Free Scrapbooking Ideas

Michele Cardello asked:


Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa can often be hard subject matter for holiday scrapbooking ideas. However, holiday scrapbooking ideas do not require a great leap of imagination.

After all, most holiday scrapbooking ideas focus on the concept of tradition, something that always keeps the holidays alive. Therefore, it is quite simple to have tradition be the subject for your holiday scrapbooking ideas. Not just tradition, but how the scrapper personally celebrates his or her holiday tradition of Christmas, Hanakkah, or Kwanzaa.

It is good to have pages showing pictures of your family celebrating the holiday, along with some text such as journaling precisely how your family personally celebrates the holiday and what it means to them. The text can be done in other ways, and it is up the scrapper to use his or her imagination.

For example, Christmas traditions range from all kinds of origins, from its beginning celebrations, to more modern customs such as mistletoe and the Christmas tree. Every household seems to have various ways of celebrating Christmas, and it may take the scrapper a lot of thought before he or she discovers the traditions to be the subjects of his or her holiday scrapbooking ideas. The scrapper needs to ask his or herself what traditions he or she remembers from Christmases past, and how he or she still incorporates them into their present day celebrations.

If you celebrate Hanukkah, you may want to include a photo session on the lighting of the menorah, an important ritual. A personal account by a family member could help bring the event to life to someone outside the family looking at the page, especially if they do not know or celebrate Hanukkah traditions. The same rule applies to a Kwanzaa page, and it demonstrates holiday scrapbooking ideas where the scrapper’s family can showcase the meaning of the holiday and how the scrapper celebrates it.

A photo spread is another way to go with holiday scrapbooking ideas. Often a simple horizontal display of pictures can create a quiet effect that brings out the majestic holiday. Sometimes photos in black-and-white can create an interesting, more in-depth effect than color ones.

Some other good holiday scrapbooking ideas are taking cards from the occasion, such as Christmas cards, and removing the fronts. From there, they can be arranged into a collage that really puts the holiday on display in a very unique fashion. Even though this may lack the personal touch of photos, there is still much that can be said there.

The use of colors can be important, and traditional Christmas colors such as red and green might seem the obvious choice for holiday scrapbooking ideas. However, these can be overused, and it is really more important to have substance over style. Foils and embossing are effective toward any holiday scrapbooking, and there are many ideas of how to arrange them.

It is true that some of the best holiday scrapbooking ideas for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa involve tradition, but creativity may trump it. In other words, while holiday scrapbooking ideas based in and on tradition usually work, sometimes the best choice is to break tradition once in awhile.



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Dawn Hall asked:


ooking supplies are not cheap. The cost for colorful paper and card stock, stickers, embellishments, and adhesives can really add up. If you are looking for frugal scrapbooking ideas to help cut back on these expenses, keep reading. By using discarded items you find around the house, you will save money and recycle things that would otherwise end up in the landfills.

1. Cereal Boxes

If you have a die cut machine capable of cutting chipboard, such as the Cricut Expression, don’t buy chipboard at the craft store. Instead, use cereal boxes. Once you adhere colorful paper to the cereal box die cuts, no one will ever guess it came from your pantry! You can also use inexpensive cookie cutters as patterns for your cereal box chipboard shapes.

2. Wallpaper Remnants

Many wallpaper remnants are as beautiful as the pricey papers in the scrapbooking stores. Make regular stops at your local paint and wallcovering stores, get to know the staff, and ask them to call you when they have discontinued sample books that they are discarding. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that these samples are not acid-free. Although they may not be suitable for your scrapbook pages, they are the perfect touch for handmade cards and other paper crafting projects.

3. Gift Wrap

Think of all the beautiful gift wrap that ends up in the landfill. Instead of throwing it away, recycle it. At birthday parties and other special occasions, check with the guest of honor to find out if he or she has any plans to use the gift wrap after unwrapping presents. If they plan to throw it away, you should be able to collect a good assortment of gift wrap paper that can be used for your frugal paper crafting projects.

4. Fabric and Ribbon Scraps

If sewing is another one of your hobbies, you already know that fabric and ribbon scraps are the perfect complement to your paper crafting projects. Many of these fabric and ribbon scraps are too small for sewing, yet are the perfect size for accenting handmade cards and more. Ask your friends and family members that sew to keep a ziploc handy to collect their scraps. These bits and pieces of ribbon and fabric are perfect for your scrapbook and paper crafting projects!

5. Office Supplies

Many of the products in the scrapbooking aisle are simply embellished office supplies. Office supplies, however, are much cheaper, and can be jazzed up with very little effort. For example, instead of buying the colorful brads at the scrapbooking store, pick up a box of paper fasteners. Paint them with inexpensive acrylic paints to coordinate with the your layouts.

With a little imagination and creative thinking, you will surely find even more common household goods that you can use for frugal scrapbooking ideas. Keep an inexpensive container handy, and as you come across odds and ends that could find a second life in one of your projects, place it in the container until you find a use for it.



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