Have you ever stopped to think how much your scrapbooking pages tell about you, your personality, inner emotions, even those which you thought were hidden deep down in your soul?
It’s true, each one of your works, behind the portrayed story, says something regarding your personality and, this is demonstrated through your personal scrapbooking style. Styles and Art Schools were always studied and classified in Art in general and scrapbooking couldn’t be left out. The style of a page could be defined only just as the aspect of its work, the DNA of its page, its atmosphere. It is present from the moment of the colors or garments choice and influences in the way you organize your design, choose your papers and write your “journaling”.
Without forgetting that each scrapbooking page is unique, we can consider the existence of some stylistic lines which are common from one work to another and allows a new classification according to some scrapbooking tendencies.
Having your own style, unique and which is recognizable, is something to be followed by a scrapper because it makes their work a lot easier, even if a change of style with the track of time, the development and learning with new techniques is expected.
Therefore, I chose to show some style lines which can be frequently found in scrapbooking, allowing you to grab a bunch of them, try them, and, at the end, choosing the style which fits your personalities and artistic cravings the most.
Of course that every definition is not perfect and that you might disagree with my classification and even, with the nomenclature presented. Besides, it’s more likely you end up mixing styles and use a particular definition for yourself, but anyway, if you still don’t have a style of your own or if you have the curiosity to study and analyze some artistic works slower, without missing that scrap it’s a hobby, the effort is worth it!
Let’s see then, some scrap tendencies.
Classic Style: this style is centered in a traditional design and has the intention of retaining the observer’s attention to the pictures, which are normally multiple and presented in traditional sizes like 10x15 centimeters or even 8x13 centimeters. The classical artists almost never use crafty techniques, painting or textures on these works and the embellishments, the emphasis, are few. It’s very common double layouts being presented and, the journaling, accomplished with the help of computer sources, is always present. A little variety of papers per page is usually used, with the concern of coordinating specially the colors of the work, which are normally neutral or dark.
Romantic Styles: Shabby Chic, Vintage and Heritage
Those scrapbooking styles normally include many embellishments per page and different products, frequently positioned in a pasting style. They might present a lot of texture, painting and aging techniques.
The shabby chic style was born with an English lady named Rachel Ashwell and says all about a life style focused on a romantic and feminine atmosphere, which includes the room decoration with floral fabrics, Chinese style furniture, a lot of patina and pastel tones.
In scrapbooking, the romantic and sophisticated tendencies adopt the floral theme papers and pastel tones and always involve some painting, garnished with tags, buttons, brads or flowers.
In the vintage style you’re probably going to find embellishments looking like having been extracted from your grandmother’s sewing box including buttons, pearls, ribbons, metals, fibers. This style has the tendency of aging papers and embellishments because the tendency is the valorization of the old, but, with pictures from the present day. 
The heritage style has the intention of making scrapbooking with old pictures, redefining the family history. It differs from the vintage because this one uses pictures from the present day which are aged on purpose to give them a nostalgic and old air.
Free Styles: Crafty, Anything Goes, Eclectic
These are free style nuances. In this artistic line, the creativity rules and, the proposal is totally liberal. So, according to this tendency, styles and materials can be mixed and, it’s simply valid to add any object to the page with everything your imagination can bear and adapt to the work.
It’s possible for art to be done from everything and with everything. The creativity can be seen from the unusual combination of products, colors and techniques.
It’s a scrapbooking style normally linked to art more than to the documentation of memories.
Little is deferred in between, however, I consider that “free style”, to which we commonly refer to in Brazil, is the same definition of eclectic style.
In the crafty style, the presence of accentuated and new techniques can be noticed, with the inclusion of rustic materials, textures and with a lot of space to innovation.
In this work line, the biggest transgression of scrapbooking technnique is that not always the picture has that much importance, because the page layout, the techniques used and the decoration as a whole are part of the artistic mesage from the page. 
In the anything goes style, everything goes! That is, it’s common to evidence the presence of unexpected materials, although manufactured, but were not properly released by the scrap industry and were adapted by the artist to their pages. Therefore, you can paint anything and work any material that fits in the message, let it be from a stationery store, bijou store or a home décor store. In this artistic line, I’ve seen works which included spoons, music disks, and everything in predominantly happy and strong colors. You can do whatever your imagination allows and the blast here is exactly transgress the rules from what, traditionally, wouldn’t be allowed in scrapbooking. In such case, any worry with the insertion of exclusively “acid free” materials doesn’t exist on these works.
Journalistic Style: in this style, the journaling is the central point of the work design. The idea is to create a visual image to the words, which are the central basis of this work and, therefore, occupies a primordial space, overlaying itself to the embellishments and to the pictures. 
Naturalistic Style: this style proposes going back to nature, to the earth tones, to the monochromatic colors. The layouts manufactured in this style can incorporate textures, sandpapered or distressed edges and, are always very clean.
Clean lines Style: in this style, the page layout is well defined by light lines, which can be easily followed by the eyes taking us to the pictures that possess a distinctive place.
Graphic Style: in this style, the aspect of the page has to be strong enough to immediately call your attention, surprising you with interesting and unexpected angles.
Fashion Styles: “hip and trendy”, “retro” and contemporary: they are self intended modern styles from the present time which search their own inspiration in fashion and design tendencies.
The “Hip and Trendy” Style tries to present the latest fashion and design tendencies in fresh and always new layouts inspired in decoration, publicity, television, design and fashion magazines. It’s the contemporaneous style by excellence. 
Retro Style: this style can be inspired in fashion and design which were used in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. On the scrapboo
king layouts inspired in this style, the big flowers, the spirals and the plaid checkered patterns, “Houndsthooth” style, are frequently used. Have you seen how super cool layouts exist, proposing the use of pictures taken with Polaroid cameras and films, etc? They are styles which propose the rescue of tendencies from the past that, reformulated, become very nice and actual.
The Contemporary Style self intends actual, portraying modern tendencies in a clean style, with free and well defined spaces on the page and a tendency to the use of emphasis and strong embellishments.
Biblliography:
And she also wrote me the most beautiful and kind words at the message boards:
"My pick this week is to honor an amazing artist called Larissa.It may not be a LO realated to VD however this is my tribute to a really special scraper that inspires me in so many ways and she have done it for 2 years and I´m always amazed with her creativity.Every new LO she does is just like magic.So this is for you Larissa.Thank you so much for such a beautiful contribution to all of us here at SIStv.extra LUB on this Valentines:) xoxoLucy"
And she also wrote me the most beautiful and kind words at the message boards:
"My pick this week is to honor an amazing artist called Larissa.It may not be a LO realated to VD however this is my tribute to a really special scraper that inspires me in so many ways and she have done it for 2 years and I´m always amazed with her creativity.Every new LO she does is just like magic.So this is for you Larissa.Thank you so much for such a beautiful contribution to all of us here at SIStv.extra LUB on this Valentines:) xoxoLucy"
