The start of scrapbooking ...

[fifecat]

Can anyone tell me how, where and when scrapbooking got started?

I'd love to know!

Anne

[scrapJ]

Apparently Queen Victoria was an avid scrapbooker.

[Kel_eh]

Definitely the thing to do amongst Victorian 'ladies' collecting pretty snippets, quotes, flowers, images. And very nice photo albums with frames cutout ready to slide photos into.

Kel x

[wombat]

This was a question in a competition recently and if I remember correctly it was Germany before queen vics time

[cw18]

not sure if this is any use, but found it on an information site...


Did you know that you have something in common with Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and President Rutherford B. Hayes? That's right. Scrapbooks. Perhaps you have your grandmother's or grandfather's albums. They may not resemble the books you create today in look and feel, but you might be surprised at the similarities. Before copy machines, earlier generations cut articles from newspapers and saved labels, greeting cards and illustrations for their books. They called them common-place books, friendship albums, and scrapbooks.

How old is the scrapbooking tradition? Although no one is really sure, scrapbooks probably have their origin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The word "scrapbook" first appeared in the late eighteenth century. It is derived from the brightly colored paper called scrap that filled the albums of that time. Scrap such as product labels and greeting cards could be collected or even purchased from specialty shops carrying albums and scrap for the scrapbook mania of the late nineteenth century. If you want to see actual copies of these early scrapbooks, many library archives have collections of them. Compare your scrapbooks to their earlier counterparts to learn more about your grandmother's album, or to discover new ways to approach your own albums.

[Bohokitty]

Do you know, i honestly thought i had sort of invented it!!!! (The arrogance of the child) I did scrapbooks and albums when i was wee childy scrapperette, then i really went wild as i got older using allsorts of crazy things in my holiday albums............................................ ................................ then i found it is a fully fledged olympian SPORT! with something called STASH available for me to BUY!!!! so, the answer to your question is - me! (sort of) I started it. x

[fifecat]

LOL Bohokitty - somebody's got to start things and why should it not be you? Stake that claim!

BTW does anyone remember the scraps you used to buy in newsagents - the best ones were the blue and pink angels. I collected them a bit but grew depressed after a bigger girl brought a HUGE bag full to school. My collection looked so puny I gave up after that. I don't remember anyone putting them in albums, though.

[browneyes]

I remember collecting scraps and putting them in a book and then "swapping" then with my friends trying to make up sets. Am I giving my age away here

[fifecat]

LOL, I think you may very well be giving your age away! Know how you feel though.

[Kel]

I had heard it was something to do with Mormons having to keep records of their families, correct me if Im wrong!?