Scrapbooking Baby

Hi everyone, so I have a question for you all. What is the one simple thing you just can’t live without in your scrapbooking baby tools collection?  Okay so keep it simple and don’t go saying your Cricut or Sizzix machines, lol.  Think back to the basics and the important stuff you needed early on in your scrapbooking hobby.

Now for me there are actually two things that I still to this day just can’t live without and if anyone runs away with them in my house I get most upset about.  They are both made by Fiskars, any ideas yet?

Yes my scissors and my paper trimmer.  I think I may have actually nearly worn my paper trimmer out but it is still going strong for now and the scissors are still fantastic.  How many mats do you cut, how many photos do you trim or crop, and getting the perfectly square edge each time and having things line up properly.  Nothing makes this more simple and easy than a good paper trimmer.  Now just because mine is Fiskars, does not mean that you need to choose this brand, I brought mine a long, long time ago, and the choices back then, were a little limiting to say the least.

However, would I buy another Fiskars trimmer when this one finally wears out, yes without any hesitation, the replacement blades are quite cheap and so easy to replace.

Now as for my scissors, I was looking for a good pair for a friend of mine just the other day and I would still have to say the best ones I found were indeed Fiskars.  Now you might be starting to think I have some secret deal with them, well no I don’t, but I am not afraid to tell you how it is, and if I didn’t like them, I would be telling you.  I like a product that works for me, the way I want it to work and as smoothly and simply as possible, I have enough complicating things in my life without having the read the manual on a new scrapbooking tool ten times before I can use it.

So what is it I like about the Fiskars scissors?  Well first of all it’s not just any ol’ pair of Fiskars scissors, but the spring loaded ones that I love.  I cannot tell you how tired your hands get from constantly manually opening and closing scissors when you are trimming something fine, like a photo or some lettering.  You may be using those scissors for an hour sometimes, and boy do your hands start to cramp and hurt, and then sometime you snip too far and ruin what you have spent so much time on.

Well this does not happen when you use the little spring loaded scissors.  The spring holds the scissors open, so be careful to have the safety latch engaged when they are not in use, as these scissors are so sharp they could cause a nasty injury.  So by the spring holding the scissors open, the only effort needed is the action of closing or squeezing them, and then they push back open again, so it’s half the effort and as a result I really do feel you get more control over what you are working on.

So personally for me when it come to scrapbooking tools these are the two things I just can’t live without, and are probably the first tools I invested in and I must say I am still very happy with them to this day.  One final tip when it comes to trimming delicate items like photos and letters with your scissors is never move the hand that is holding the scissors.  Do not maneuver the scissors around the edge of the object, but instead turn the object around the scissors.  By this I mean, hold the scissors still and if you are cutting around an “o” turn keep turning the “o” but hold the scissors totally still, try it, you will be amazed how much neater the results will be.

Until next time… happy scrappin

LO: Baby Mini Book on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Hi everyone, time to tackle another one of those common questions I get asked all the time, which is….what should I put on the cover of my Baby Scrapbook?  Well there is no right or wrong answer, like everything that goes into your scrapbooking, you have the choice to do it however you like, there are no set rules.

Some people like to create their own albums and design it all, the actual size of the album, the way it displays, (opens out in folds or turns like normal pages), some people like to pre-make the pages so it’s just a just of adding the photos, they design the cover, the possibilities are endless really.

However, if you are like me and really don’t have too much time to make things from scratch, it may be a lot easier and far more practical to just buy your album and save your creativity for your layouts inside the album.  I have made a few from scratch, but now days I just really don’t have the time.

When it comes to baby scrapbook albums, there are some beautiful albums readily available to compliment both baby girls and baby boys.  You can choose one that is more traditional and plain, or go for some of the newer and more interactive album that’s allow you to capture an impression of your baby’s hand or foot print.

I think these albums are really quite special, as there is something special about picking up that precious baby scrapbook years later and seeing that plaster imprint of your baby’s hand or foot.  It really gives you that sense of size, how tiny they were, photos are wonderful, but things like ink foot prints or plaster foot prints really remind and show you just how sweet and tiny they were.

But again there are just so many to choose from, so don’t go feeling overwhelmed, you can choose to go for a simple plain covered album, it is however only the album, the magic is inside, or you can choose to go with a specific baby themed album so that the album stands out and is never mistaken as one of your other scrapbooking albums, that is the joy of scrapbooking, the choice is yours.

Happy scrappin and talk to you soon.

When it comes to your baby scrapbook, you want to include lots of memorable things, and I like to add things that show a real size comparison too.  And well lets think about it, when you think of babies, you think of cute, cuddly, soft and sweet things.  So apart from your gorgeous baby, what else is soft, cute and cuddly?  Teddy bears!

Most babies end up with lots of teddy bears and other soft cuddly toys that can’t hurt them and creating a layout with some of these toys in it, can turn out to be a wonderful thing.  So I am using this example of a layout I did with my little girl, and no we don’t own the teddy bear, he was huge, but boy he was so soft and cute, I couldn’t resist quickly sitting my girl there and taking some quick snaps of her with that huge teddy towering over her.

Now this scrapbooking baby layout is not completed yet, (still looks very plain, it needs a title, embellishments, and some journaling) but I wanted to show you what is possible, she was mesmerized by the huge teddy and she was laughing and smiling so what scrapbooking parent could resist?  This was actually taken at one of our baby nursery stores, and the teddy was part of a display, but I’m sure lots of kids had played with him because he was just so cute.

So I got some snaps of the teddy and her, plus some just of her giggling and smiling about the whole situation, and then with two of the images I ever so carefully cut all of the background out with my Fiskars scissors.  Now you can not tell from the photo of the layout, but i have actually lifted the two bottom images off the page in a 3D fashion and I will include the instructions as to how I did that should you want to give it a try.

One particular bit of advice, that really goes for all scrapbooking, is you really do need a good quality pair of fine precision scissors for these tasks.  I brought mine many years ago and I can not live without them, they make things so much easier and you will see the difference if you do tend to crop images by hand as I have done in a lot of my layouts.  In fact the next post I might dedicate to the benefits of having a great pair of scissors just for scrapbooking, it really is that important.

So here are the steps I took to create the 3D Scrapbooking Baby Technique:
I traced the shape of the two cropped photos onto the background cardstock with pencil
Next using my sharp fine scissors I cut this shape out leaving two holes the same shape as my cropped photos
Next I used two pieces of the blue cardstock and glued them to the back of the background cardstock covering the holes
Next I turned the cardstock right way up again, and chalked the edges of the cream background cardstock with a light brownish chalk to create a shadow effect
Next using foam squares I stuck the photos onto of the blue cardstock.

So when you see the layout in person the two bottom images are in fact off the page and the blue behind them and the chalked edges around them all gives it quite a 3D look and brings those two photos to life.  This again is just a simple layout you can also create in your scrapbooking baby album, I have another one quite similar of her playing with toys in her cot, and again the results are really quite wonderful.

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Many thanks to all my wonderful readers and until next time, Happy Scrapping!