Money-saving techniques: SURVIVE THE ECONOMY! :)

One of the budget threads inspired me to start this thread.

In what creative ways do you, as a scrapper, save money on embellishments and supplies?

To start things off, I use my daughter's outgrown clothing for cloth flowers, ribbon/sashes, buttons, lace and other textured material.

I print my own calendars off cardtsock, bind at work on the binding machine and make them for gifts!

I am also into making my own mini-albums! I have tons of thick cardboard from packaging at work and I design my own books with binder rings as the binding! (there is one in my gallery now)

That is a great idea about the cardboard! We get a lot of packages here at the office and the cardboard gets hauled to the trash.

Would using this idea be scraplifting?? LOL

I got it from someone else!

when I have a great paper i dont want to waste - i cut the middle out of whatever wont be showing - like behind a large photo.

• JodieK Said:

How do you use the pieces you cut out: color-blocking, embellishments, photo mat? I think that's a GREAT idea.

i save cereal boxes, cut them down to size, run them through the Xyron and cut out flowers, bookplates, or other little embellishments with my sizzix. Makes great chipboard stuff.

Also save the acetate from packaging to cut flowers out of.

I'll use the cover page to paper stacks, i'll cut out the differnt paper designs and die cut those or use those directly on the LO. cant wait to use the cover from the pocket full of posies stack too!

These are really good ideas. . . I reuse the cardboard/chipboard that comes in packages of paper, some clothes, or my kids things. I have also cut smaller pieces of PP out if I wanted it for later as mentioned above. Can't think of anything that hasn't already been said though. . .

When you go on vacation, depending on the hotel, they have the mini sewing kits. Great for buttons and thread. If they are not in the room, you can probably ask for them at the front desk. Similar to already what's been said but buttons off of old clothes that you will throw away.

I have all my friends at work and my family saving ribbon and buttons off of anything they get. Like every year on Administrative Assistants day we get a gift from our company and it always comes in a box wrapped with a ribbon and I collect those from everybody

Another thing I do is save the fake credit cards that come in the mail. They can be painted, altered, covered with paper, etc. They are almost always the perfect size embellishment I need to fill space.

Great thread topic!!!! Going into my favs! I love the tip about using old clothing for fiber embellies! great tips everyone.

Oh, and I am ALWAYS trying to find ways to attach things to my page without adhesive. This includes sewing, slicing corner slits, making photo corners (folding) or using staples. I've noticed I don't burn through adhesive sticks as fast now.

• * Julie * Said:

I wish I had read this 10 minutes ago... I just cut two up...

i'm loving all the tips.. thanks for starting this topic..

thanks for sharing ladies

I find that I look at all packaging materials differently now. For instance, I bought a VEET hair remover last week, and noticed that there was a neat oval cutout on the packaging... well guess where that's going to end up?!

My hubby says I'm like a magpie collecting shiny objects... I've even kept the paper napkin holders from one of our favorite resturants because they are a nice sunny yellow rectangle of paper!

Speaking of packaging, there are a LOT of products that use transparencies. Anything that is clear - such as the "window" so you can see spaghetti noodles - is usually a square of transparency that can be peeled off and used on pages or for shaker boxes. I use transparencies often, but I've never bought 'em because of this.

Also, stamps off of envelopes make great embellishments, especially for travel pages.

Oh, and is your wallet stuffed with old business cards of people you don't know anymore?? Use the backs of them as pieces of cardstock for colorblocking, journaling, texture or whatever. And as always, you can alter them with chalk, paper, paint, etc.

• Jenny~Bear Said:

LOL.. I did this Yesturday.. What great Idea's for us ladies on a Budget...

Great Thread Julie.. You are the Baum... Adding to my Fav's...

• ScrappinSage Said:

When i did my parents 25th wedding anniversary album I found some 25th anniversary napkins on clearance, i deckle cut the edges and used those as my pattern paper for the background.

• JenKaMus Said:

That is a GREAT idea! I bet your parents didn't realize they were napkins either! It's all about how you use it!

Here's another idea I used. My daughter goes through character phases: Elmo, Dora, Winnie the Pooh, etc. They make stickers with these characters, of course, but at 4.99 and up a pop, it gets expensive.

I found that cereal and snack boxes usually have characters that are big and bright enough for scrapbook pages. Also, I've printed out coloring pages of the characters and colored or painted them myself with the appropriate colors. On one of Elmo's pages, I printed out several Elmo faces (they were a little bigger than quarters) and had Claire color them. It looked like a toddler-Andy-Warhol layout, Elmo instead of Marilyn Monroe. LOL

I print my own embellishments made from Microsoft clipart. They have some really nice clipart and some clipart give you the opportunity to change their colors to more closely match LOs. Microsoft also has an online gallery of clipart and add to it regularly. I print clipart out on cardstock and mat it!

I like to go raid the paint samples at Home Depot, Lowes and even Wal-Mart. They make great places to journal, and some are hefty enough to use to cut shapes and such for embellishments. Just don't go to the same store too often

• ~Shelly~ Said:

I loove sales! I stock up on big sales

Target has xmas stuff 90% off (it might be almost over) and Making Memories album kits with a green ribbon tied on it are 90% off too!!! I bought 10 so now I have albums (8X8) and rubons, stickers, paper it came with for only $1.18

i got the pocket full of posies pack, haven't used it yet but i am looking forward to it! i saved the cover too, because it has so much that could be used. i also buy some paper at $tree, and theirs has a strip of paper on the front, showing the different pp in the pack. they are arranged really cool, so i save them and use as a border, or to put my title on..

you beat me to the paint chips at hd, l, or wm. i have a ton of them, plus the samples for countertops are neat too. i used the mr. clean magic eraser to take the numbers or name off if i need the whole thing. i have a lo in my gallery using them. ..My parents.. i don't know how to link to it.

I love going to BigLots for great prices on name brand scrap stuff. Great ideas, thanks for sharing!

Question Ladies, whoever uses cereal box or cupboard boxes for scrapping. are these items acid free? thanks in advance...

• ashtonsmommy Said:

7 Gypsies sells books made out of cardboard like this-I am amazed anyone buys them because you could totally make them for free!

• ~Shelly~ Said:

I took almost 500 from Home Depot--had DD holding some, a BUNCH in my purse, DH had some---they were for a class I did! LOL

Thrift stores are great places to find neat scrapping stuff. I have found awesome vintage ribbon and lace, fabric, magnets, and pther things that are very cheap.

I have some tips of my own, and I learned some money saving tips in a class I took at Scrap Camp.

You know how you have a sheet of stickers, but you only used one or two of them on your layout? Well, you can alter the stickers in several different ways to use the rest of them.

On any sticker, you can run them through the Xyron to get the adhesive on the front side of the sticker, then use clear microbeads to give them that "ooomph" - the effect is wonderful!

You can also brighten or darken stickers with inks - dab a cotton ball in the ink pad color of your choice, then rub on your sticker.

Another way to jazz up a sticker is to paint it with glitter glue - you know, the clear glue with a few shiny sparkles of your favorite color glitter.

Fishing swivels are a great embellishment, and they are cheap as dirt! So are safety pins in any size! And fishing line is great to string small beads on for your layouts if you're not looking for a colored fiber or ribbon! Curling ribbon is also a cheaper alternative.

With alphabet stickers, save the sheet once you've used what you want - you can use a craft knife around the 'negative' of the letters to get a silhouette effect. (This tip is in January's Creating Keepsakes magazine)

Using the "negative" left over from PopDots works just as well as using the Dots - and you can cut them to fit!

And remember that everything that is on your page doesn't have to be acid free, just everything that touches the photographs should be acid free!

• shanismom Said:

Test with your ph pen first- I've found some were acid free and some weren't. I got a ph pen at the $Tree recently- same exact brand that regular stores sell for $3!

• JenKaMus Said:

This is a great idea. I'm going to have to scraplift this from you. I'm getting ready to start on my parent's 25th anniversary album and will have to remember this!

• LauraRNwv Said:

Good tip! When in doubt, just buffer the material with paper, fabric or something other than the photo.

I still make my own paper piecings. Instead of searching the stores for the "perfect" embellishment to match my page I have a CD I made with hundreds of free coloring pages I've found online. If I don't have it, I'll search online for something. I can customize the pattern to fit the theme of my page.

Several months ago I started hand journaling again. It saves time because I don't have to take the time to set it up in Word and print it out. It also saves computer ink, which is a heck of a lot more expensive than a journaling pen.

I have no interest in any of the fancy schmancy die cutting machines. If I want a custom title I hand cut it myself. I'm personally more impressed to see a hand cut title than a title cut by a machine.

First of all... I REALLY need a printer

Second.. I second the notion of big lots and $ tree, lots of cool stuffs can be found there!

Magazine covers - the sturdy, thicker glossy kind - make really great masks. If you cut out hand-drawn shapes or letters, you can paint over them for a reverse print. The cover paper doesn't curl when wet and you can re-use them. And then they get too heavy with paint, just cut more out with next month's issue!

Also...scanning things that would make interesting background is easy. If you have a scanner...you could scan your favorite sheet set & print it on 8.5x11 paper...so that you have a new background...or you can cut it up into smaller sizes for matting, or embellishments.

Also, scanning might give you the options to change colors. If you have a kid's book with a picture of a favorite cartoon character...you can scan & cut out.

• * Julie * Said:

To add onto this, you can cut out the letters of the magazine titles and use those as-is. The typefaces/fonts are usually sans-serif, making them easy to cut out.

• Maegan Said:

I never thought of scanning in the book characters, but that is a GREAT idea. I'm scraplifting it!

I read a tip on a scrapbook group I was in to consider how many pages you would actually use a new sb purchase on, and how much it would cost per page, before you buy it. I was doing my kids' first pro baseball game, and Ek Success had the cutest pro bb jersey embellishments. But, they were $5 a piece, and I would have only used them on that one LO. I try to stay at $1 a page or less. So, I make the most of my embellishments and spread them out. I also mix and match a ton. I have to KNOW I'm really going to use a more expensive piece before I buy it - and then I try to get it on sale or with a Coupon .

• randasue Said:

You know I used to do this too, but I realized that well, frankly, it was a pain in the ******** and I was never going to use them So I stopped doing it. I also used to save tissue paper and gift bags from my wedding and baby showers, thinking I would use them in my albums...nope. Never did. Never would have. So I trashed them.

I'm just not the packratting-in-order-to-save type. Not that you guys are packrats or anything, but I'm sure you have more space than I do...I have half of a small corner for my stuff

Happy Birthday, TinkerMama!

Pack-ratting is just as easy a habit as spending too much. Either one requires moderation.

I'm more a packer than a spender myself. But you are right - it's all about how you store it and weeding it out.

Hopefully, the tips encourage a more "use what you got" mentality instead of a "pack away and save it" one.

• shanismom Said:

OOOOOHH good question! Great thread ladies, keep it up!

• Gramma3x!! Said:

some of the ones i've used are not acid free, so i keep them off of photos, i also cover them in acid free paper and use acid free adhesive.

You can get a great pen, it's a pH tester pen, i got mine at michaels for about $3, you mark on something you're questionable about and it will change color if it is acidic or not.

Oh, got another one, of course..

My husband was the bookkeeper for a thrift shop when we lived in Italy. So, one day, he brought this HUGE bag of greeting cards and they were either super ugly, cheesey or way too sentimental for me to use. BUT, almost all of them are blank on the inside, so I kept them. I just alter the covers and journal on the inside.

And speaking of greeting cards, I've been known to cut out sentiments to use as quotes or text or the images on the front to use as embellishments, such as bouquets, clowns, grouchy old women, etc.

haha, i kept all the christmas cards we got here at work so i can try and use some of the covers (some were really pretty!) for my christmas cards next year.

Great idea on altering the fronts of blank cards!

• chococatgirls Said:

I went to a class by Ali E class and saw her min-albums and that is what she did!