Trace template onto photos - ie use ABC letters to cut out the word "zoo" from pictures of a trip to the zoo.

• Ink the paper edges
• Crumple the paper and iron out
• Scratch with an emery board or sandpaper
• Spray ink or diluted dye – use in a pump spray bottle or use a cotton wool ball and dab lightly
• Chalk the edges of the paper

Create unique textures for your scrapbooking pages by using packing foam. Foam texturing is a simple way to make a distinct background design for your page layout. By using your imagination, inks and plain piece of foam you can create appealing patterns with this foam texture technique.

Fold the piece of foam (thin packing foam) into a 3 x 3 square. Then, press the foam firmly into your inkpad until the ink is visible. Now, press the foam onto your cardstock in a rolling motion, starting with your index finger and rolling your hand across the paper ending up with your pinky finger. Do this until the desired texture is achieved. You can foam texture with just one colour or many. Use your own creativity and “let loose” for an original design.

The foam pieces are reusable and can be cleaned with an ink cleaner or mild soap. Just allow the foam to dry and it can be used again on another project.

Draw little hearts, flowers, and names of people in pictures, or journal around the photo for a border. Draw little dashes like stitches around photos using acid-free markers.

To create interesting designs on your plain paper, use bleach instead of ink on your stamp.

Apply with a sponge – use a latex or cosmetic sponge or one that does not have the large holes.

Rather than actually burn your edges, stamp a brown inkpad along the edges of the paper blending into the centre of the tag. Use a black inkpad and ink the entire piece only on the edges.

Now, use a sponge and blend the inked edges into the centre of the piece.

When laying out a page, the mat colour for your photo can have a large impact. One scrapbooking matting technique is to choose a colour in the photo itself. The backing paper will then draw the eye to the matching colour in the photo. If you want to draw the eye to a face then choose backing paper to match skin tone or eye colour.

Another good scrapbook technique is to use a double mount. Double mounting using a skin tone based paper directly behind the photo and then a colour to match your decor or a layout will work well too.

Cut a 3”-4” round paper doily into four pieces, giving you four quarter-pieces. Fold the long edges in to the center to create lovely decorative photo corners for your photos. Cream coloured doilies look wonderful with antique photos.

Apply the colours using your finger, a cosmetic sponge, crunched up paper towel or a soft brush. Reapply chalk until the desired intensity of colour is achieved.
Stray marks can be erased with an art eraser.

For shaded areas begin with the lightest colour, moving to the darker, blending the edges of one colour directly over another to achieve a third colour. There are endless possibilities for colours and blends.

If desired, use a spray fixative when finished to keep chalk from smearing. This will also deepen the colours and add sheen.

Use old Christmas cards when you make your own cards. Cut out the pictures, images and graphics you like. Punch out the colours or images with your square or circle punch and use these shapes also.

When documenting the era of your pictures, there are several scrapbooking techniques that can be used besides photos. It can be fun to document interesting facts, such as prices, incomes, fads, popular movies, songs, news items, sports headlines and your favourite things.

Ticket stubs, box lids and labels, receipts and bills could also be mounted on this type of page.

Another scrapbooking technique is to spice up the die-cuts. Shade them using chalks or pens and pencils. If the edges are uneven after you press out a die-cut just run your thumbnail around the edge.

Don´t throw away the surround. You can use it as a stencil to make more die-cuts, mat a photo or just punch out some shapes.

Decorate die-cut shape with pens – trace a thin line or stitches just inside the shape, draw scales on the fish, stems on the leaves, write your school’s name on the bus or school.

Take a moment when you have finished a scrapbook page and with a fine point acid-free pen sign your name and write the year. Do this so it appears on the front or back of every page. If a hundred years from now your scrapbook has been taken apart for some reason, the ever important date will still be on each page to identify a segment of time.

Remember to note the ‘who, what, where and when’ of your photos. It’s so easy to forget some of the important items we need to journal to pass down your family’s history.

Eyelets are small metal circles which things can be laced through (such as a pair of shoes). As a scrapbooking technique, eyelets are used to “rivet” components onto a page, such as cardstock.

Eyelets should be used only in a scrapbooking system that has good page protectors. Choose eyelets that will not rust and, if possible, place them so that they will not be facing a photo on the opposite page.

With any metal components, weight, rust and sharpness (sharp metal edges WILL scratch photos and poke holes in cardstock) should be considered. This scrapbook technique can be a unique way to add texture to your pages.

Stamp the image to be embossed and sprinkle embossing powder quickly over the wet stamped image.

Remove any excess powder from around the stamped image by lightly tapping the paper.

Use a heat source to make the powder melt and give the raised embossed effect. The powders melt around 200-300°; some suggested heat sources are an embossing heat tool, toaster, light bulb, hot plate, or iron.

1. Ink stamp and stamp image
2. Pour embossing powder onto image while it is still wet
3. Tap excess powder off sheet and put back into jar
4. Heat until powder melts and becomes shiny

Also called pressure embossing, this technique is the process of raising the surface of an image using a stencil, a light source such as a light table, and a burnisher (embossing stylus).

1. Choose your paper and stencil design. The thicker the paper is, the deeper the relief (height of the embossing) will be. Experiment to see what will be best for the look you desire
2. Attach the stencil to your paper in the desired position with small pieces of masking tape or other low-tack tape. Reduce tackiness of tape by “linting it up” on your clothing.
3. Turn the paper over and tape it over your light source
4. Trace the stencil outline with your burnisher
5. If desired add colour to the design before removing the stencil
6. Remove the tape carefully and lift off the stencil

Buy silk flowers from your local discount store – daisies are good. Check the actual petals to make sure they are complete and not pieces.

The centre plastic can be pulled off the stem and the layers can then be separated and used with your projects.

You may need to iron the flowers before using.

Using hinges for a page decoration is easy. First, determine where you want to place your hinge and mark the holes with a pencil so you can line it up evenly. Then, using a piercing tool or small hole punch, pierce your holes. Now, set your hinge in place and use metal brads to affix it to your page.

Hinges can be used to create movable mats and parts or they can serve as strictly an accent for your page.

Facial tissue can be a fantastic tool for scrapbook enthusiasts. This simple household item can help give your stamped images texture and colour. Apply ink to your stamp and before stamping your image on the paper add additional ink to the stamp by blotting a piece of facial tissue on a coordinating colour of ink and then on the stamp. Then you can repeat the process with a third colour to create a multicoloured picture.

The tissue inking technique works great for accenting scrapbook layouts, cards, mini-albums, etc.

Write around the perimeter of a single photograph. Write around the perimeter of the entire page, framing the grouping of photographs.

When magazines have passed their ‘use by date’ go through them and tear out the pages with the designs you like.

Place the page inside a plastic pocket and put into a lever arch folder. Use index tabs to label the different sections e.g. baby, multi photo, boy pages etc.

Get yourself a notebook – can be any type you like – you can decorate it if you want to.

Keep this notebook near your scrap area – somewhere easy to find.

Here is the place to keep clippings, articles, ideas and other snippets of inspiration you plan to use in your projects.

Paper craft punches are best used on a hard flat surface and pushing down with the heal of the hand.

Punch through ‘wax paper’ before punching paper.

If your punch become sticky or slow punch through wax paper several times to lubricate.

To sharpen your punch use aluminium foil and punch through several times.

If the punch is still dull use very fine sandpaper, holding punch right side up an upside down to sharpen both edges.

If your punch jams put it in your freezer.
This sounds crazy but it helps shrink the metal slightly and frees up the punch. Then lubricate with wax paper as in the previous steps.

Colour your image with dry pencils, blending and shading as desired. Dampen a paintbrush with water and paint over coloured areas.

A barely damp brush gives brighter colour, with pencil lines showing. Adding more water will blend the colours more smoothly. The more water you add, the less intense your colours will be.

Adding excessive amounts of water will cause the colours to run together, and the paper to buckle.

With a fine line gel roller pen and a circle punch you can create:

• Balloons, bubbles, sun, buttons, pumpkins, etc. to glue onto your creations
• Flowers: sunflower centres, petals or leaves from a double cut circle, other assorted tulips and posies by assembling different size circles and cutting away petals
• Sports balls of all types: basketball, netball, soccer, tennis, football etc
• Food items: pizza, ice cream scoops
• Donuts, watermelon slices, or cookies
• Bugs: ladybugs, bees with petal shaped wings

• Open bow (requires 2 sizes heart punches). Punch the smaller heart out first, then line up the larger one on the cut out shape by using the larger punch upside down so that you can see the position of the shapes, Arrange on card and adhere with glue stick. Add a ribbon, which you have drawn freehand and cut
• Mitten: Cut away a portion of the heart shape. Decorate with a “cuff” and draw a string
• Raindrops, solid bow ties, leaves or petals can all be formed with half of a punched heart
• Flowers or four leaf clovers
• Bows and braids to dress a stamped or drawn face
• Lace edges (with the help of a 1/8” circle punch and a scallop paper edger)/li>

1. Take a spray bottle and lightly mist your cardstock
2. Take your cardstock and crumple it into a ball
3. Flatten out and let dry
4. Repeat the process till you have the desired look!
5. Iron flat

If you still have some of your photos in the old magnetic albums here is a great tip for removing those photos. Your photos might appear to be stuck to the pages in these albums - don’t worry - take some waxed dental floss and gently work the floss back and forth under your photo this should help release the photo.

Take pictures of signs

Look for signs around the area you are visiting. Whether you are at a historical monument, strawberry patch or amusement park, pictures of signs make great intros to your story.

Remember the cuisine

Food is such a fun part of travelling and social get togethers, be sure to take pictures of the food you eat and the restaurants you visit.

If you've never taken advantage of the wide variety of online resources for digital photo prints, do try it. Most of them have free offers so I signed up for several and went ahead and ordered my free digital prints.

Check out the internet - there are several digital printing sources out there.

Rub-ons are a great addition to scrapbook pages but like all scrapbooking supplies can become expensive or just may not be able to find the exact rub-on you had in mind for a scrapbooking page. Follow these simple steps, and you can create your own rub-ons with your computer and use them over and over again!

Supplies:

Transparency paper (purchased at your local office supply store) Inkjet Printer Icy pole Stick or credit card

Directions:

1. Insert the transparency into your inkjet printer, so that it prints on the SMOOTH side of the transparency be sure you have the smooth side down
2. Open your favourite word processing or photo program and create the text or image you want to have as a rub on
3. Format your printer settings so that it is set to print on “plain paper”, “best quality” and “mirror image” (the image needs to be reversed especially if you are printing text or it will appear backwards)
4. Print your “rub-on”
5. Let dry for about 3-5 minutes being careful not to touch it or it will smear
6. Place the transparency smooth side down onto your scrapbooking page exactly where you want the image or text to appear, holding firmly in place, and rub with a popsicle stick or credit card just Press hard and make sure you rub over the entire surface of the image
7. Carefully pull up the transparency and let ink completely dry before touching
8. Use a damp cloth or paper towel to clean off your transparency and get it ready for your next rub-on, you can re-use the transparency over and over and over again

Be sure to practise first before putting the rub-on your page. Every ink jet printer is different and drying times may vary but with a bit of practise you will be creating rub-ons with very little effort.

These fun new embellishments can be difficult to work with. Ever had just a portion of the letter adhere? Ever put it in the wrong place?

Use an adhesive eraser to gently rub the rub-on off. If you had an incomplete transfer use a pen to fill in the missing areas or place another rub-on directly over it.

Think about the colours, embellishments, and placement. Things look better in threes, whether they're embellishments, photos, or colours.

Your page design should lead the eye to three different spots, usually a triangle.

The rule of three with colours. There should be an identifiable main, secondary, and accent colour. But that doesn’t mean you have to stick to three colours.

Stamps are a popular tool for scrapbooking page creations and layouts. There are so many stamping designs and they offers lots of versatility for your pages. Before you start to stamp your pages make sure your inkpads are wet and full of ink.

Unfortunately, no matter how careful you are you may run into some minor problems while stamping your scrapbook pages. One problem stampers stumble upon is partially stamped images.

Here are some solutions to correct your stamping problems:

• Start by re-inking the stamp. Then, hold the layout on a light box or sunny window and line the inked stamp up with the partially stamped image. Now you can re-stamp
• Use a gel pen to fill in the missing areas of your image. Fill in and outline random portions of the picture to make it blend together
• Re-stamp the image onto a coordinating piece of paper and place over the original image

These ideas are just a few solutions to fixing your stamping blunders. You can purchase stamps at scrapbooking supply stores and other retail outlets.

Use scalloped scissors to take a bite out of your ice cream or any other food item.

Alcohol-free baby wipes work well for cleaning stamps.

Any type of sponge is a versatile stamping accessory for adding texture, background, and other special effects. Experiment with various techniques to find your favourite.

• Cosmetic/Facial Sponges
• Porous Everyday Sponges (Celluloid)
• Natural Sponges
• Bathtub Sponges

For straight edging: Use a regular scissors to cut out the basic piece, and then trim with your paper edger, or mark the line or pattern lightly on the back of the paper as a guide for cutting.

When cutting a continuous piece or strip, realign the patterns by matching a point or curve of the scissors blade with a curve or point of the next cut before making the snip.

Store your stamp pads level and upside down. This prevents uneven ink distribution and keeps the surface fully inked.

When sewing on cardstock or vellum, pre-poke your holes with a needle or paper piercer first, then go back and add stitches. This gives you more control and ensures you have holes where you want them.

Whether to keep your paper scraps or not can be a dilemma. Have a minimum size – 3cm x 3cm and only keep the scraps larger than that.

1. Store the scraps in a manila folder – use the coloured ones and match all plain and patterned paper to the folder colour. Keep the plain paper in one clear plastic pocket and the patterned paper in another within the manila folder.
2. Use an A4 size drawer set bought from a discount shop. Separate colours in each drawer.

You can print on your own transparencies. You can print journaling, or images, or create your own designs.

There are some important things to know before you try this, though.

Make sure you have the right kind of transparency for the printer you are using. Since there are different types of transparencies, if you're using an inkjet printer, be sure you have transparencies made for an inkjet.

If there is a “rough” side to the transparency that is the side that you want to print on because it will adhere better. You can print backwards on the rough side. This way, you can have the smooth side up and provide additional protection for the ink on the transparency.

To add appeal to your transparency, sprinkle embossing powder on it while your ink is still “wet,” and heat emboss your lettering. Be careful to keep your heating tool a little bit further away so it doesn't pucker of melt your transparency.

Use this scrapbooking technique when you want to avoid erasing pencil marks. When using a template on photo mounting paper, turn the template over before tracing around it. That way there will be no need to erase any pencil marks not removed while cropping.

To create circular text, use Microsoft Word, select Insert, then Picture, and then WordArt. Pick the style you want, Type your sentiment several times in the desired font and point size. Click OK, Once the text appears on your page, click on the sentence, this brings up another tool bar, WordArt toolbar, select the WordArt Shape option and click on the circle shape. Stretch and size the circle as desired.

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Don't throw away that jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. Paint a few pieces, stamp or write a letter on each one and use them to make a title on a scrapbook page. Then use the corner pieces on the corners of your photos.

Plan a monthly crop session – day or night. Invite friends over on a set day/night each month (like the 2nd Wednesday of each month) for scrapbook. If you have others coming to your place, you will be more likely to plan out a few pages and try to get them done that session.

Use vellum for an elegant, delicate look. Paper embossing on vellum causes it to stretch, resulting in a pearly white-on-white effect. The design can be left this way, or colour can be added using any of the above media. Experiment with a rolling ball, white correction pen for adding opaque white highlights.

It takes a bit longer for the ink to dry, as vellum isn’t porous like other paper. Be careful when handling the vellum once it’s printed. Leave it to dry for a couple of minutes.

• Go into your printer set-up and adjust it to the Transparency setting. This will put the least amount of ink onto the vellum

Vellum is beautiful because it’s so transparent—but this also means that glue will show through. Remember, you don’t have to glue down every inch of your vellum!

Place the glue so it’s hidden by under another element on the page. For example, glue the photo to a vellum mat, then pick up the matted photo and apply glue only behind the photo to attach it to the background.

There are vellum adhesives on the market, but a small amount of stick glue will do (any other dry adhesives will work too). If gluing patterned vellum or vellum with a painted design, place the glue under the darkest areas of the patterned vellum.

Use eyelets or brads. They do a great job of attaching the vellum and they add style to the page.

These are ideal when stamping (using water resistant ink) and doodling (using a permanent ink pen).

Lightly use the pencil in the areas you want the colour, then using clean water and a paintbrush, ‘paint’ the brush over the pencil.

If you require a darker colour, then draw over the area once it has dried.