Unleash Your Inner Archive Junkie

"Been there, done that, and scrapped a page about it."

When you put it that way, scrapbooking sounds fairly simple right?  Well, it is!  You might have read my very first blog post where I said "I think that’s what really drove my interest for creating beautiful scrapbook pages, the fact that there are no rules, no guidelines to follow, no instructions to go by, you just simply…create."  Sure there are hundreds of techniques for decorating your pages, but that doesn't mean you have to be familiar with or know how to do all of them.  What's most important is that you decorate your pages to your liking (if it's a gift, you may want to tailor it to what the receiver will like, but keep your special touch present).

 

"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, and the things you never want to lose."

This is why I love making scrapbooks.  Sure we all have our photos in old boxes or stored in our smartphones, but how often do you take a look at them and sit back to enjoy the memories?  Scrapbooking is a creative and beautiful way to put your memories on display.  When I spend hours and hours scrapbooking, I want to make it a page that I will want to look at day in and day out.

 

"Scrapper's Creed:
No scrap of paper bigger than my smallest punch shall be thrown away."

Since nothing on a scrapbook page is perfect, it isn't hard to figure out where to use those excess scraps of paper.  Find a very basic color scheme for pages that you want to use up left over odds and ends.  A layout like the one below makes it easy to do this.

 

Source: Pinterest

 

 "Warning, scrapbooking can be hazardous to your wealth."

While this can be true if you're not a smart shopper, most times you can find what you need on sale at a store, online, or make it yourself!  Read my papercrafts budget post for more ideas, tips, and tricks to saving money on your scrapbooking needs.

  

"When life gives you scraps, make something with them."  

 Each of these scrapbooking quotes was found here.  The scrapbooking.com website is a great resource for finding relevant quotes for any decorative theme you can think of.

 

 

Live, Laugh, Scrapbook. Repeat

Scrapbooking on a Budget

Scrapbooking can be expensive if you buy everything premade.  Here's a few tips on how to cut down on cost.  The main tools you will need are scissors, an X-acto knife, glue sticks, and your photos and memorabilia.  Always check out your local dollar store, you'll be surprised at what you can find to decorate your pages. 

• Buy cardstock when it's on sale.  I don't recommend going to Michael's or Joanne Fabrics unless you have coupons there because they are really expensive.  Check out stores such as Target, Meijer, Walmart, and K-mart.  This is a great deal on a 48-sheet pad of patterned cardstock and will last you a while.  You can make your own cutouts from stencils you find online rather than buying premade packaged cutouts.

In addition to the inexpensive paper here, I added my own drawings of balloons in the background.

•  To fasten your photos and other things to the page, look for gold brads at the dollar store and paint them with nail polish instead of buying the different colored brads at a craft store.  During holidays I like to go the day after and stock up on discounted ribbon and whatever else I can find.

• Buy punchouts and stamps, each one is an investment that can be used over and over.  I have the basic punchouts such as hearts, snowflakes, and stars.  Here you get 12 punchouts for only $20! That's a great deal and well worth it.  Stamps with different patterns can be used over and over as well.  

Here's a close up of a page I made for my mother as a birthday gift.  I layered three sheets of different paper behind the picture and made little gold hearts with my heart punchout to put all over the page.  If you punchout the shapes in a line on a sheet of paper, you've also just made a punchout border so you don't have to waste that paper.  
 

 

Above are two simple inexpensive pages made for my mom.  The frames were on sale for $10 and you'll most likely have to go to a craft store to find them.  It looks like a lot of work for these pages but all I did was layer patterned paper behind the photos.  The lettering is printed out on a computer, cut up, and glued.

Cassie Crawford has a great serious on YouTube for scrapbooking on a budget, check out and subscribe to her channel BigCraftLittleBudget for great tips on saving money on your papercrafting needs.

This is probably the simplest page I've created, with word pattered paper for the background and black cardstock behind the photos with a couple stickers I found on sale.

Here, it looks like a lot is going on, but the only thing I did to make it stand out was color the background paper!  Sure it was tedious and took a little time, but adding the pops of color throughout the page makes it much more exciting.

Do you have any tips and tricks to scrapbooking on a budget?  What's your favorite go to trick to make your pages stand out?