FUN & FABULOUS SUPPLY SWAP IDEAS ON THE CHEAP > SPECIAL ISSUE
BUDGET-FRIENDLY
Scrapbooking
225 MONEYSAVING
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Make 'em last! Easy ideas to stretch your scrap supplies
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Editor's Note Scrapbooking is a fun and creative hobby you can enjoy fully
JENNAFER MARTIN
whether you have a lot of money to spend or a little. And by scrapbooking using the ideas in this special issue, you’ll find your scrap supply dollars going even further. With dozens of money-saving, inspiring, practical, and easy-to-follow ideas, like
investment tips to help you plan what to buy (see page 24), a photo planner to print only the photos you need
PAGE 11
(see page 23),
creative combinations to help classic supplies feel new (see page 67),
amazing ideas for organization on the cheap (see page 18), unique ways to make the most of your supplies (see page 63)
PAGE 66
and scraps (see page 97), and
fun ideas for organizing swaps to share tools and supplies (see page 11), you’ll find yourself turning to this issue again and again to help you capture more memories creatively without breaking the bank.
PAGE 85
Enjoy!
Jennafer Martin, Editor-in-Chief Creating Keepsakes magazine
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 5
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5
Editor’s Note
9
Chapter 1: Budget-friendly Essentials
21
Chapter 2: Planning for Scrapbooking
35
Chapter 3: Keep it Simple, Scrapbooker
63
Chapter 4: Stretch Your Supplies
97
Chapter 5: Use Your Scraps
119
Chapter 6: Found Item Fun
130
Money-saving Scrapbooking Approach
Start scrapbooking with this budget-savvy foundation.
Save time and money by planning ahead.
Scrapbook on a budget using supplies you have on hand.
Make the most of your supplies with these quick tips and ideas.
Maximize your scrap stash by using all the leftover bits.
Get more from your stash by scrapbooking using everyday items.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
On Our Cover Dream Big by Joannie McBride. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Patterned paper: Fancy Pants Designs; Font: Times New Roman; Adhesive: American Crafts, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L, and Therm O Web.
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 7
Budgetfriendly Essentials Start scrapbooking with this budget-savvy foundation.
Scrapbooking is a creative form of memory keeping, allowing you to record the moments you want to preserve for generations to come. Keeping your costs to a minimum is definitely a priority, and at first, scrapbooking on a budget may feel a bit overwhelming with all the products and tools out there. Don’t worry though—there’s really no stress involved with the money-saving ideas you’ll find here! We’ll also give you budgetfriendly solutions for storing your scrapbook supplies. Think of it this way: Regardless of how much money you spend creating your scrapbooks or building your creative space, your family is going to love the stories you tell and the way you tell them. To help you get
SUPPLIES BY MARTHA STEWART CRAFTS AND OTHER
started, here’s a primer to the basic scrapbooking supplies you’ll need and easy tips for saving money, so you can get the most out of your materials.
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 9
ACCENT SWAP Gather a group of scrapbooking friends and a few supplies, and have everyone create six to ten simple accents that they can swap with one another. You’ll then have lots of handmade accents to choose from for future layouts, saving time and money. Here are four easy-to-create accents that you’ll have fun making and swapping!
Soldier Girl by Cindy Tobey. Supplies: Cardstock: American Crafts; Patterned paper: Cosmo Cricket, Jenni Bowlin Studio, and October Afternoon; Stickers: American Crafts and Studio Calico; Ribbon: American Crafts; Baker’s twine: Martha Stewart Crafts; Rhinestones: Bazzill Basics Paper and Queen & Co.; Punches: EK Success, Fiskars Americas, and Martha Stewart Crafts; Pen: American Crafts; Font: Century; Adhesive: American Crafts and Glue Dots International; Other: Buttons and photo corner.
SWAP IT!
Box Flowers
Cindy Tobey’s swappable accent is an adorable box flower, created from patterned paper folded, you guessed it, like a box top.
TRY IT: CREATE A BOX FLOWER
14 creatingkeepsakes.com
Planning for Scrapbooking
Planning ahead when you’re scrapbooking can make the process easier and more fun. By planning your pages in advance, you
Save time and money by planning ahead.
make sure you have on hand the photos and products you need for your project. But did you know that planning ahead can also help you stay within your scrapbooking budget? It’s true! By planning your supply purchases to get the most for your budget, thinking about short-term and longterm purchases, and considering the money you spend on printing photos, you can get more scrapbooking done for less money and also make your scrapbooking more efficient. We’ll
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show you how!
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 21
Create a variety of looks using your base set of supplies.
Plan for a Rainy Day Many of us prefer to plan projects around the individual stories we’re telling, which often leads to collecting a wide variety of products in order to ensure we have what we need, when we need it. But there’s another way to plan for a rainy
SHOPPING Tip: For great sales on supplies you’ll
day: collect a limited base set of supplies that will empower you to create many
want to stock up on, check
layouts no matter your budget at the time. For your base collection, select papers
out peachycheap.com.
and accents with colors and simple prints that speak to your style rather than the subject you’re scrapbooking. Noel Culbertson told two different stories with these layouts, but she used the same set of supplies for both. You can do this too! In addition to purchasing alloccasion paper and sticker designs, invest in punches and other tools that can help you vary the way your products look and how you can use them.
Rain by Noel Culbertson. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Patterned paper: Pink Paislee; Flowers, rub-ons, and wood veneer: Studio Calico; Stickers: American Crafts and October Afternoon; Punches: EK Success and Martha Stewart Crafts; Font: Helvetica Neue; Adhesive: 3M and Tombow; Other: Baker’s twine.
The Look by Noel Culbertson. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Patterned paper: Pink Paislee; Flowers, rub-ons, and wood veneer: Studio Calico; Stickers: American Crafts and October Afternoon; Brad: American Crafts; Punches: EK Success and Martha Stewart Crafts; Font: Fling; Adhesive: 3M and Tombow; Other: Baker’s twine.
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 25
Keep It Simple, Scrapbooker Scrapbook on a budget using supplies you have on hand.
Often, when you think of scrapbooking, you may immediately think of all the fantastic products and tools you have at your disposal, from glitter to die-cutting machines. Still, the heart of scrapbooking is the simple task of sharing your favorite stories with the ones you love. And that doesn’t have to be complicated or involve spending hundreds of dollars. In fact, scrapbooking your life can be as simple as photos, a bit of journaling, and a place to house your story. You may just be amazed by what you can accomplish when you keep it
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simple, scrapbooker.
Budget-Friendly Scrapbooking 35
Gear by Lisa Brown. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Pen: EK Success; Other: Adhesive.
For a title that stands out and emphasizes the theme of your layout, experiment with different ways of writing, as Lisa Brown did. For example, your handwriting looks different when you write in all caps versus when you write in cursive. Find the looks that work best for your layout, and mix them up between your title and journaling in order to make the title stand out even more.
10 Tips for Neater Handwritten Journaling When you’re creating layouts using just cardstock, photographs, and a pen, your personal handwriting becomes an important page element—and you want it to look great. Here are 10 tips to help you make your handwriting look fantastic: QS tart with a good quality pen that writes in a fine line and doesn’t skip. WW rite slowly and deliberately. EU se a light box, and place a grid under your backlit cardstock. Using the gridlines, you can precisely place your journaling without drawing lines on your page. RU se a ruler as a journaling guide, but keep moving it down as you write each line of journaling. Doing this will keep your journaling straight, but you won’t have to erase any ruler lines. TS tagger the beginning of each journaling line, so both the right and left sides of the text have a “ragged” edge, which enables the journaling to more uniformly fill the space. YU se the edges of your photographs as journaling lines. UT race your journaling twice when writing on dark backgrounds with opaque markers. IP lan where you want to journal before you create your layout. OU se software to create a font in your own handwriting. PJ ournal directly on a photograph using a pen meant for writing on slick surfaces, such as an American Crafts Slick Writer.
38 creatingkeepsakes.com