to the kids, the siblings, the cousins. Everyone gets the whole book, not a photocopy. When you have a way to back up scrapbooks, no one is left out and everyone can print as they’d like!
• Keep them safe. Store them in your FOREVER account, and you can name a manager who can access them should you not be able to.
• Print them. With the digital file, everyone can print what they want, whenever they want, in the size they want (perhaps they want an 8×8 instead of a 12×12).
• Make something new. Depending on the layout, a page can become a fun print or a photo gift.

But more than anything, you can breathe easy. Your pages are preserved AND available for more people to enjoy, beyond the holidays when everyone is together.

My children aren’t always home for the holidays. But if they can recall our holidays with their own families, across the country or across the globe, what a gift!

Where do I start?

Pick one book. The one you’d grab in a fire.

And if you’d rather talk it through first, book a complimentary photo consult. We’ll figure out your next step together.

Book a free photo consult

Let’s get there sooner (because someday is not a strategy).