Scrapbooking Made Simple

When looking at the tools I've purchased I think the best buys I've made, the ones that I use alot are as follows: 1. Craft knife (this gets alot of use, especially when I'm cutting chipboard off old notebooks etc and only cost $2.00) 2. The Friskars cutting system (I got a Circle, Diamond, Rectangle, Alphabet and Numbers templates witht the cutting blade and self healing cutting mat for $49.99 and I use this all the time, especially for titles) 3. Making Memories Alphabet Stamps (This was around $24.99 but is well worth it cause you can use paint or ink on these stamps to create some great titles) 4. Heidi Swapp edge distresser (This was $2.00 and even though I've only had it a few days I can see lots of layouts getting this treatment) 5. Creative Memories Wave Cutter (This is a fabulous cutter, it creates a really clean cut line very easily. It is a little more expensive than other cheaper brands at $34.00 but it lasts alot longer!) 6. Set of Inks and Frame Stamps (Th...

Well Christmas is over. I love Christmas. It's my favourite time of year. I especially love what it does for my scrapbooking supplies . This year I was obviously a very good girl cause Santa (aka fabulous hubby) bought me some stamps and inks , an eyelet setter , a new paper cutter (with several blades so I can do fold lines , wavy lines and even zig zag lines !) I also got some letter stickers and some embellishments. So all in all I did quite well. Then I went through the rubbish from the packaging the kids presents came in and discovered a few fantastic storage devices . From one of the presents there were several boxes I'll use for off the page projects and then my son got a packet of several cars that came in an excellent clear plastic box with dividers. This is my new storage device for scraps of ribbon and fibre. I prefer to use clear plastic storage devices whenever possible as they allow me to see whats inside easily for quick location of the supply I'm se...

Well I haven't posted for a little while. Due to a combination of problems. My husband is always on the computer... getting ready and organised for Christmas and I'm suffering a summer flu at present. I haven't stopped scrapping though and will have some layouts to show you in the next couple of days. Anyway yesterday I did my favourite kind of scrapping. Scrapping with a Friend. I'm really very lucky. I have a girlfriend I've known since the fourth grade who has kids the same ages as mine (roughly). So we try and scrapbook at each others places and let the kids play together while we do it. So yesterday Chris came over and I showed her the tools I got from my hubby for my birthday and she gave them all a go. Unfortunately she now wants all of them too! The thing I love about this kind of scrapbooking.... even though I rarely get a layout finished at one of these sessions is the chance to look through her work and get ideas. I love the shabby chic and distressed to...

I recently went on a lovely holiday to the Sunshine Coast (home of Steve Irwin , recently deceased) with my family..... My husband took some photos' and I foraged some shells and then I put this layout together. This is a very cheap layout as it uses alot of scraps of paper from other projects and some stickers from a gift I was given.... then there's the shells.. FREE..... so all in all its a very cheap layout.... Hope you like it! I'd love to see some other ideas for beach layouts.

This layout was done by Anne of Virginia. I'm posting it because I thought it would give you all ideas of innovative ways to use only paper in your layouts so you achieve a very cheap page.

I noticed on alot of the message boards that people were unsure how to start a page. Most Newbies' mentioned that they had their photo's and would pull out all their supplies they'd hoarded and sit and look at them helplessly then put them all away again. SO... I decided the best way to help was to do a video showing you how I plan a page, how I match my papers, pick my theme etc etc... I hope you find this useful and it gets you over the hump as it were and gets you scrapping.\

I'm often asked how I find the time to scrapbook? I think the keys here are to have a space you can leave a layout in progress sitting on. I also find the 12 x 12 paper bags my supplies are packaged in at the scrapbooking store invaluable for this. I place all the items in this bag and label it with my tittle so I can come back to a "layout" anytime in the future when I've assembled all the pieces I want. I often pull out a few photo's for a layout then I pick a design. I may then take a week of TV time to cut out different things or make the embellishments, trim and mat my photos etc etc so when I finally sit down at my desk all the elements of my page are ready to glue down. I've even taken supplies to work with me and on my lunch break I'll stamp a title while eating my lunch or write my journalling.... anything I can take away with me is left aside for this purpose. So in effect a page may actually take a week of 10 minutes here, an hour there before ...

Cheap and Scrapbooking are two words that don't usually go well together. That's mainly because so many of the supplies aren't that cheap. I guess that's why I can understand those people who may really want to get into scrapbooking but don't because they're intimidated by the associated costs. So I thought I'd make another list of scrapbooking supplies that I've used that are Free or cost next to nothing.... Just to hopefully prompt someone into starting scrapbooking who would of otherwise remained a scrapbook virgin. Well as per my last post; Chipboard is free or nearly free if you collect all the chipboard that comes into your life but even better if you have friends and family saving theirs for you too. Storage devices from the supermarket. Donut packets and spinach leaves etc etc. (see earlier blog) Paper towel, toilet paper, tissues, tissue paper, wrapping paper, gift ribbons, cards, buttons (you usually get some free with every outfit you buy), O...

FREE CHIPBOARD: I can't believe I haven't mentioned this one before. I get all my chipboard free off the back of notebooks etc.... even my photo developers give me a free piece everytime I get an enlargement. I then use stencils and die cut machines (friends stuff and the ones at my local scrapbook store by hiring a table for an hour or two) and even some chipboard letters I've purchased at the discount variety stores for like a $1 or $2. These are traced around and I use my craft knife to cut out the letters from my free chipboard. I know this takes longer but it saves you so much money. By not having to buy slides and tags and letters etc I'm saving alot on my layouts yet still giving them a lovely fashionable look.

PRESENTS FOR ME...... Well it's my birthday. I'm now 36... WOW... It's a bit scary really cause I don't feel like a grown up yet. Anyway for my birthday I was a very lucky girl. I got loads of scrapbooking stuff! I have a wishlist that I add to and subtract from and my husband was a very good shopper this year and purchased me two tools off my wishlist and two he just thought I needed. The best thing is he was right. So it's nice to see he's paying attention to what I'm doing. A wishlist is a great way to expand your supplies. I have a girlfriend with a scrapbooking addiction and she and I always buy each other supplies. We always give each other some papers out of the bulk buy packets we get and then some embellishments. This year my girlfriend got me a great little embellishment pack in pink and then a whole lot of fibres! She's into ribbons and fibres and is trying to get me as hooked on ribbon as her. This is great cause it opens up my supplies to so...

"themrs" left a comment that it's also a good idea to share tools as well as scrapbooking supplies. I think this is a great idea. If you have a friend you scrapbook with regularly this might be an excellent way to double your tools immediately. You may also be able to pool your resources to buy larger items. Maybe you could purchase a Sizzix machine and share ownership of it? One week at my house and one week at yours?

These are two more examples of free storage devices. The one on the left is a container the supermarket sells mini pavlova cases in and the one on the right is ideal for storing punches. I'm not really sure what came in this .... I think it was a computer hard drive or something? But you get my point. Keep your eyes open. In my house everything goes into a box which I look through first before it makes it's way to the bin.

Free storage devices? Well I talk about free storage devices and have spoken previously about the container my cinamon donuts come in... So I thought I should show you what I'm talking about and here it is. As you can see I have poked a small piece of ribbon out of the edges so when I want to use a certain ribbon I simply cut off the length I want. I think this is the ideal way to store your ribbon. It's free. It's easy to access your supply and you can always see how much of anything you have. This is the container that my local grocery store sells baby spinach leaves in. I use these on a shelf to store stamps and inks. Because the container is completely clear it is really easy for me to find anything I'm looking for. I really do suggest that you look at the containers all your grocery items come in. That way you get to save the money you would of spent on storage devices and put it all towards supplies.

Paper Paper Everywhere and Still alot to spare. I'm always talking about how paper is the best resource for saving money.... To illustrate my point and to prove that the quality of your layouts doesn't need to suffer for being a miser I've uploaded a couple of layouts and the left over resources to prove my point. Here I have completed two full layouts and I have enough left over for two more. I started with one sheet of orange paper, one sheet of pink, one sheet of patterned pink and orange, one sheet of pink vellum and one sheet of orange vellum. On the "I Adore You" layout I have used chipboard for the word 'adore' but it came off the back of an old notebook so was free. The little bit of ribbon on the "love your Happy Smiling Faces" layout was $1.50 for the entire roll and the flower on this layout came in a kit I purchased with a friend so only cost me 10c. I probably need to point out that the vellum (12 x 12) came in a pack of 12 sheets fo...

BAD LIGHTING? In my last blog I spoke a little about bad lighting and recommended printing the photo in black and white to counter this problem. Here you can see what a difference the colour photo and black and white print make. We took this photo on my husband's phone inside our local shopping centre and as you can see the harsh fluorescent lights drain the kids faces of colour and make my sons' shirt a very garish blue instead of the gorgeous light blue it is.... But in the black and white shot all of these problems are allieviated. Leaving me with the perfect shot to journal about the way they share so nicely and even better I can do the page in any colour scheme I like. So I recommend if you have some papers you love but just can't use because you haven't had a picture that would compliment them... consider reprinting in black and white. I find this is a great way to use up the papers I get in my bulk buy packs.

BLURRY PHOTO'S What to do? I love this photo of my daughter and will scrapbook it despite the blurry quality because it is the perfect photo of her smile... It's actually pretty hard to get a photo of this one smillig. My son smiles for photo's without a problem. That's cause he likes scrapbooking with his mummy, so he sees the correlation between a nice photo and his creations. But my daughter is a different matter all together. I have two tips here for fellow scrapbookers. The first is what to do with the blurry photo.... Why not place clear vellum over it... make it look like you intended it that way. Or use a transparency with a quote to match. For instance here I might say "Like trying to catch quicksilver in a bucket you're smile is just as precious and hard to catch on film". The second tip I have is one I got off a professional photographer the other night. I was talking to this photographer at a party and mentioned this shot. Her advice was to p...

I am the luckiest scrapbooking woman alive. Wondering why? Well this is a picture of an earing my husband found on the ground. And when he saw it his first thought was that i might like it for my scrapbooking. My husband is a rare breed. A scrap widower who is interested in his wife's obsession. In fact he does the camera and sound work for my video's. It's nice to have someone that supportive. But what I'm trying to emphasise by uploading this picutre is how if you think of everything that comes into your life as a possible layout embellishment or scrapbooking storage device and then discard the ones that really don't work, you'll actually get alot of stuff for free... Pictures and letters on Junk Mail or in Magazines can all be put to good use as can wrapping paper, cards and gift ribbons ribbons.

Here's another video about getting new ideas and inspiration from the simplest of places. Enjoy!

Shoe Racks and Sewing Tables : I love to have my space organised so that when I'm planning a layout I can easily paw through my goodies and choose the appropriate pieces. I have discovered that those clear plastic shoe holders are perfect for housing all those packets of embellishments,brads etc. This is especially great cause it hangs easily on the back of the door to my scrap area... Which is actually a corner of my bedroom. I have recently aquired my mother's old sewing machine table. I can't wait to install it in the corner of my bedroom. I love the compartments contained in it for storing all my goodines and have decided that I will attempt to install a light in the area usually reserved for the sewing machine and by placing a piece of perspex over the top hope to convert this into a lightbox table.... If it works I'll post a photo.

This picture was submitted by Anne of Virginia, USA. I've received some great emails in response to my last blog. One of which mentioned using toilet paper in a layout. This is a great idea! I've used patterned toilet paper and I've also created papers from paper towel where I dye them with paint and a dropper... This creates some really bright effects.

Paper Paper Paper: I think the cheapest and most versatile product available to us is... you guessed it paper.. Nothing new there right? Well the other day I was in a scrapbook shop outside of my local area. It was huge! It was beautiful! It was expensive! So I mostly browsed to get ideas. There are constantly new products coming to the market and if you don't keep up with it all you'll be left behind. So while I was there I noticed several older ladies come in with photos which they took to the lady who owned the shop for her to find them the perfect paper and embellishments. One of the ladies even commented about how she was making a scrapbook for her daughter and it was costing a fortune. This was largely due to the fact that every photo was getting purchased for individually. There was no bulk buying of paper which I do all the time. This is a huge saving as most papers in the shops are around $1.10 ea whereas I buy a pack of 180 papers for $11.95 so my papers are less than...

Coming Soon: Video of me scrapbooking our Book.... My sister-in-law and I have created a book which we're selling to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. Anyway we're buying one for a family member and I'll be videoing the scrapping of the book to show the possibilities for anyone interested in buying one and personalising it themselves. If you want to view the information on the book go to: http://www.mothersbestadvice.com

Sorry for the delay in posting y'all... I've actually been in hospital. Nothing serious just back pain but what I did discover about myself is I don't like doing nothing. All that time just lying around was killing me. If they'd wheeled in my scrapbooking trolley I'd of been really happy to stay! The other think I discovered is.... there is absolutely nothing I encountered that I could use in my scrapbooking... which is mighty unusual for me. I see possibilities everywhere. I have however previously used the wrist name tags of myself and my babies and the name tag off their hospital cot but this time I encountered nothing I considered even remotely useful. Maybe it was the morphine clouding my usually frugal judgment? For instance the bag my oranges come in? Yep you guessed it. I scrap book it. It can be used as is (which is an orange plastic netting) or it is also useful to weave all those wonderful yarns I've been collecting into. I simply weave them through t...

Scrapbooking Add to My Profile More Videos Here's a video I made to help you with creating ideas for your Scrapbooking. Enjoy!

WHY DID YOU START SCRAPBOOKING? Why do we start scrapbooking? This is one of those questions I’m often fascinated by. I guess its because I myself began scrapbooking under unusual circumstances. I have a girlfriend who is a ‘Creative Memories Consultant’ and for ages she tried to convince me to give it a go. She kept saying “You’ll love it”. I on the other hand resisted it as much as I could. Why you ask? Well mainly because of price. I already had several hobbies and I didn’t really want to spend money on another hobby. Little did I know that all of those other hobbies could be incorporated into my scrapbooking and that when I eventually gave in I wouldn’t really care about those other hobbies at all anymore. So what made we finally take the plunge? Well having children got me half way there… only I didn’t know it yet. The seeds of scrapbooking were being sewn in my obsessive photo taking habit. My poor baby son was lucky if a day went by without several flash bulbs going off. So fir...

Baby Formula Tin yields scrapbooking resource: I have just discovered a new resource for my scrapbooking and frankly I'm a little upset. You see if I'd had this idea 5 years ago when my first child was born I would have accumulated several tonne of this resource by now.... Let me elaborate. My daughter is still drinking toddler formula and the other night when I was planning out this page in my head I was pondering what to do about the title. I had created the "xmas" and the "J" disc and the smaller "snowflake" disk out of paper clay but I didn't have a "1st". Then while making a bedtime drink for my daughter I had to open a new tin of formula and whala there it struck me... inspiration that is.... The foil that seals the tin is made of a very thin metal. This metal is easy to cut and punch (with a large punch and simple shape only.... I tried a small snowflake punch and although it worked it got stuck and was very difficult to remo...

Storage ideas from underpants to donuts: Does anyone else get frustrated at how much money you spend on storage devices and the like? I hate it when I need to re-organise the hoards and hoards of supplies by purchasing a new storage device. Don't get me wrong. I think organising your items by category and colour is wonderful. (I'm also a mad organiser).. BUT I hate spending my limited scrapbooking budget on storage devices when I could be purchasing paper, or ribbons or stamps and punches. This week I discovered a couple of great space organising items and they didn't cost me anything. The first is the pack my daughter's recently purchased underpants came in. You've probably seen them. A pack of 5 underpants in a little plastic (sometimes opaque but mostly clear) pocket with a small hanger at one end and a clip at the other.. I love this! I keep ribbon and yarn offcuts in it... Anything not on a roll basically. And as my collection expands and I can reorganise the...

For some reason the link will not work in the forum, so here it is again: Scrapbooking Survey http://www.bestnicheinfosite.com/?43aa178a-cf74-4460-9675-9324cfd845ab = Now for some reason this is still not working, but if you copy and paste it into your address bar and make sure it has the = at the end after the 45ab link as above, then it will work. Thanks

Shopping Bags a great find! In my search for the cheapest scrapbooking layout ever I have discovered shopping bags. What I love about these is they're free with any purchase! A clothing retailer in my local area has created my absolute favourite scrapbooking supply.... it's a shopping bag. This particular shopping bag is a clear plastic with white swirls and designs all over it and then the company name in big pink letters. The letters are ideal as part of a monogram (I cut them out then stick them to the back page of an old notebook.... {another free material} You can then either cut the letter out again or paint the cardboard before adhering the letter and cutting a shape such as a square or circle with this letter in the centre. I then add a sticker or embellishment and there you have it a monogram!) The rest of the bag is ideal as a background...... I sew it to the page and have even sewn it to a piece of cardstock that is then folded into an envelope. The only thing you ne...

Junk Mail provides inspiration: As a scrap miser I am constantly looking for scrapbooking supplies. Everything is fair game! Even if I can't use something because its not acid free I can often use the concept. Recently a bedding manufacturer sent out a beautiful brochure and the layout for the campaign has proved very useful. I placed a piece of transparency on the page and traced over the beautiful swirly design with a glitter glue. This design gives me a place for two photos and a spot for some journalling in the middle. I love the simplicity of the design as it has a doodling inspired look without being a doodle as such.... if that makes sense? So keep your eyes open for inspiration..... Even your Junk Mail can be useful........

My first tip for fellow scrapbookers looking to save money is to save everything! Save every scrap of paper every snip of ribbon and every other thing that comes into your life. Whether it be a kids toy, a postcard, an old charm or piece of broken jewellery or a beach find.... Everything is a potential embellishment for a page. I have used gumnuts, sea shells and even bark to good effect. What's your strangest free embellishment?

Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many blogs. I'm addicted to scrapbooking and would love to hear from other like minded people. My passion is how to scrapbook cheaply! I refer to myself as the scrapmiser because I try not to spend much on my layouts. Recently I've spoken to a few people who would love to do scrapbooking but are put off by the price of all the materials. So that got me thinking about how much an average page can cost. My pages tend to be pretty cheap but I am now obsessed with finding the cheapest way to do beautiful layouts. I'd be interested to see if anyone can beat my $3.02 page? ( Contents 3 papers $0.91 {12x12 - not all used have left overs but for ease of calculating I'll add all three papers into the cost} and some stickers (I have used three different pages each costing $1:10 but have only used a third of each so I'm estimating one full page of stickers plus $0.03 for adhesive and $0.98 for an embellishment.