Scrapbooking 101

Scrapbooking is a hobby that went from pasting some pictures onto a piece of construction paper to fully electronic designed books. I like to think of myself as a scrapbooker that is somewhere in the middle of these two creative extremes. My mom got me into scrapbooking when I was an 8th grader since many of her friends were Creative Memories consultants. Sadly, Creative Memories just shut down their paper scrapbooking business this past year due to everything moving toward electronic styled books. While my layout tastes have changed throughout the years, I still love the physical book full of stickers, paper and picture prints. Truthfully, scrapbooking is time consuming. But it's a great excuse for a girls weekend away or a craft desk in your basement. Your family, friends or kids will be thankful for your hard work when they are able to relive those memories of the first day of school, that trip to the mountains or a baby being born. Scrapbooks are a beautiful way to keep these memories bright and vibrant. And if you are like me, you need your memory jogged every once in awhile!

Favorite Tools:

- Cricut Machine. I have blogged about this machine in previous posts. This is a must have for a scrapbooker. It is an investment but you will be thankful later after seeing all of the perfectly cut letters, shapes and designs. You can program the machine based on the thickness of paper and the complexity of the design. You load a usb "cartridge" into the Cricut and chose the shapes and size that you want. Then watch the Cricut flawlessly cut your desired and needed creative elements. The machine is also great for cards, stencils and other various needs.

- Sticker Maker. After the Cricut cuts some beautiful shapes, one option is to make them into stickers. Just run the letters or shapes through the sticker maker and the tool puts a sticky material on the back. We use a Xyron sticker maker and love it.

- Cutters. You can't scrapbook without a few picture cutters. Make sure to get something that will help achieve a clean, straight edge. One cutter that we use is a Friskars cutter and it's a great tool to have around the house for even just everyday needs.

The black letters and red die cuts were done with a Cricut machine.

Favorite Designs:

- Using large letters in a title form is a favorite style of mine. I also often use relevant paper blocks to create patterns and fun visual color schemes.

- I like to add fun elements to my pages. Sometimes this is through stickers, embellishments or random finds like thread or twine. Using some of these pieces gives the page depth and interesting texture.

- Matting pictures is one of my go-to styles. Even if the page is simple, pick the picture that you most want to pop out. By matting in a color that matches the overall colors in the picture, it helps the viewer's eye to start with that most important image.