Scrapbooking Hints and Tips
09 May 2011
Scrap booking is fun. There is no doubt about it. It’s a fantastic way to preserve your memories and at a similar time exploring your creative side. Listed below are some excellent ideas and methods that I’ve picked up over the years that I hope can enhance your scrapbooking experience.
Scrapbooking kits. If you’re a beginner, kits are a wonderful way to get started. There is a vast variety of them available at crafts stores. Most packages include scrapbooking paper, die cuts, stickers and everything necessity for a certain layout. Some scrapbooking kits create a page, though others can construct an whole album. All you need to do is add the photographs. In either case, it’s a stellar way to jump right in.
Child Scrapbooks. One of the most popular types of scrapbooking album is the baby book. There are heaps of embellishments available for infants : stickers, die cuts, paper, everything you need to put a book together in no time. Infants grow up fast, ensure you capture each second in a scrapbooking album.
Lettering: If your intention is to have your letter stickers go on in a straight line, use a plastic ruler, make a fine line with a pencil. Put your letters on the line and delete the pencil mark after complete. I like my letters crooked which lets my creativity fly and I don’t have to ever fear making a mistake.
Rubber Stamps. I not long ago found the rubber stamp, and now I have quite a collection. You can use letter stamps to create messages, or just stamp on a phrase which describes the page. It is easy to coordinate the color of the stamp to the shade of your page. It is possible to purchase stamps in different shapes, one of my favorites is the dog paw print that I use all across the page to look like my dog walked all over it. The options are endless.
Organization, I may go on and on about this subject, but I’ll give simply a couple of details which work for me. I use 3 ring binders to keep a lot of my stickers and die cuts. I use plastic pencil holders with zippers to keep my larger die cuts. I use business card holder or baseball card holders to organize my stickers. I use accordion file holders to keep my paper. I use fish tackle boxes to keep pencils, pens and stickers. I arrange my photos in photo containers by date.
I find that often I need a little extra area when I’m putting a scrapbook together. I get out my ironing board and adjust it to the height of my desk and use it to store things that I want within my reach.
Last but not least, my favorite tip. I save the large 12 x 12 inch cardboard filler papers which come with scrapbooking hinged pages and page protectors. I use them as page layouts for each of my pages. I layout all the pictures (trimmed), stickers, die cuts, etc, that I want to use on the page as if I was making the page, and then stack the next cardboard page on top. This way I can lay out a variety of pages, or an whole album prior to committing anything to the page. I find it less difficult for me to put all the page ideas together and afterwards create the actual album.