Budget Scrapbooking Tips
Hobbies are hobbies, meant to be fun activities we do in our spare time and hopefully not use up a lot of our financial resources for daily living. It’s still too easy to get caught up in having the latest gadget or the state-of-the-art supply. But when reality sets in and you have bills to pay, you have to take a step back and look at your hobby and its expense realistically. A new mother can’t let her baby go without diapers or formula, but at the same time, she can’t let her scrapbook of memories fall to the wayside either. Don’t worry – it is possible to create a beautiful scrapbook on a budget.
One thing that budget scrappers tend to do is purchase masses of supplies when there is a sale at their local craft store. This seems like a good way to get quality supplies at a good price, but there is a down side to this type of stocking up. When you start purchasing everything in sight at a big sale, you will almost always end up with items that you never end up using. Even if these were cheap, they still were a waste of money, because you never use them.
One of the most important things that you can do to keep yourself on track when purchasing scrapbooking supplies is to keep a list of the items you need. Just because a particular embellishment is on sale does not mean that you will need it. Keep the photos that you will be scrapping soon in the back of your mind, and only buy things that will be used with those pictures.
Another way to save money is with your text. You can create titles and sayings with scrapbooking stickers, but you will only get one use out of your sticker. Consider instead using rubber stamps. You can use rubber stamps over and over again, and inkpads have a long shelf life. Many budget conscious scrappers avoid the stamping isle at all costs because the up front cost of ink pads is so high. You need to keep in mind that while the up front cost might be high, you will get unlimited life out of them once you have them.
This day and age, almost everyone has at least one computer in the house. Most individuals also have some kind of word-processing program or a simple graphics program that provides plenty of ways to embellish your scrapbook.. If you take a little time you can create some interesting things with the hundreds of fonts and clip art samples in those programs. What’s more, if you have internet access, you can search the web for free font and clip-art download sites.
If you are going to splurge on a scrapbooking supply, spend your money on scrapbooking tools. Tools give you the ability to create unique pages out of any paper. The more tools you have, the more creative you can be. Shop stores during sales to stock up on tools like cutting systems and punches.
The most important idea about scrapbooking is that you are the one to do the putting together, and there aren’t any rules on how you get it done. You don’t need the latest gadget or special accessory just because everyone else has it. Use what you have available and be creative with what you have on hand. You’ll be surprised at what you can come up with. Who knows? You might be the one to hit on the next great trend in scrapbooking that will have everyone asking you how you did it!
By Crafts Editor
Scrapbooks Etc Magazine – Guide to making magnificent memory pages with easy, step-by-step instructions that take you from start to finish and make each of your pages a masterpiece.
