Book Review- Start Scrapbooking

I have a secret to tell all of you.
I don't scrapbook. I want to, take tons of pictures, plan layouts in my head and occasionally buy scrapbooking magazines. But I don't actually scrapbook.
So that's where the book Start Scrapbooking comes in. It's written for beginners, for people who are just getting interested in preserving memories more artistically and in more detail than just keeping boxes or SD cards full of photographs.
The book starts with an introduction to scrapbooks, what scrapbooking means past just putting pictures into an album, some of the reasons to scrapbook and some of the things you could make a scrapbook for. Important memories, friendship, events.
The next chapter is about the tools to get started. Punches, cutters, papers, embellishments, brads, adhesives and album types and how to use them. Lots of great photographs and explanations.
Chapter 3 is about journaling, which is an important part of modern scrapbooks. Telling the story you want to preserve with your images. A message written with a photo of a child of what you were thinking or feeling, or what they felt. A quote, a quip, a bit more detail. The author shows a bunch of different ways to do it in both style and format.
Chapter 4 covers designing a layout. Showing how balance, color and everything else work together to create the mood or memory you want to preserve.
Chapter 5 is all about bringing together all the elements to work in themes.
The book has resources through it, a lot of ideas, and for me, it was a great introduction. It wasn't overwhelming. Some of the most effective layouts are very simple and seeing how they go together is inspiring.
There isn't a specific chapter on digital scrapbooking, but the same principles apply if you have a graphics program you are comfortable in.
The book is available from the publisher, Memory Makers Magazine, along with a lot of tips and techniques that are on the website, or you can get it from Amazon.com below. The link is an affiliate link and helps pay some of the costs of maintaining this site.