Scrapbook My Life

Remember that scrapbooking is about preserving memories, not decorating pages with overpriced embellishments!  When you keep your focus on the photos and journaling, you’ll only need a few simple embellishments to create stunning family keepsakes.

• Simple scrapbooking is the most cost effective style.  Simple Scrapbooks magazine is a good resource for learning how to creating stunning layouts with cardstock and minimal embellishments.
• Print out clip art or images from free digital scrapbooking kits to use as frugal scrapbook accents for your next layout.
• Use journaling as a creative and low cost page embellishment.  Repeat simple journaling such as names and dates across cardstock for a unique and meaningful text background.
• Don’t forget to incorporate memorabilia into your layouts.  Postcards, brochures, and maps add visual interest to your vacation layouts while supplementing your journaling.  Include scanned and reduced copies of your child’s handwriting and artwork in your layouts to help document his or her growth.
• Embellish your pages with clever photo treatments. Create an interesting image by cutting a photo into strips and piercing it back together, leaving thin margins between the strips. You can also try creating a photo mosaic by cutting the photo into a random pattern and piecing it back together in the same manner.
• Get in touch with your artistic side and start doodling on your pages! Stars, circles, flowers, and other simple designs are a cheap and easy way to accent any layout.

Collage is such a fun scrapbook technique. When I’m having a bad day, making a collage brings back memories of elementary school. All that cutting, pasting, and rearranging is tremendously therapeutic.

The key to making a successful collage is to choose embellishments that coordinate with your photo. If you’re planning to frame a picture from your recent European vacation, for example, a map and some stickers of popular landmarks would be great accents for your collage. On a similar note, tiny seashells are a natural thing to include when making a collage background for a layout that showcases a photo of your daughter at the beach.

Of course, collage scrapbooking is also a great frugal way to embellish your layouts. A collage background can incorporate patterned paper scraps, bits of ribbon, leftover buttons, mismatched eyelets and brads, or extra silk flowers from your last project. Just remember to adhere your collage elements from top to bottom, left to right to avoid smudges, smears, and glue spills!

Even though brads seem to have replaced eyelets as the “go to” embellishment choice for scrapbookers, I still have a TON of eyelets left to use in my pages. Lately, I’ve taken to randomly pounding them into my patterned paper background for an extra bit of texture and dimension. If I find I don’t have enough of the same color, I simply coat a bunch of random eyelets with the acrylic paint of my choice. It’s a time consuming process, but it feels good to use old supplies and make room for some of those cool new items I keep seeing advertised.

Here’s a few general tips for working with eyelets:

• If you’re nervous about using eyelets to adhere vellum journaling to your layout, try creating your journaling block using an extra piece of matching background paper, then attaching the block to your layout after the eyelets have been set. As an added bonus, this will sandwich the rough edges of the back of the eyelets between two layers of paper.
• If you’ve ever pounded on the back of an eyelet and turned the project over to find that the front has warped, place an old mousepad on top of your self healing mat. The extra layer of cushioning will prevent further distortions.

Buttons are excellent embellishment choices for the frugal scrapbooker. You can buy a huge bag of buttons at your local craft store or simply get in the habit of cutting off extra buttons from your family’s old clothes. Children’s clothing often has a variety of nice buttons that can be used in your scrapbook pages, for example. Flat buttons are the ideal embellishment option, but you can also purchase a button shank remover if you find a decorative button you wish to use in your project.

While I love using buttons on my scrapbook layouts, I hate to sew! Instead of sewing buttons to a page, sew thread through button and knot. Use glue dots to adhere button to page. Or, if you’re feeling really lazy, just use the glue dot and save yourself some time!

Once you’ve been scrapbooking for awhile, many of the embellishments you find at your local craft store start to look the same.  So, you force yourself to get creative in the search for the next cool thing to jazz up your layout. Here are some of the unusual embellishments I’ve collected recently:

• A cake topper that says “Super Dad” for a Father’s Day page
• A Batman flying disc from a cereal box for a page about my son’s Batman costume
• Ribbon from a Bath and Body Works gift basket for a page about my favorite things
• Textured paint chips to use for a custom background
• A butterfly sticker that came with some junk mail

While collecting interesting odds and ends for your scrapbook is a fun frugal pastime, remember that not all of these items may be acid free. Use caution whenever you’re working with nontraditional supplies and irreplaceable family photos.

Stamping can be a great way to add frugal embellishments to your scrapbook layout. Invest in a set of alphabet stamps and some general floral or geometric designs to create an endless amount of looks for your scrapbooking projects.

Unfortunately, the technique of scrapbooking and rubber stamping does require a bit of practice. Stamping directly on your layout can be a nerve wracking experience. For this reason, I still prefer to stamp on a separate piece of cardstock, then glue it to my sheet. Then, if I make a mistake, I haven’t destroyed the entire project.

However, if you would like to include stamping on a layout but aren’t sure of the proper placement, apply chalk to the stamp and stamp where you’d like your image to appear. If you like what you see, use your regular inkpads. If not, just erase the image and start over!

Since I’m trying to be a thrifty scrapbooker, I make an effort to use all of my supplies to their full advantage. For example, I keep scraps of cardstock and patterned paper filed by color in a special folder that I refer to whenever I’m at work. Here are some of my favorite techniques for working with these scraps:

• Punch out circles, squares, and other shapes from your paper, then arrange on a sheet of white cardstock for a customized background.
• Cut out flowers or other designs from your paper. Mount them on your layout with foam adhesive for an instant and very cheap embellishment.
• Make an envelope to use as a pocket for memorabilia on your page.
• Layer torn strips of coordinating papers on top of a photo mat for an artistic look.
• If you’re not wild about a particular pattern, flip it over and use the white side as a surface for journaling or rubber stamping.

If you’ve ever been to your local Hobby Lobby or inside the nearest scrapbook supply store, you’ve probably noticed that there are a plethora of scrapbook adhesives to choose from.

At the bare minimum, a beginning scrapbooker needs an adhesive for working with photos and patterned paper as well as some sort of method for adhering dimensional embellishments. I like glue sticks for my general purpose adhesive because they’re cheap and easy to use, although photo tabs are another option to consider as well. For dimensional embellishments, I tend to alternate between glue dots and the super-sticky double sided tape that you can also use for adhering microbeads to your page.

For the serious scrapbooker, a Xyron adhesive machine can be a wonderful tool. This nifty gadget allows you to turn any flat item into your own homemade sticker. If you have a die cut machine such as the Cricut, the Xyron is the easiest way to make sure you have an even coat of adhesive on the more intricate letters. Xyron adhesive machines are available in a number of sizes, ranging from the smallest “X’ machine to models that can handle paper several inches in length. Since the refill price increases with the size of the machine, choose the smallest one necessary to accommodate the size of die cuts you plan to use.

Since new scrapbook patterned papers are released on an almost daily basis, it’s no surprise that most scrapbooking enthusiasts accumulate paper faster than they can use it. If you’re like me and your scrapbook style is constant evolving, some of this paper probably no longer fits your needs. Here a few ideas to make the most of the excess:

• Paint it with acrylic craft paint.
• Stamp a design over the background.
• Add doodling for a whimsical touch.
• Sand it for a distressed look.
• Give modern paper a heritage feel by misting it with a coat of walnut ink.
• Crumple the paper, then smooth it out to add a hint of texture.
• Tear it into strips before gluing it down to make a multicolored collage background.
• Use circle or square punches to isolate interesting parts of the design, then rearrange the shapes onto a solid colored background.

If you can’t find a way to make your paper work on your layout, try flipping it over to use the white side for matting photos or printing journaling blocks.

Scrapbooking is a fun and enjoyable hobby, but shopping for supplies can get very expensive. I find myself wanting to buy every pretty paper and embellishment that catches my eye, but restraint is necessary if I have any hope of sticking to my family budget!

The key to smart shopping is to watch for sales, compare prices, and only buy products you’ll actually use.  Here are a few tips to consider during your next trip:

• Scrapbooking supplies fall into two categories: consumables like patterned paper or stickers and non-consumables like punches or rubber stamps.  In most cases, non-consumable supplies are the better bargain, even if they cost more initially.  For example, a set of alphabet stamps in a versatile font can be used repeatedly, while a sheet of alphabet stickers can only be used on a limited number of pages.
• Invest in a quality paper trimmer.  It may eat up a lot of your budget in the beginning, but you’ll save money by not having to replace poorly made trimmers that break and don’t cut straight.  Plus, with a good paper trimmer you won’t waste paper by cutting crooked photo mats and journaling blocks.
• Cardstock is almost always cheaper than patterned paper.  Use cardstock as a background for your layouts with smaller amounts of patterned paper as decorative accents.  Cardstock is cheapest when purchased in multi-packs, but when you’re buying by the sheet remember that lighter colors will generally cost less than darker shades because of the dyes used in the printing process. 
• Buy basics in bulk whenever possible.  Stock up on plain vellum, adhesives, and commonly used embellishments like eyelets or metal-rimmed tags when you can find a good sale. QVC is a great place to purchase your favorite embellishments in bulk. 
• Only purchase themed scrapbooking supplies as you need them for specific layouts.  Neutral supplies are the most versatile purchases.  Also, don’t forget to take your pictures with you when shopping for a specific layout.  An embellishment that seems “just right” at the store often looks “all wrong” once you place it next to your photographs.
• Create a filing system to save the receipts for your scrapbooking purchases.  Then, if you later decide you don’t want or need an item, you’ll be able to return it without a hassle.