subject: Choosing Your Scrapbooking Supplies [print this page] You may have noticed that many department stores are now carrying vast amounts of scrapbooking supplies. They wouldn't have so much in stock if there wasn't a huge demand for it. If you've been down one of these aisles recently you will have seen the hundreds of stickers, funny looking scissors, packets of colored paper scraps, rulers and cutting boards. As well as the pages, plastic sleeves, hole punches, tags, marker pens, etc... The list just goes on and on.
So what exactly do you need to buy to get started and will it cost the earth? It can be daunting but with just a few basic supplies you can start scrapbooking to your heart's content and not break the bank.
You should already have the most important items - your photos. These are the highlight of every scrapbook page and should be displayed as such. How you want to dress up these pages will dictate how much money you will need to spend on supplies. If you are very crafty you could try your hand at making your own bits and pieces to dress the pages up with. These embellishments will help make your photos pop off the page.
After selecting the right sized scrapbook (you may want to stick with a standard size so you can design some of your pages on your computer and print them out), you will need to decide on the types of themes you want to use to highlight your photos so you can coordinate colors and shapes. A lot of packs available for purchase already contain matching elements; colors, borders, stickers, all in the same design or theme. If you choose one of these packs you won't need too many other tools apart from the glue or double-sided tape to stick everything in place.
If you decide to buy your items separately you will need additional things like scissors, rulers, cutting mats and blades, hole punches, maker pens, etc... as well as selecting different papers and embellishments to make your themes. Remember to also include any mementoes or souvenirs that you may have collected over the years when visiting special places or going to special events. These can be added to your layouts and greatly enhance your pages.
Very enthusiastic scrapbookers can have vast amounts of supplies, so much so that they need special storage containers to keep everything organized. There are also trolley bags to keep supplies in so you can take everything with you if you go out, perhaps to your next scrapbooking class.
