ScrapMentor - Scrapbooking 101

Week 3 - Tools/Tips/Techniques

Back to Scrapbooking 101 Curriculum

Basic Supplies - Part II

Last week, you learned about some of the basic supplies you need to get started in scrapbooking. This week, we round out the beginning quilter's "must-have's."

Markers and Pens

If you plan to do your journaling by hand, pens are going to be essential for you, and you will likely invest a lot more of your money into having a wide variety than the computer journaler. Even those who journal by computer, however, should invest in - at the very least - a good-quality, medium-point black pen. There could be some layouts on which you want to include only a handwritten date, a child's name, or other detail. You would also do well to get a couple of other pens in basic colors: brown and blue. You can purchase pens in other colors, of course, but as scrapbooking supplies go, inkpens are relatively expensive and you might prefer to invest your supply dollars elsewhere.

Which brand you choose to go with is really a matter of personal preference, once you weed out those pens that are not marked as acid free and/or archivally safe. I personally prefer Micron Pigma Pens in .05 point for most of my hand-journaling. Ask at a local scrapbook store if they have a variety of pens you can try to see what "fits" your hand best. Pay attention to how the ink flows - a pen that requires you to push too hard can leave ugly indentations on your paper, and one that flows too easily can smudge and make writing messy. If your local stores don't have a stash of pens for you to try, consider attending a scrapbooking crop. Most scrapbookers would be more than happy to let you try a few squiggles with their pens to see what suits you best.

Depending on your camera and the photos you have already on hand that need to be scrapbooked, you might want to purchase a red-eye removal pen. You can buy these at most craft stores, and at many scrapbook stores. You just lightly touch the red glare in a person's eye to remove the dot.

There are packets of markers and pens with several colors that you can purchase, but we would not recommend that you get these right away. Markers and pens have a shelf life, and until you find that you have a style that requires frequent use of lots of writing implements, you would probably be wasting your money buying colors you'll never use. Instead, consider slowly building your collection color-by-color in a high-quality pen that you like, as you need each new color.

Eyelets/Brads

Eyelets and brads are probably the most common non-paper scrapbooking embellishment in current use. These tiny metal (usually aluminum or steel) doo-dads are perfect for joining items together, while adding a little color and style to a scrapbooking element. They range in diameter from 1/16" to the newer 1" brads, but the most commonly-used varieties are 1/8" and 3/16".

An assortment of eyelets and brads
Bear in mind that while some eyelets are really grossly overpriced, you will generally get what you pay for - cheap eyelets are usually cheaply made, and will split and break far more frequently than their more expensive counterparts. Brads are a safer bet, though even these can suffer from poor quality control. So be sure you don't scrimp too much.

Brads are generally easier to use than eyelets. All you have to do is poke a hole in the paper (you can use a hole punch or even just a thumbtack or needle), press the feet of the eyelet through the paper front to back, then splay the feet out on the backside. For eyelets, you need setting tools, and the process is somewhat more complicated. We cover this in greater detail in week 13.

The front and back of three eyelets - one round and two shaped

Both brads and eyelets can be purchased in an ever-growing range of colors. Similarly, both are available either as round or "shaped." Some online scrapbook stores specialize in nothing but these versatile little fasteners, and collecting them could be a hobby in its own right! Individual packages of brads and eyelets are cheap, which makes buying lots of them very tempting, indeed. However, I urge you to resist this impulse until you find out how and whether you would use them in a particular layout. Every veteran scrapbooker has that assortment of cute shaped eyelets that seemed like a good idea at the time, but somehow they never made their way onto a scrapbook page.

A good starting supply of eyelets or brads would be 25-50 silver, 25-50 gold, 25-50 white or black, then perhaps an assortment pack (25-50) in colors that coordinate well with the patterned papers you chose in last week's lesson. Remember, you can always buy more later, if you need them!

Vellum

Plain, colored, and patterned vellum

Vellum falls under the heading of specialty paper. It is not a necessity for scrapbooking, but it is so versatile and can add so much to a layout that you should probably consider it in your initial purchase of supplies. It is a shiny, nonporous paper that lies somewhere between opaque and transparent. It is often used in wedding invitations to add a touch of class and elegance. In scrapbooking, it is widely used for journaling, as well as for other decorative elements such as to represent clouds or seafoam.

By and large, the vellum that you will find in scrapbook stores is acid- and lignin-free, and therefore safe for use in scrapbooks. Some of the vellum you find in stationery and office supply stores may not be archivally sound; pay attention to labeling when you buy. Vellum is available both as 8.5"x11" and as 12"x12". You can get plain, colored, or patterned vellum in both sizes. Some vellums have a metallic sheen to them. Patterned vellums are generally harder to use than plain or colored vellums.

If you plan to print on your vellum - for journaling or titles, for example - you should get vellum that will easily go through your printer. For most of us, that means 8.5"x11". Handwriting on vellum is very difficult, and usually much more trouble than it is worth. If you print on vellum, be sure to give the ink lots of time to dry. Vellum is non-porous, so the ink will need to dry on the surface, and that takes more time.

If you like the look of the samples in this page, you should consider investing in a starter pack of perhaps 25 sheets of plain vellum. You can add colored vellum, if you like, though it's probably a good idea to wait and see what you need and whether your printer will "play nice" with vellum before you buy too much.

Albums and Page Protectors

As you begin to make all those great layouts, you will need some place to put them, and that means an album of some type. There are several varieties and a number of sizes on the market today. Innovative designers are experimenting with stylish fabric cover choices - no longer simply the plain, single-color leatherette. Whether you get a stately navy blue leather album or a tropical-print fabric album really depends on your taste, and the type of album you intend it to be. The sky is the limit for choices.

Size should be determined largely by the number of pictures per page you plan to use, and the amount of space you prefer around them. If you are doing a family album, with pictures going back a number of years, and you are an avid photographer, the larger 12"x12" albums are probably best for you. By the same token, if you generally prefer layouts with fewer pictures but with more space around them, a 12"x12" album might be your best bet.

For gift albums, you might consider an 8"x8" or a 6"x6" album. These albums tend to be more cost-effective, as well as much easier to complete in a reasonable amount of time, particularly if you are making several at once. For the traditionalist, there is always the tried-and-true 8.5"x11" album.

Metal rings on a 3-ring binder

A post-bound album hides the metal screw posts behind the flap on the front and back covers.

There are four basic types of albums: three-ring binder, post-bound, strap-hinge, and spiral-bound. Three-ring binders work just like notebooks you may have used in school - you open the metal rings, allowing you to slide pages in and out, then you close the rings again to secure the pages. Post-bound albums have metal posts hidden by a fold-back binding which is part of the covers. These can be opened to move pages around, and you can attach post extenders to them to increase the size of your album and thus the number of pages it will take. Strap-hinge albums have inserts threaded through straps in the binding. Your pages are adhered directly to the inserts, which does not allow you to move pages around after you have adhered them to the inserts. Spiral-bound albums are similar to strap-hinge in that you adhere your layouts directly to the background pages, except that you can neither add pages to the album nor move the inserts around.

Page protectors are an important concern in scrapbooking. They help protect your photos, memorabilia, and decorative elements from wear and tear brought about by viewing, storage, and transport. As people leaf through your album, oils, lotions, and other substances from the viewers' hands will transfer onto your pages and pictures, unless the latter are protected with page protectors. These clear plastic sleeves slip into your album (most albums come with 10-20 protectors), and your pages in turn slip into the protectors. Most page protectors are top-loading - meaning that the pages slide in and out of them from the top - though some are side-loading. Make sure the page protectors you use are photo-safe, and that they will fit the holes in your album (not all brands are exactly the same).

I started out using three-ring albums, but soon adopted the post-bound albums as my album of choice. They are more professional-looking, two-page layouts have less of a gap between the left page and the right, they are expandable, and it has been my experience that they tend to hold together better. I recommend that you take a look at a few albums at your local scrapbook store - most have several samples out that you can view - and see which you prefer. You will need at least one album and several page protectors to store the pages you will make in this course.

Stickers

Ten or so years ago, scrapbooking was all about stickers and decorative scissors. While the product revolution has added a lot more variety to the pages we make, stickers are still a staple. There are hundreds of manufacturers, producing stickers in a huge range of styles to suit all tastes. There are stickers made from cardstock, vellum, vinyl - you name it! I can't recommend a particular style or type to you - you have to see what tickles your fancy - but I can recommend that you take it easy on buying stickers, at least in the beginning. You want to invest your money in stickers you will actually use, not just those that will take up space in your craft area.

Remember to check your stickers for the notation "acid-free." Not all stickers are suitable for scrapbooking, though you can be reasonably assured that anything stocked in a scrapbooking store probably is. If you have a particular themed album in mind - for example, a baby album - then you should look around for stickers whose colors, themes, messages (if you get word/saying/quote stickers), and styles fit what you have in mind for your album.

Fibers/Ribbons

There has been a veritable explosion in the last five years of choices of ribbons and other fibers available to scrapbookers. "Fibers" are any yarn-like material that is usually purchased by the yard, and can be used to adorn a scrapbook page. Many of us have drawers, boxes, and other creative storage devices overflowing with fibers and ribbons in ever color imaginable.

There are lots of ways you can find fibers and ribbons to purchase. You can buy entire spools, or specific cut "lengths" (usually feet or yards) from a spool, roll, or skein. Some sellers bundle cuts of a variety of coordinating fibers into packs - so you might get, for example, three yards each of six different fibers in a single package. Individual fibers are really quite cheap, making the temptation to collection them particularly strong. Resist! Buy only what you know you'll use, and grow your collection gradually.

Punches

Punches are very useful for making many of the same shapes over and over again, in any color paper you have on hand. You can get punches in almost any conceivable shape, from circles to squares to frogs to hearts to champagne glasses. They are quite expensive, so I recommend you use your local scrapbook store's collection of punches until you get a better feel for what you need to keep on hand.

As an exception, you should consider purchasing round hand punches in 1/4", 1/8", and 1/16" sizes. These are punches that will see lots of use for things like setting brads, attaching fibers, making holes in tags, and other common purposes. Go for quality, and buy ones with grips that feel comfortable in your hand.

Homework

More shopping! Now that you have your paper, cardstock, trimmer, scissors, and adhesive, you need to get an album to store the pages you will soon (very soon, I promise!) be making. I also recommend that you buy a pack of refills (page protectors, with post extenders if you got a post-bound album) for the size album you chose. Also get a starter assortment of brads and eyelets, stickers, and possibly a punch or two. If you find ribbons or fibers that you fall in love with, and that match your overall album theme, get a few one-yard lengths of each one. Get one good black ink pen that writes well for you.

Supplemental Reading

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