Try Scrapbooking for Free!

Ok, so you’ve heard of scrapbooking and maybe you have been excited by some of the layouts you’ve seen in magazines or here on the web. Most likely you have clicked from link to link and now have information overload, right?

And you’re probably thinking that you might like to try scrapbooking, but haven’t a clue where to start. More importantly, you don’t want to splash out on a load of “stuff” (or “stash” as it is known in Scrapbooking circles) when you’re not sure if you’re going to like it!

Well you don’t have to. There are, of course, millions of products out there to tempt and excite you, but you know… most people already have a fair amount of things in their house with which they can scrapbook.

Here is a picture of a layout created using only standard stationery items, you too could create such a layout and I describe below how to achieve the same results.

Now because this is just a “test” page as such (to see if you like scrapbooking) we are not worried about the acidity content of the materials, a subject which you may have already read about and something we will cover later. We are just creating a simple page layout to show you just how easy it is to achieve good results.

Below is the list of materials and tools I used to create the layout.
· A4 (11 x 8”) piece of white paper
· Piece of a printed paper bag (received when I bought a book recently)*
· Photograph 4x6” (don’t use an irreplaceable photo at this stage)
· Buttons (found at the bottom of a drawer!)
· Ribbon (cut from the inside of the shoulders of some new tops – all they did was
keep hanging out the neckline, so I cut them off and kept them!)
· Double sided tape (or glue stick) (some glue – liquid type, if you have some)
· Scissors
· Ruler and pencil
· Black pen.

* you could use a piece of patterned wallpaper, patterned packaging [for those of you with a colour printer that can do photocopies, ie copy a patterned item of clothing]

HOW I MADE THE PAGE

I cut A4 piece of paper down to 8x8” (20.3cm square).
Then cut a piece from the paper bag to cover just over half of the white page and stuck it down with double sided tape.
I cropped about an inch (3 cm) off the right hand edge of the photograph (which was just more grass!)
Then turned the photo over and placed double sided tape around all four sides (about a quarter of an inch from the edge of the photo is just fine)

I cut a short length off each piece of ribbon and placed it on the side of the photo with 1.5” (4cm) hanging off the side.
Cutting some more lengths (slightly longer) I placed them at the bottom of the photo. Then I glued the 5 “found” buttons on the bottom of the page.

I wrote the title “My Boy Badger” on the left-over piece of white paper, cut it out and ‘doodled’ a few lines around the edge. This was then adhered to the bottom left of the page, over the coloured paper for contrast.

Lastly I doodled a few lines on the diagonally opposite corner to compliment the title. And there is your simple, scrapbooking layout. You have to admit that the photo looks so much better than it would if just put in a photo album on its own in a sleeve!

And, just in case you are thinking that creating a page for each and every photo is maybe a waste, and you have thousands of photos… worry not! There are lots of ways that you can create pockets, mini books, envelopes, tags… (it’s a long list) in which you can place a lot more photos thus creating great storage too.

Also… in case you are thinking “I don’t like my handwriting” – you don’t need to use your own handwriting… you can put all your information on the back of the page, but don’t forget that other people, children especially will love to see “your” handwriting no matter how ghastly you think it is. Besides… if you get hooked into scrapbooking, you will find a huge amount of products to “write” with. But more importantly you will see from other people’s layouts that handwriting – of any type – is great and gives a real personal touch to the page.

So… why don’t you have a go?

I am very happy to help you if you wish to email me with a question and it would be great to hear from you as to how you get on!

I will be posting more articles regarding scrapbooking layouts on a tight budget soon.