Life races by. Sometimes that can feel like a good thing—we all wish for the workweek to conclude, for that vacation to get here, for this or that big event to arrive. But when we wish time away, we aren’t living in the moment, are we?
No, we most certainly are not. We all need to slow down a little, be present, to reside at the moment, even if the moment is a challenging one. Living in the now is one of the many things that encourage creative types to give crafting a whirl, to set aside chunks of their time for the simple pleasure of creation. And among the dedicated crafters, a pretty solid argument can be made that those most present are the crafters who dedicate a chunk of their craft shop time to the art of scrapbooking.
Scrapbooking is all about seizing moments from your life and memorializing them on the page. It’s basically the way crafters journal. And trust us when we say it’s good for the soul. So grab that cutting mat and gather around because today we are going to help you gain access to the good-for-your-soul world of scrapbooking.
The General Necessities
When it comes to the basic accouterment of the scrapbooking realm, the fact of the matter is, if you’re a crafter, you probably already have the necessary implements. If your workshop comes equipped with a good set of reliable craft tools, you are basically really to go.
When it comes to tools, you need to cut it out, and then you need to stick it on, so what does that mean?
For starters, you’ll need a solid craft knife. If you don’t have one, remedy that RIGHT NOW. If you don’t have a trusty craft knife, you are limiting yourself to a great degree, and not just when it comes to scrapbooking. So go ahead and remedy your situation if your craft knife isn’t up to snuff.
And then, dear crafters, you’ll need glue. The chances are what you’re already bringing to the table is adequate. To see whether the glue in your arsenal is scrapbooking appropriate, check out this list of top-notch scrapbooking glues from Bustle.com.
Adding Flourishes
You can craft scrapbooking masterpieces without adding flare, but when it comes right down to it, adding flare means adding fun. So why not unleash the flare goddess within and sprinkle your scrapbooks with all sorts of majesty?
Your flare preferences are your flare preferences. But if you want some flare guidance, start with stencils, and when you’re looking for scrapbooking guidance, it’s pretty hard to beat the advice from Scrapbooking.com; check out their guide to the best scrapbooking stencils.
Next, you’ll likely want to add some cardstock paper, and when you’re looking for crafting supplies, Joann Fabrics pretty much always has you covered; you can trust that their cardstock paper supply won’t let you down.
From there, you can add glitter or cut-out letters for fun captions. Just follow your inner creative and unleash joy on the page. When you do that, you can do no wrong.
A Good Binder
You could make a pretty strong argument that our list is out of order. We’d simply offer a nod and a snide retort noting that we didn’t promise to list THEE most essential bits first. With that said, let’s list a couple of essential bits.
There’s no such thing as a scrapBOOK without the BOOK. So go ahead and secure a proper scrapbook binder. You can find those locally or in about a trillion places online, but for some fun options that will get you where you need to go, check out the offerings from Etsy (always a haven for crafters).
PHOTOS, PHOTOS, PHOTOS
As we just noted, this list is guilty of holding off the most critical elements until the grand finale. And you can’t really scrapbook without the last item on this list: Loads of great photos. Now every scrapbook is truly a bit of personal expression, so you’ll just have to follow your heart about the content you feature throughout, but we are pretty firm in our belief that a scrapbook really should feature photos that tell the story of your life (or at least a segment of it).
So at the risk of stating the forehead-slapping obvious: you’re gonna need ample personal photos to choose from. But don’t just go taking that craft knife to the lone copy of critical photos from your family album.
If you’re going to trim up pictures, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make sure what you’re cutting into isn’t the only copy around. Make duplicates before you get down to the nitty-gritty work of editing via the craft knife.
As we noted at the outset here, scrapbooking is essentially a form of meditation, a way of sinking into your existence, so you fully inhabit life on its inexorable march forward. You can’t inhabit unless you cherish—and scrapbooking is a much-needed reminder that life offers a steady stream of priceless moments.
