As my husband can attest to, I am very cute but very messy. My crafts may look nice at the end, but the process is always a little chaotic, typically disorganized, and always takes five times longer than anticipated. That's okay sometimes but when it comes to certain crafts, like, say, scrapbooking, being disorganized can lead to an expensive, never-finished monstrosity that will live in the back of my closet and haunt me (like...um, my unfinished wedding scrapbook).
Well, today I'm going to share with you this totally awesome scrapbook I made in just a few hours with a minimal mess and tons of mistakes that ended up looking awesome. Also, it was pretty cheap as far as scrapbooks go. (excuse the paper towel, I am still trying to figure out to take better pictures and everything in my house is yellow)
First, I picked up the This is the Life Project Life Accessory Kit from Stampin' Up! for $10. I picked it for no other reason than the colors. I flipping love bright colors. I don't wear a lot of bright colors and my house is pretty neutral but when it comes to any kind of craft, sewing, paper, whatever, I want to surround myself with bright, bright brights.
I read the description of this pack before I purchased it, of course, but when it arrived I was pretty impressed with the amount of cuteness I got for just $10. LOTS of stickers and two inch squares to fill up my scrapbook with busy, fun color.
Wait...two inch squares? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention I made a 4x4 inch scrapbook? Screw the 12x12 book, I can't seem to manage anything that big right now. Maybe later....but for now, I feel good about the 4x4- and I recommend it to everyone who has been wanting to make a scrapbook but also feels overwhelmed by the task.
Anyway, here's the completed product:
(those arrows on the side are paper clips- they are holding some info on Alcatraz that I saved- photopockets also make great keepsake pockets)
(Yes, I freaked out when we walked by the Moscone Center. The Net was my favorite movie in 1996.)
Geez, I just love how the stickers and the little 2 inch squares make this album look really "finished"- and I didn't have to do any stamping or drawing. Only sticking and inserting! I'll admit, some of the stickers are a little corny, and I considered not using any, but I'm really, really glad I did. Memories are corny!!
This couldn't have been easier to put together! It only took me a few hours and this little book will hold probably 10 more pages for my future scrapbooking needs. Not to mention I had quite a few colored squares left over for future scrapbooking pages.
Let's talk about pictures.
For the love of God, if you decide to make an instagram-sized scrapbook, do NOT purchase "instagram" sized prints. Collaging my square prints into a 4x6 inch photo was the greatest craft decision I think I've ever made in my life. One 4x4 "instagram" print runs about $1.50, and unless you want four copies of one two-inch photo, you'll have to collage a little bit anyway. And most 4x6 inch photos run about 19 CENTS a piece. I printed doubles of all my scrapbook photos for a total of $3.50. That's the price of about two Instagram prints.
Sound hard? It's not. You can collage in Gimp or Photoshop, or, you can do what I did and download a collage app on your phone. If you post photos to Instagram and Facebook, it's possible you already have one. I used PicFrame. Why? Because it was the first thing that popped up when I googled "collage app". The hardest part was picking out what photos I wanted to be four inches and which I wanted to be two inches. I had to make a list. That was pretty much the only organizing part required.
Anyway, it took me about 15 minutes to decide which photos to print, five minutes to collage them, five minutes to upload them and send them to Mike's Camera for printing, and three minutes to cut them out. Like I said, I printed doubles just in case I messed up cutting them, but guess what? I didn't mess up cutting any of them. And I cut the images out in less time than it took for me to warm up my lunch in the microwave the day I made this scrapbook.
If cutting out the pictures is what is keeping you from trying this, invite me to your house and I will cut them out. Oreos are the most acceptable form of payment.
Let's talk about some mistakes I made.
I think it's important that I talk about crafting mistakes and how to solve them. Personally, my favorite blog posts are about crafting problems and how my favorite bloggers solve them so I'm going to write about mine right now.
1. Coordinating colors for journal cards. Because I am super lame at remembering to take pictures during important events, I like the idea of journal cards in scrapbooks. That way I can write down some memories in lieu of a picture. My accessory kit didn't come with any, so I made a few using scrap white cardstock and a few Stampin' Write markers. The colors didn't exactly match. Can you tell? Hell no you can't. I worried about this for about twenty minutes, what a waste of time. So what if the colors don't match exactly? This wasn't a mistake, I just want to point out that sometimes it works out best to just use what you have instead of spend money on ONE marker that matches your ONE project perfectly. I want you to buy Stampin Up products through me, but let's be reasonable. If I had let it get to me, I would have spent more money, I would have had to wait for the markers to come in the mail instead of continuing to act on my craft motivation, and the book probably wouldnt have been finished. It would be in my closet next to my wedding scrapbook. Haunting me. Forever. Because I didn't just use a marker I already had.
2. Wrong Date on Journal Card.
See it? Ugh, My tummy did a flip when I noticed this. In fact, I didn't notice until I was putting the finished cards in the scrapbook. My thought: I worked so hard on this and used up the cute stickers and now I'm going to have to do it again but it won't turn out the same....it's ruined. But see, it's a busy, kinda messy, fun style, right? So putting a little square over the wrong date sort of added to the "scrapbooky" style. Deep breaths, no bid deal. It worked!
3. Cover Page
It took me a little bit of time to get the words on this page relatively even and sort of balanced. Then I created "tabs" using leftover stickers from the accessory kit. Then I got lazy and instead of going downstairs to find my handheld hole punch, I tried to use my husband's three-hole punch. It did NOT work, one of the holes was only half on the sticker tab. Again, frustrated. It was seriously the LAST part of this scrapbook and I thought, of course, of course I totally ruined my scrapbook in the last few minutes of its fruition. But I managed to pull of the stickers off without much damage to the actual page. Then I tore through my craftroom looking for something to cover up the tears from the stickers and to re-create the tabs I wanted. Luckily, I found some sort-of matching washi tape. It's not Stampin Up, I got it from A Beautiful Mess during a sale like..a year ago...and I never used it. But it worked perfectly!! I could have just glued cardstock on it as well, which was my plan until I came across the washi. Lesson: Don't use a three hole punch when you're trying to get one hole. AND, in the crafting world, most mistakes can be rectified. Sometimes it even looks better than the original.
I think it's important that I talk about crafting mistakes and how to solve them. Personally, my favorite blog posts are about crafting problems and how my favorite bloggers solve them so I'm going to write about mine right now.
1. Coordinating colors for journal cards. Because I am super lame at remembering to take pictures during important events, I like the idea of journal cards in scrapbooks. That way I can write down some memories in lieu of a picture. My accessory kit didn't come with any, so I made a few using scrap white cardstock and a few Stampin' Write markers. The colors didn't exactly match. Can you tell? Hell no you can't. I worried about this for about twenty minutes, what a waste of time. So what if the colors don't match exactly? This wasn't a mistake, I just want to point out that sometimes it works out best to just use what you have instead of spend money on ONE marker that matches your ONE project perfectly. I want you to buy Stampin Up products through me, but let's be reasonable. If I had let it get to me, I would have spent more money, I would have had to wait for the markers to come in the mail instead of continuing to act on my craft motivation, and the book probably wouldnt have been finished. It would be in my closet next to my wedding scrapbook. Haunting me. Forever. Because I didn't just use a marker I already had.
2. Wrong Date on Journal Card.
See it? Ugh, My tummy did a flip when I noticed this. In fact, I didn't notice until I was putting the finished cards in the scrapbook. My thought: I worked so hard on this and used up the cute stickers and now I'm going to have to do it again but it won't turn out the same....it's ruined. But see, it's a busy, kinda messy, fun style, right? So putting a little square over the wrong date sort of added to the "scrapbooky" style. Deep breaths, no bid deal. It worked!
3. Cover Page
It took me a little bit of time to get the words on this page relatively even and sort of balanced. Then I created "tabs" using leftover stickers from the accessory kit. Then I got lazy and instead of going downstairs to find my handheld hole punch, I tried to use my husband's three-hole punch. It did NOT work, one of the holes was only half on the sticker tab. Again, frustrated. It was seriously the LAST part of this scrapbook and I thought, of course, of course I totally ruined my scrapbook in the last few minutes of its fruition. But I managed to pull of the stickers off without much damage to the actual page. Then I tore through my craftroom looking for something to cover up the tears from the stickers and to re-create the tabs I wanted. Luckily, I found some sort-of matching washi tape. It's not Stampin Up, I got it from A Beautiful Mess during a sale like..a year ago...and I never used it. But it worked perfectly!! I could have just glued cardstock on it as well, which was my plan until I came across the washi. Lesson: Don't use a three hole punch when you're trying to get one hole. AND, in the crafting world, most mistakes can be rectified. Sometimes it even looks better than the original.
Thanks for taking a look at my scrapbook! Don't forget that I am booking Stampin' Up! Workshops in July and August, but you can also order supplies through the website. Please remember to select me as your demonstrator!!
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