When you’re just starting out in scrapbooking you may be a little leery of cropping your photos. Quite to the contrary, some may be a little over zealous when cropping.

Either way, there are a few simple guidelines you can follow when deciding whether or not to crop your photos.

First on my list may seem simple, but begs to be said again, never crop a Polaroid. There are chemicals inside that can do a lot of damage. Second, if you’re worried about making a mistake you can always make copies of your photo beforehand.

Third, it’s best to use straight edge scissors or another straight edge cutting tool to make your initial crop. After you made your first crop then you can go in with the decorative edgers to make any frilled edges you may want.

When cropping to clean up a photo there are a few important things to remember. Probably the most important is to crop out anything that will detract from the subject.

You don’t want the laundry basket in the corner stealing your baby’s spotlight. Another good reason for cropping is to eliminate any “empty” space in your photos.

This type of paper trimmer is also good for those of us who don’t have a steady hand or who are fairly new to scrapbooking and are concerned with making mistakes.

Although you may think cropping is used only to get rid of unwanted elements of your photos, there are other reasons. One of them is to size-down a photo to fit in a layout.

Another is to change the shape of a photo. Perhaps you want an oval or heart-shaped photo to go with your theme. Maybe you want to remove harsh corners or you simply want to add a bit of flair to just certain areas of your photos.

For these occasions there are several tools on the market that make quick accurate work of the job.

Remember that every new skill we learn takes time to develop.