Back to Basics: Scrapbooking Tools

What's In Your Scrapbooking Toolkit?: Submitted by Stacy Brunner

Recently, I've heard friends say, "I'd love to start scrapbooking, but I just can't afford it."  What?!  That's preposterous!  Scrapbooking is the thing to do when you don't have much funding.  You make something out of nothing and have a wonderful time doing it.  In making an "industry" out of a "pastime", we have made it inaccessible to the general population.  So with that thought in mind and in thinking through what bare necessities a person needs for an evening crop, I came up with the following list.  You don't need expensive electronic gadgets or the trendiest paper to document your life in pictures.  You just need a couple tools, your photos, and your stories..

Designing
I usually have notepaper all over my house and office desk with ideas for scrapbook pages.  Sometimes I hear a song lyric or a catchy phrase that I'd like to incorporate on a layout.  Or I have a photo that needs a strong layout, so I make little sketches to get an idea of what will work.  And I never scrap without some scratch paper.  Remember in school when you'd scribble the math or your essay answer on another sheet before committing it to the actual test?  Well it's a similar thing in scrapbooking.  I like to free write my journaling before I commit it to the page.  That way, I can read through it a few times and edit if needed.  I can also find out how much space it's going take on the page.

For this kind of brainstorming and design work, you can't go wrong with a good old-fashioned number 2 pencil with a giant eraser.  When my pencil gets lost (I'm a messy scrapper), all production halts because I just can't seem to think without it. 

Cutting
Once I have some well-formed ideas, the cutting begins.  A self-healing mat is a good investment, but not a requirement.  The biggest advantage of the mat is that it outlines my immediate workspace.  It's 12×12 inches that I keep free of clutter.  The lines on the mat are also ideal for making sure you are writing or gluing where you intended.  It's an added bonus that it also keeps the table surface free of knicks and scratches.

A paper trimmer is ideal for trimming photos.  The sliding blade makes straight lines a snap.  Of course, if you don't want to invest in one of these, you can go organic and trim your photos with scissors.  I keep scissors on hand for all sorts things.  Regular size paper scissors are great.  But even better than those are the tiny, sharp scissors for precision cutting.  These scissors just seem to cut on auto-pilot.  They glide around turns and crevices with ease.  My favorite use of the tiny scissors?  Cutting out letters traced from a template.  I'm like a really slow Cricut with those scissors!

The x-acto blade (or craft knife) is another good tool for precision cuts.  This can be used to make cut-outs in patterned paper or to decorate custom chipboard.  You'll want to pair this with the self-healing mat to avoid ruining your tabletop.  The mat generally makes a nice surface for smooth cutting.

You may not realize it, but there are numerous reasons for needing holes in your layouts.  For this, everyone needs a small and medium hole punch.  I use these every time I scrap.  The hand-held hole punch that you used in school to put all your papers in the three-ring binder will work just fine.

For really classy pages with just a small investment, buy a corner rounder.  You can get some really versatile looks by rounding the corners on photos and embellishments.  You  might be surprised all the different uses of this tool.

Pasting
If you're obsessive about archival quality, you may not agree with my choice in adhesive.  I am a big fan of glue.  Glue sticks and liquid glue are my adhesives of choice.  I especially like a liquid tube of glue that has a precision applicator to it.  It works great for applying glue to the tiny cut-out template letters and other slivers of art.

Journaling
Journaling should be a prominent part of your layouts.  Allow yourself to be creative in your journaling by investing in a pen that writes on any surface.  I use a black Zig Vellum Writer.  The fine point is perfect for large areas of text.  Mix the medium tip with the fine to make fun doodles and creative lettering.  I use this pen so much, I buy more than one at a time so I always have a backup.

When you're working on dark colored papers however, you'll want white ink.  The search for the perfect white pen was grueling.  I finally discovered the Sakuro gelly roll pen in white.  It writes with a fine point in an opaque shade of white.  The ink flows from the pen to the page effortlessly creating beautiful journaling on your page.  And really, the black and white pens will take you very far on your scrapbooking journey.

Decorating
Items for decorating may be the most extravagant in your tool kit.  I bought an embossing stylus for its intended purpose, to create embossed images.  Well, I think I have embossed images exactly twice.  But the stylus is so important that when I lost mine recently, I had to replace it.  I use it with the paper trimmer to score folds.  I use it to thread ribbon into small holes.  I like to think of it as my multi-purpose tool.

Tweezers are another item worth their weight in gold.  After cutting out tiny letters or slivers of paper, I can use tweezers to hold the item while I apply glue.  You can also use them to carefully position stickers.

Whether you use rubber stamps in your scrapbook or not, it's handy to have a couple ink pads at least.  The black StazOn ink is great because it dries quickly and sets permanently.  It's also not a very wet and sloppy ink, so you can use it with stamps that have very fine details.  I also keep brown ink on hand for creating distressed looks.  It gives background papers and embellishments dimension to ink the edges a bit.

Now, I challenge all of you to take your tools (the ones you already have around your house) and your creative mind and get busy recording your story.  If you're a beginner, you have permission to use the simplest tools to document your story.  And for those who have mountains of products and tools, I challenge you to set it aside for an evening and get back to the basics.  Grab a stack of photos, some scissors, and a glue stick and put your story on the page in record time.  Maybe in doing this, you'll discover a bit of creativity that you've lost along the way.

What's in your toolkit?

[tag-tec]scrapbooking[/tag-tec], [tag-ice]scrapbooking tools[/tag-ice], [tag-self]scrapbooking ideas[/tag-self], [tag-self]scrapbook layout[/tag-self]