Affordable Spring Embellishments

The good news is that there is a seemingly endless supply of spring-themed scrapbook embellishments available in craft stores right now. The bad news is that many of the gorgeous accessories are quite pricey. Adding just a few of the eye-popping decorations can easily send the price of a single spring layout into the stratosphere. Fortunately, there are a slew of affordable alternatives to expensive scrapbook embellishments. For example, rather than purchasing elaborate silk flowers to decorate your spring page designs, consider making your own colorful blossoms at home using inexpensive coffee filters. All you need are some basket-style paper … Continue reading →

Spring Into Scrapbooking

Spring? What spring? I have a quote to add to a seasonal layout: “Where the h*&# is spring?” Despite the blizzard warnings, school snow days and brutally cold temperatures, I am moving forward with my spring scrapbook. It’s all about denial, right? My efforts may be in stark contrast to what Mother Nature is doling out right now, but I am undeterred. My daughter is making coffee filter butterflies in school and I’m planning to use them to decorate several pages in my seasonal memory album. The adorable scrapbook embellishment is a cinch to make. All you need are some … Continue reading →

Beachy Keen

Don’t let your family getaway go undocumented this spring. If you are planning to escape to the sun, sand and surf, be sure to take plenty of pictures, collect a bunch of mementos, and then create eye-popping scrapbook layouts to preserve all of the good times. Beach-themed page designs are fun to make. Use the opportunity to flex your creative muscle by incorporating items you collect during your vacation with the myriad of scrapbooking embellishments available in stores and online. For example, consider bringing home a small container or Ziploc bag of sand from the beach and adding it to … Continue reading →

Paper Picks

I am in love with glittered cardstock. The pretty paper has plenty of bling and goes a long way to add a festive touch to any page design. The cardstock is covered with a glittery background and allows you to place mementos, photos and other embellishments on it, though to avoid making your layout appear too busy, you don’t want to cover the paper with a slew of items. That’s just one of the factors you must consider when deciding on the type of paper to select for your scrapbook. While cardstock and patterned paper are essential for any memory … Continue reading →

Summer Sayings

You’ve found the perfect photos of your summer vacation to feature in a super scrapbook spread. In addition, you purchased an amazing set of stickers, stamps and die cuts to further embellish your seasonal layout, yet something is still missing. Mementos? Nope. Frames? Negative. What you’re missing is a title that will turn heads and make your page design even more attractive. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways you can create an eye-popping page title. The Internet is teeming with free fonts that can add spice to summer-themed layouts. In addition, you could use letter stickers or cut-out words … Continue reading →

Embellishing Stamps

When it comes to easy scrapbook embellishments it doesn’t get much simpler than stamps. The inked rubber tools can be used on a variety of layout elements, from frames to journaling blocks. You can even create an entire page border from a set of small stamps or use letter stamps to craft a bold page title. These days the variety of rubber stamps on the market is virtually endless. There are hundreds of thousands of archival quality stamps available to scrapbookers looking to spice up their layouts with elaborate and whimsical designs that range from animal shapes to pre-printed phrases, … Continue reading →

Adding Textures and Layers

Thanks to embellishments, such as 3D stickers, die cuts and flocking powder, scrappers can turn ordinary layouts into extraordinary works of art filled with different textures and layers. These visual enhancements make a page design more appealing. However, the unique embellishments can also add up quick, making it hard for penny-pinching scrappers to maintain the multi-faceted look for an entire memory book. Fortunately, there are ways you can add texture and visual appeal to scrapbook pages without going broke. One of my favorite methods is to incorporate vellum to the layout. The specialty paper is amazingly versatile and doesn’t require … Continue reading →

Autumn-Inspired Layouts

The interior of my local scrapbook store looks as though a giant sneezed on an oak tree filled with the colors of fall. Leaf-print paper, stickers, stamps and die cuts in orange, yellow and burnt sienna are all over the place. I went into the shop looking for a good deal on back-to-school-themed embellishments and was nearly buried under the mountains of autumn-themed paper. Granted, paper with red, yellow, and orange leaves are very versatile. You can add them to page designs featuring a gorgeous fall nature hike, a day of raking, a family trip to the apple orchard, as … Continue reading →

Give Your Layouts a Lift

You don’t have to spend a ton of time or money adding pizzazz to your scrapbook layouts. In fact, some of the most eye-popping accents can be created by incorporating simple techniques such as decoupaging. Recently, my mom’s passion for decoupaging had spread to scrapbooking. She loves to decoupage chipboard using patterned paper scraps. Small bits of leftover scrapbook paper come in handy when you want to add a new dimension to chipboard. All you need to do is place some Mod Podge on the paper, let the adhesive dry thoroughly, and then trim the excess with a craft knife. … Continue reading →

Finding the Right Title

Do you struggle to come up with catchy titles for your scrapbook layouts? Sometimes an amazing title will just pop into your mind while other times it seems nearly impossible to come up with a unique way to summarize yet another collection of birthday photos. So what do you do when you suffer from title block? Fortunately, there are a number of inspirational resources that are easily accessible, from the Internet to magazines, books to songs, even movies can serve as the brainchild for potential page titles. If you are creating a theme scrapbook and want to title every page, … Continue reading →