While you certainly don't want to cut up a precious childhood blanket or your grandmother's lace tablecloth, or chop down the cool tree you found during your hike, including the textures from these objects on your scrapbook layouts can make you feel like you're there! It's simple to scan or photograph these textures and overlay them onto photos in order to enhance the emotions of the stories you're telling. Here are just a few examples from Deena Wuest of how both hard and soft textures, overlayed onto photos, can enhance your scrapbooks.

Fleece

A child's favorite blanket makes a wonderful texture for enhancing stories about him or her, particularly tender moments with family members.

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For more story-enhancing soft textures overlayed onto photos, check out Scrapbooking Tips & Tricks: Texture.

Dirt

If your child participates in an outdoor sport such as skateboarding, include a tire track or other texture on your layout in order to bring the gritty, exciting feel of the sport to mind whenever you look at the layout.

Determined by Deena Wuest.

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Trees

Tree bark and the inside of tree stumps are other outdoor objects with edgy textures that can help you add a sense of movement to your sports photos.

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Metal

Embossed or printed metal, like that found on patio furniture, can add an Impressionistic garden party appeal to your flower photos.

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Distressed Wood

The next time you visit a historical site or a rustic cabin, take a close photo of the building you're in. These weathered wood textures will bring an eye-catching vintage edge to the photos of your trip.

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Rusted Metal

When searching for hard textures to incorporate into your photos, look at the color as well as the texture. The colors will show through in your photo, often with intriguing results. Rust, for example, makes for richly colored photos with a distressed, nostalgic feel.

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Be sure to check out our How to Overlay Scanned Textures tutorial to learn how you too can incorporate scanned and photographed textures onto your layouts!