Scrapbooking Made Simple

Here's the Scrapbooking Show I was Talking about. Enjoy!

Now I've seen it all :) Enjoy

O.K. I admit it I do buy Magazines . Who can resist right? I mean where else do you get a virtual library of techniques and styles on so many topics? It's also a fantastic place to discover where the next fad is coming from. BUT.... they can be expensive right? I mean if you have a $10 weekly budget to spend on scrapbooking you can only buy one magazine for that price.... So how does the Scrapmiser get around this dilema? Well my first tip for saving money on your Magazine purchases is not to purchase them at all . If you're on a very strict budget this can be a crucial way to save money. So I borrow alot of magazines from my local library and go through them, return them and get some more. Next if I am purchasing a magazine I will only buy them when they're at a reduced price (some scrapbooking stores will do this to get rid of old stock) or if they're bundled together like a two for one offer..... OR if they come with a freebie I consider of equal value. For in...

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...

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 ...

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.

"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!

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

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...