New to Scraping and Card Making

Betty - posted on 09/24/2011

Camp Crop-A-Lot October 14th-16th!

Donna - posted on 05/31/2009

I have been scrappbooking for over 10 years now. Yes it is very expensive. I love to buy stuff when it's on sale. I have tons of paper for every occassion. My daughter tell me I can not but anymore paper. So instead I but the brads and ribbons. They are a perfect touch to any project. I also started selling my cards at the Flea markets. It's not alot of $$ coming in, but it does help when I want a new toy to do my projects. I also make books for friends and family as gifts. They always know what I'm giving them but are always surprised at the same time because they have no idea what pictures I've pulled from others. I love it.

Denise - posted on 05/31/2009

I've been scrapping for 5 years, and cardmaking about 3 years. There are lots of ways to make this a less expensive hobby. Ebay is useful for bulk buys - I bid on mystery packages or large paper lots (this way you get the most for your shipping buck). Yardsales are another good place to find papers, punches or tools someone elase doesn't like anymore. I buy most of my cardstock at the office supply store - it's 30-50% less than at the craft store.

Have you ever gone to a crop? I was really unsure of it at first, but I joined a group that met once a month Oct-May, and learned a lot of new techniques, and met some great people. The group I found charged only $15 a day (and supplied lunch!) and was sponsored by a store so I would take along $20 for shopping. It's a great way to keep motivated to work on projects and makes you take time to get something done. I find since having my baby, I don't have the space or time to keep working on albums or cards, but the scheduled day each month gives me a jump start on some pages. I do the main layout (background, border and pictures) at the crop, and the finishing touches (journalling and stickers) during naptime over the next week or so.

My cardmaking is kinda the same way. There's an event coming up (birthday or father's day), so I'll set-up an assembly of 5-6 cards at once. In a night, I can get the cardstock cut and scored, and the paper I'll be using in the design cut to size. The next night, I can get them all assembled - and because I make so many at a time, I don't use the cards all up. I'll use the same design in two or three different colour schemes (usually one male/female/child) so only the titles need to be tailored to the recipient.

Tam - posted on 05/30/2009

Cammie, I do both as well. I began scrapping about twelve or thirteen years ago but about five or six years ago got into the cards too! I am just now beginning to combine my stamping with scrapping, believe it or not, lol.



See you've only been doing it a year or two...sounds like you're building stock to me, lol. I "hoarded" for the first few years after picking up each but now that I've established what I like to do most, I've gotten choosier. I don't like to spend a lot of time "coloring" so don't buy too many stamps that require it. I am a ribbon fiend though, so have finally organized it and figured out what I have, haha.



Granted, it would help if they didn't always come out with such cute things so often, lol.



Do you participate in a lot of swaps? Those are great for getting samples, but once you build a good sample database, you might consider slowing up (if you do swaps). Swaps can get expensive after a while (in supplies and postage).



Well, happy stamping and scrapping!