July 9, 2009

MomBabe on Scrapbooking

I got an email from one of my best girl friends and she asked me, what do I need to start scrapbooking? This was my answer.

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*snort* NECESSARY? Seriously? That all depends on what kind of scrapbook you're doing and what kind of scrapbooker you are. OBV, you need paper. I'd get card stock in lots of colors to start. Pretty paper is fun, but it can be hard to work with, especially for beginners.

Same with stickers. You don't need to buy everything that's cute. Because pretty much EVERYTHING is cute, and then you'll have $200 of stickers that you'll never use.

MUST HAVES:
  • paper cutter - large enough to fit a 12x12 paper
  • Acid free glue - I like Yes! but it's hard to find and you need a brush to apply it. Otherwise, you can get the glue dots or the sticky squares
  • Punches - a few punches can give you a lot of use. Especially the flower punches. With the flowers, you can layer them, curl the edges, embellish them with buttons or fibers or even pins and tull. They're really versatile.

Depending on the size of scrapbook you're doing, you'll need protective pages. Especially since you have a short person. My kids LOVE to look at their books and they need to be protected from fingerprints, drool, and crumbs.

Other than that, it really depends on what you want your books to look like.

The best advice I can give you is to decide how you want to do your books. FOR EXAMPLE.

I make books for each of my kids. I also make a book for me. That's 5 books at any given time. WHATEVER PAGE I'M DOING, I always make at least 2 of the same. One for me (Master book) and one for them. Not everyone gets all the same pages.

For birthdays, I make that person a birthday page and I make one for me. I do not include the siblings. They will get their own birthday page on their birthday. I get duplicates of everything. For big events like baptisms and Easter and Christmas, I make everyone a set of pages. So for Christmas, if I'm doing a 2 page spread, I will be making 2 pages x 5 books = 10 pages. That way, everyone has a copy.

I do it like that so that when people leave and get married or whatever, I can give them their books, but still have a copy for myself.

Make sense?

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So tell me, lovelies, do you scrapbook and how?
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