Great Page Embellishment and Sticker Tips

Page embellishments and stickers for your scrapbook pages can get end up costing you quite a bit of money, if you are looking for a less expensive approach to embellishments and stickers we have a great resource for you. You can go to www.clipart.com and check out all their royalty free clipart, they have a plethora of clip art, fonts, photos and lots of great things for scrapbookers, digital and regular scrapbookers. For a membership price of $14.95 you can download 1000 images a day. Even if you don't decide to keep the membership it is worth the price. Download the images and save them to a cd or your hard drive, whatever works best for you. Once you have downloaded the images you can turn them into stickers, page backgrounds or embellishments. There's really no limit to what you can do, and they are adding new ones all the time. Check out their site, it will be well worth your time.

Things To Remember

The most important thing to remember when scrapbooking is to have fun. Try different things and different approaches, like turning things upside down. I have noticed to many people being concerned about things being so balanced when they are starting a page that they remind me of robots. Instead of letting things just flow. Try a few different arrangements on your background paper before making anything permanent. By simply rotating your pictures, tags, stickers or other major elements, you will come up with a totally different look.

Look outside the box when adding embellishments to your pages. Just make sure the items you add are acid free and lignin -free. You can purchase a pen that looks like a felt marker to test items to see if they are acid free. The ink will change colors. If you have your heart set on adding something that isn't acid free you can either photo copy it or enclose it inside. Adding real leaves sealed in laminate with a Xyron would be a great accent to a page. Pieces of jewlery, charms, a cartoon or picture you drew yourself....on and on.

Make your own designer paper, by taking white or ivory paper and add color to it with ink, glitter, mica powders or paint. Make your own textured paper. (We'll have more on paper making later.) Again just remember to have fun.

Getting Started

There are no hard and fast rules to scrapbooking as it is considered an artform. Some prefer pages where the photograph is the central element and embellishments are minimally applied, others include a variety of embellishments to add to the design. This is a personal choice, each can be effective and create stunning designs. Embellishments may include small, two-dimensional items such as ticket stubs from the theater, love notes from a special someone, or newspaper clippings. Items such as brads or eyelets can be used instead of tape or glue to adhere pictures or papers or be used decoratively. Additional elements may include stickers, quilling , decorated die cuts and flowers (punched, dried, and artificial).

Generally, the focus of the page is the photograph or photographs. It is best to stick with one to three good photos when starting out. The page is then decorated and embellished with items only limited by the creator's imagination. Sketching is an optional step in which the scrapbooker will create, "sketch", a layout of what the page will look like upon completion. Sketching is usually done on a scrap piece of paper which is discarded upon completion of the page. This step assists a scrapper in seeing the final page before all elements are modified to fit on the page to ensure the look is as desired by the scrapbooker.

Scrapbooking can be very easy for anyone who wants to give it a try. Acid-free and lignin-free products are encouraged to prevent the pictures from turning brown.

Scrapbooking Supplies

The most important scrapbooking supply is the album itself, which can be permanently bound, or allow for insertion of pages. There are other formats, such as mini albums and accordion-style fold-out albums. Some of these are adhered to various containers, such as matchbooks, CD cases, or other small holders.

Modern scrapbooking is done largely on 12"×12" or 8½×11" pages. More recently smaller albums have become very popular. The most common new formats are 6"×6", 7" x 7", or 8"×8".

Basic materials include background papers (including printed and cardstock paper ), photo corner mounts (or other means of mounting photos such as adhesive dots, photo mounting tape, or acid-free glue), scissors , a paper trimmer, art pens, archival pens for journaling, and mounting glues (like thermo-tac). More elaborate designs require more specialized tools such as die cut templates, rubber stamps , craft punches,stencils, inking tools, eyelet setters, heat embossing tools and personal die cut machines.

Various accessories, referred to as "embellishments," are used to decorate scrapbook pages. Embellishments include stickers , rub-ons, stamps , eyelets , brads , chipboard elements in various shapes, alphabet letters and ribbon . The use of a die cut machine is also popular or an electronic die-cutting machine, similar to a printer that is connected to your computer to cut shapes or fonts.

One of the key components of modern scrapbooking is the archival quality of the supplies. Designed to preserve photographs and journaling in their original state, materials encouraged by most serious scrapbookers are of a higher quality than those of many typical photo albums commercially available. Scrappers insist on acid-free , lignin -free papers, stamp ink, and embossing powder, and pigment based inks, which are fade resistant, colorfast, and often waterproof . Older "magnetic" albums were not acid-free and thus caused damage to the photos and memorabilia included in them.

Journaling

In addition to the collection of photographs, tickets, postcards, and other memorabilia, journaling is often a principle element in modern scrapbooks. Journaling is the writing that describes, explains, or accents the photographs on a scrapbook page. Contemporary journaling is often reflective and story-like, or can take on a more reportive tone. Journaling may also include song lyrics, quotes, and poems. The value of journaling lies in the fact that it provides an account of family histories that may otherwise not be preserved.

Many consider journaling one of the most important elements of any scrapbook. Journaling is a personal choice and it can describe the event, the photographs, or relate feelings and emotions. Handwritten journaling is considered best by some scrapbookers who see handwriting as valuable for posterity, but many people journal on the computer and print it onto a variety of surfaces including vellum, tape, ribbon, and paper.