Here is the first of our free scrapbooking downloads pages. Each time we offer a free scrapbook kit for digital download, we will be focusing on a different theme. This edition’s theme is a combined Spring / Easter scrapbooking kit, with embellishments and lettering in fresh styles and muted pastel colors. This comes to us compliments of… us! In the future we may be linking to great free scrapbook kits and other digital scrapbooking downloads we find around the web, but for the first few at least we will be focusing on our own ScrapTown-produced and offered kits. I really hope you enjoy this new series and that you can put these to great use in your digi-scrapping endeavors! Thanks for visiting!

The Springtime free scrapbooking mini-kit is now available for download!

Springtime - Scraptown

You can use all manner of cheap scrapbooking supplies to make your pages stand out and give each one its own unique style and flavor. The look and feel of your pages depends not only on the actual items you want to display and preserve, but also on the materials you surround and decorate them with.

We won’t get into the specific cheap scrapbooking supplies you can use for now - I will detail those in a later post - but let’s talk about the general supplies you should always have with you. Scissors, construction paper, a glue stick, hot glue, school glue, scotch tape, packing tape, scrapbooking adhesives, markers, pens and pencils are all essential supplies to keep with you for scrapbooking.

Why so many different types of tapes and glues, you ask? Well, each one serves its own purpose and can help you to attach different items to your page in a way that will make them sturdy enough to last without damaging different items. A small, flat trinket like a beloved coin, a dried flower, or a small lock of hair, for example, could be laid underneath a decoratively cut length of packing tape to form a seal over top of it. Packing tape is a much stronger material than regular scotch tape and it comes in wider lengths, so it can be more easily used to lock in particularly valuable or delicate items.

In addition, you can usually find special adhesives that are meant to form a strong bond but will not damage certain items. There are specially made materials that serve purposes solely for scrapbooking and crafting, so you should check out some of these at your local craft store or friendly scrapbooking ideas website before you begin your scrapbooking adventures.

The main reason why it’s important to have all these materials, along with cheap scrapbooking supplies, around you is because you might suddenly find yourself “in the mood” and then realize you don’t have what you need. In these instances, the moment may be lost because you don’t have the time or the motivation to go out to the store and pick up the necessary supplies. When inspiration strikes, be in the position to take advantage of it!

So you might be wondering what kinds of scrapbook items people like to include, especially if you are a newbie. Well, if you think of a scrapbook as like an album full of pictures except that it has the capability to be so much more, you are on the right track. Following are some different types of scrapbook items you could consider for inclusion into your pages.

Tickets

If you are the type who saves everything, not only will you make a great scrapbooker, but you will also have a huge inventory of items to choose from, including the tickets you have saved from every possible event that required a ticket in for as long as you can remember! This can include tickets to the movies, the theater, a rock concert or other musical event, or to the play of a local high school or college drama department.

Tickets could be as simple as raffle tickets from a fair or carnival you visited with a friend or loved one(s). They come in many different forms, but they make great scrapbook memories accents for pages that have pictures of you and your friends or family from the very same event!

Jewelry

While it’s not a good idea to put expensive jewelry in a scrapbook, you might find that adding jewelry that has little monetary value would be a good idea. Beaded necklaces with lettered names, friendship bracelets, plastic rings from the candy machines at the supermarket, and any other tiny accessory that is broken or has gone unused for awhile can help to remind you of a certain period of time and help you visualize it. It might even bring up a story or two about where it came from or how it ended up the way it did.

Cards

While greeting cards - or pieces of them - would be an obvious thought here, I’m not going to limit this section to just those cards with sentimental or funny sayings on them that you gave or received for a birthday or other holiday. Cards might include your first business card from your first real job or your first home-based or self-employed business, a special playing card, sports card or collectible trading card. They all have the benefit of being flat, similar to a photo, and so they are easier to place in a book format than certain more bulky items.

Trinkets

As long as it will fit inside your book, it can be used. Notes, scraps of paper, love letters, pieces of string or cord, fabric, locks of hair, buttons, and many other tiny trinkets make great scrapbooking ideas for your scrapbooks.

This post will go over how to scrapbook in the traditional sense; if you would like to learn about scrapbooking ideas for digital scrapbooking, check out that section of the site. Also, if you are unfamiliar with what scrapbooking is, exactly, we have a page on that too!

To start out learning how to scrapbook if you have never done it before, you first have to assemble a collection of keepsake items that you want to keep. These can be any items you think would be nice to display and preserve in a place where they will be laid out in a pleasing manner to the eye. Whether they are photos or images, drawings and sketches, other small pieces of artwork, or trinkets that hold nostalgic value.

Really, anything you can think of, literally, could be used. Anything that triggers some sort of memory of a good time in your life. A button that fell off the blouse you wore on your first date with your husband; a piece of the guitar string he broke the first time he sang you a song; a lock of hair; tickets to a theater production; the dried corsage from your senior prom.

You’ll find that these items can be arranged on a page and attached as you please so their condition is maintained and they are not damaged. You can use only imagery and photographs, or you can use words, phrases, notes and quotes to describe and accentuate the items on each page. What you are doing when you learn how to scrapbook is assembling a visual history of yourself. The moments and situations that stick out in your mind sometimes have physical counterparts that you have just never been able to bring yourself to get rid of.

Even though the vast majority of people may consider these items to be junk, they hold a special value to you and instead of just leaving them sitting and collecting dust in a box somewhere, figuring out how to scrapbook them into a good-looking presentation is a fantastic way to show them off.