Here is a letter from a beginning scrapper in Arizona. Please read it and enjoy.
Scrapbooking is a very fun new hobby of mine. I found it a way of expressing myself through pictures that I shot and how I lay it out in the scrap book binder. At first, I felt intimidated and frustrated because I did not know where to start when planning and making one.
I found that it was very helpful in spreading out the pictures. Since I had pictures from many events, such as holidays, family get togethers, and vacation trips, I found it important to sort the pictures first. It is also helpful to date the backs of the pictures to keep the time sequence between them.
As for the work space, my favorite place is the kitchen table. Here is the list of supplies I used when starting a scrapbook.
- Photo album or scrapbook binder
- transparent ruler
- scissors
- paper cutter
- adhesives
- card stock
- colored paper
- die cuts
- decorative edge scissors
Although I feel myself as a beginning scrapbooker, I see my skills at this becoming more refined as time goes by and will enjoy it even more. To all you beginning scrappers out there, get out and take some pictures, buy some supplies and get started!
J. from Arizona
Glue stick: Glue sticks are a cheap and easy way adhesive to use with photos, patterned paper, and colored cardstock. However, they can be somewhat messy. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with unsightly adhesive smudges on your layout.
Mounting squares: Mounting squares are a great adhesive to use on your photos, because they leave none of the messy residue associated with glue sticks.
Photo corners: Often used in heritage albums, photo corners are a good way to ensure that you’ll be able to remove photos from your scrapbook at a later date if necessary.
Liquid glue: Since it provides a strong and permanent bond, liquid glue is a good general purpose adhesive for scrapbooking. It works on photos, paper, and most lightweight embellishments, although it can take often take awhile to dry completely.
Glue dots: Glue dots are available in a variety of sizes, making them a smart choice for almost any type of dimensional scrapbook embellishment. If you want to use them with vellum, however, make sure you read the label carefully. Only certain types of glue dots are made to work with this transparent material.
Foam adhesive: If you’re interested in making customized paper piecing scrapbook embellishments, foam adhesive squares are an easy way to add dimension to your designs.
Double sided tape: Special double sided tapes designed for scrapbooking, such as Wacky Tac, are great for adhering beads, glitter, and other fine embellishments to your pages.
When buying adhesives, make sure they are acid free and archival safe. You would not want an adhesive that turns color, gets brittle or loses its "stickiness" with age.
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On August 2006 The Scrapbooking Industry commercially celebrated twenty-five years of existence which was stated by not other then Marielen W. Christensen of Keeping Memories Alive, the worlds first scrapbooking store was head quartered in Spanish Fork, Utah, USA, in 1981.
In 1976 Christensen began designing creative pages for her family’s photo albums creating her own memories. The conference at Salt Lake City opened the door to a massive interest in memory book designs in the United States, and Christensen was invited to give seminars and teach classes to countless groups, including Brighan Young University’s Camp Education Weed and numerous church, civic and school groups. During the twenty-five years following, she lectured continually throughout the Intermountain West.
Later in 1993 , The Christensen’s began a mail order division in the back of the building. The business grew very quickly by word of mouth there for they had to move its warehousing to a larger facility in 1994. They moved the shipping department to a larger ware house in 1998.
Keeping Memories Alice opened the first wholesale division in the scrapbook industry in 1993, providing other stores with a source to purchase products at one place. this helped move the industry forward as small scrapbook stores began opening up all over the United States.
Keeping Memories Alive made history again in 1996 as they launched the first commercial website for scrapbook supplies. Scrapbooking is now a multimillion dollar industry all around the world, Scrappers or scrapbookers get together and scrap at each others homes, local scrapbook stores, scrapbooking conventions, retreat centers and even cruises dedicated slowly to scrapbooking. These are a few of many great ways to learn tips and new ideas.
The above article taken from http://www.scrapbookartisan.com/moderndayscrapbooking.php
We have discovered a great website that features a whole bunch of scrapbook items for literally pennies on the dollar! It is called "Scrapbook Clearance," and it contains discontinued and overstocked items from stores and manufacturers across the country. Whether it is custom colored papers, stickers, cropping blocks, stencils, die cut shapes, even Disney products, etc. you will find what you need.
There is even a cute "scrapbook" song that is sung by a little girl that is hilarious! You can hear it for free when you get to that site.
As mentioned on an earlier post, we averaged start up costs to scrapbook at around $75.00. With buying your start up materials and tools from Scrapbook Clearance, you can spend way less than that.
There is no excuse not to start scrapbooking now!
When you start a new hobby, it is so very important to plan out a space for working on your scrapbook, a place to organize all your materials you will use to assemble it. Too often, we don’t plan out "where" and "how," so think about this first. Because scrapbooking involves dealing with so many pieces and parts, we will enjoy our hobby more if we have a place for everything.
Here are a couple of great sites that have the most variety in containers that can make scrapbooking more pleasant!
3) www.ikea.com
One last thing you should consider before starting this fun hobby, is to buy a legal pad and pen. You can make this your "to do" list of sorts so you can plan out what scrapbook you are doing, what you have to buy, and the deadline of when you will complete your scrapbook.
A well organzied "scrapbooker" is a happy scrapbooker!!
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When starting out in scrapbooking, it is wise to plan three main important things.
1) What is the purpose of the scrapbook?
2) What materials are going to be used?
3) What is my budget?
These are quite often the most important things we should think about before even starting a project.
The purpose of the scrapbook, of course, is to preserve the memories of the object presented. It could be for family, for a once in a lifetime event, or celebrating a holiday. Soon, we will be adding a part of this blog to scrapbookers of all kinds. We will have a spot where you can add your own pictures of your masterpiece!
Regarding materials, sky is the limit! Photographs is the first on the list, for sure. From there anything goes from; coins, stickers, string, toothpicks, yarn, refrigerator magnets, stamps, buttons, colored paper, hair pins, paper clips, wire, pipe cleaners, scrap paper, screws, caps, match sticks, just to name a few. Besides photographs as the most important material, the scrapbook or booklet comes to mind. There are as many different kinds of scrap related books to hold everything as there are materials to put into them.
Budget? Well we could easily say "sky is the limit," again! But really folks, a good starting budget for a modest scrapbook is in the $70 to $150 range. In the posts to follow, we will go over the scrapbooks made with different budgets. We will show the low economy type to the "no holds barred" gaudy scrapbooks!
When starting out, we suggest starting as a group. Even if you start with you and a friend, it will be just as much fun to make when you can share the experience with others.
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As anyone who is very familiar with surfing the internet finding things, the most appropriate place to start is Google, Yahoo Search, or MSN. While there is over 100,000 such websites out there, we will be providing our best "picks" for where you can get the most variety of materials. Feel free to comment here on the best places on the internet you use to purchase your scrapbook materials.
In the meantime, your local art stores, or national craft stores like, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, Ben Franklin Stores, Hobby Bench, etc. Even Office supply stores such as Staples and big box stores, Target, K-Mart are good sources to get scrapbook supplies. The places you can get materials are only limited by your imagination. I can also see going to grocery stores, antique stores, department stores and even the mom and pop stationary stores, which are a dying breed indeed!
In the next several posts, we will be going over some of the basic supplies that are necessary to making any scrapbook you are planning.
We are pleased to announced that will be interviewing a seasoned scrapbooking artist from Arizona. Stay tuned for more exciting information!
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I am excited to present a new site dedicated to everything scrapbooking! This site was born out of sharing ideas from friends, family and associates. We will bring new ideas, present scrapbook related books and materials for you to enjoy.
Before we start our journey in creating new and different scrapbooks for any occasion, please feel free to let us know what you would like covered here.
Let’s begin to have fun by discovery of making amazing things!
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