Introduction

Welcome to Scrap booking for beginners

Hopefully here you will learn how to do some basic Scrapbooking Activities from sorting all of your photos to getting ready to make your Scrap Book and I will also show you some of the best places in Perth to buy Scrapbooking material.

Introduction

The Top 6 Things Any Scrapbooker Will Need.

1. Card stock/ Solid Papers
Clearly, the most important scrapbooking supplies you will need is the scrapbooking paper itself besides photos. Remember to choose acid-free papers if you want your scrapbooking to last for years without the papers turning yellowish and damaging your precious photos. 

For papers, there's cardstocks (solid heavyweight papers) and patterned papers.
Cardstock is a must-have for your supplies collection. It's easy to use and should be a constant supply you'll be using.

2. Patterned Papers
Patterned papers comes in a huge range of designs, paper weight, colour fast, finish, texture, single or doubled-sided. They can form the functional foundation of your page or become a decorative element on your layout. Think of your colour theme and that'll give you a better idea of what colours or patterns to pick out.

3. Adhesives
Adhesive is what holds your photos, title, journaling blocks, ribbons, buttons, chipboard accents or whatever you choose to stick to your page. So no, your scrapbook supplies collection won't be complete without an adhesive of some sort.

4.Pens
Choose pens that's pigment ink, fade-proof, water-proof and will keep your scrapbooking layout safe. You need pens to note down dates, names and write descriptions about your precious moments.
You can also use them to doodle on your layouts

5.Scissors/Trimmers
Next, you need good cutting tools as you'll be cutting lots of papers!
A pair of precise, sturdy and good scissors will see you through many detailed cutting work.
You might want to set aside this pair of scissors for your scrapbooking projects and nothing else.

6.Photo-Developing Service
With digital cameras getting more commonplace, you're now taking tons more digital photos than ever before. And you also have the convenience of ordering your prints from online print stores, at better prices too.

That's the end of the introduction hope to see you soon for my next post when I will start with project one!!

Heat Embossing Lesson

Heat Embossing Lesson 

Tools needed for this lesson:
Rubber stamps
Embossing powders -
Colored embossing powder embosses your image in the color of the powder.
Clear embossing powder can be used over colored pigment inks to allow the color of the ink to show through.

Pearl embossing powder gives a pearlescent sheen over colored inks.
Embossing tinsel contains glitter and adds sparkle to the embossed image.
Embossing foil creates a smooth, shiny look of foil.


Embossing antiquities and golds give a texturized faux finish such as verdigris stone or antique gold. There are many different finishes available.

Detail embossing powder is an extremely fine-grained powder for use on very detailed images. The smaller granules stick to smaller detailed areas and preserve small details when the powder is heated and melts.

Embossing enamel is a large-grained embossing powder which is used to create thicker embossing and more textured looks.

Embossing inks are clear and used mostly for heat embossing. They are available in pads or pens. Some embossing inks also have refills available to refill your pad with ink when it runs out of ink or becomes too dry. Using embossing pens, you can write words or draw an image to emboss rather than stamping. Use embossing pens to color in small areas of a stamp instead of inking the entire stamp.

Pigment inks may also be used for embossing. Pigment inks do not dry immediately like dye inks, allowing time to sprinkle embossing powder on the wet ink.
Heat embossing tool (gun) - This is an essential tool for proper heat embossing. The heat gun heats to melt the embossing powder at around 200-300º F. Various tools are available in several price ranges. (A standard hair dryer will not be hot enough to emboss the powder.)
Lesson:

Basic Heat Embossing - Basic heat embossing is easy to do; there are five basic steps. First, ink the stamp with embossing ink. Then stamp the image where you want it to be placed on the paper. Pour embossing powder onto the stamped image while it is still wet. By creating a funnel with your paper, pour the excess powder off the paper and put it back into the jar. Using a heat gun, heat the image just until the powder melts and becomes shiny. This happens fairly quickly, so be careful not to overheat. Heating for too long will result in a dull, flat finish instead of the raised, shiny finish you desire.


Clear Embossing - This technique works best on darker papers. First, stamp an image with a clear embossing ink. Then sprinkle clear embossing powder over the entire image. Pour any excess powder back into the jar. Use a heat gun to heat the image. You now have a subtle image that allows the color of your paper to show through.

Over Embossing - Stamp and color an image on your paper. Then, sprinkle clear embossing powder over the image. Heat your image from beneath the paper with your heat gun until the powder has melted. Sprinkle additional clear embossing powder over the image and heat from beneath again. Continue adding layers of embossing powder and melting them until you have a shiny, smooth surface. It will resemble lacquer.

Double Embossing - Stamp and heat emboss an image. Color the image using colored pencils, markers, or chalks. Brush or sponge clear embossing ink onto the colored areas of the design. Sprinkle the wet ink with clear embossing powder and heat until the powder melts and is shiny.

Multi-color Embossing - Ink a stamp with pigment ink or a clear embossing ink.  Sprinkle one color of embossing powder on part of the image, then sprinkle another color of embossing powder on a different part of the image. Continue sprinkling different colors of embossing powders until the entire inked image is covered with the powders. Shake off the excess powder and heat emboss the image to create a multi-colored embossed image.

Resist Embossing - Use a colored marker over the entire area to be stamped. One or many colors may be used.  Make sure the ink from your marker is completely dry before stamping your image on top of it. Stamp an image on the colored area with clear embossing ink.

Next, sprinkle clear embossing powder over the stamped image. Heat emboss the image with you heating tool. Finally, use a sponge to dab black ink over the design. The ink will not stick to the clear embossing, and you will have a “resist” design.

Embossing Enamel - One layer of this embossing enamel produces a bumpy finish. Two or three coats of embossing powder will produce a smooth surface. Try building up several layers to create a very thick surface and then stamp an image into it.

Just as with other embossing methods, stamp an image with embossing ink and emboss it with a heat tool. When using embossing enamel, it is best to heat from beneath the paper. Melting pots are available, or try using an electric fry pan or small teflon-coated crock pot to dip items in the melted embossing enamel.

Thick embossing enamel can be cut into shapes with scissors or a cookie cutter. Glitter, tiny beads, or metal confetti can also be sprinkled between coats of hot embossing enamel to give dimension and sparkle to the enamel.

Eyelets Lesson

Eyelets Lesson 

Tools needed for this lesson:
Hammer
Eyelets
Eyelet setter
"Anywhere" hole punch
Hard work surface
Cutting mat

Eyelet setters come in a variety of styles, but they all function in the same way. If you have an opportunity to try using various setters, you can see which style you prefer. An "anywhere" hole punch is a metal tool with a round, open end. They come in multiple sizes to create various sizes of holes. Each size of an "anywhere" hole punch will be used with the corresponding eyelets in that size. In contrast to a regular hole punch, an "anywhere" hole punch allows you to punch a hole anywhere on your page. You will not be restricted by the reach of the punch. These are especially helpful when you want to use eyelets in the center of your page.

Lesson:
Setting Eyelets - Once you know how to set eyelets, finding uses for them is easy. To set an eyelet, first make pencil marks where you want your eyelets to go on your page or embellishment. This will help you space them correctly and know where to make your holes for the eyelets.

Place the tip of the "anywhere" hole punch on top of the marked dot. Then tap the hammer on the end of the hole punch. You will probably want to practice this a few times to get a feel for how hard you need to hit the hole punch with the hammer in order to cut the paper. Cardstock and heavier paper will take more of a “whack” than regular patterned paper. When you lift the hole punch off the page, there should be a hole where your mark was.

Next, place the eyelet in the hole. Holding the eyelet in place, flip your paper over so that you are looking at the backside of the project and the eyelet is sticking through the hole.

Place the tip of your eyelet setter into the back of the eyelet. Tap the hammer on the end of the eyelet setter three or four times until the sides of the eyelet start to flatten. Again, you’ll want to practice this a few times to get a feel for how many and how hard your whacks should be.

Once your eyelets have flattened out, they are often still pretty bulky. Give them a couple of taps with the hammer to flatten them out completely, and to protect the page behind it in the page protector.

Turn your project over and enjoy your finished product!

Nested Eyelets – Since eyelets come in multiple shapes and sizes, they can often fit inside each other to create a "nested" look. To set a pair of nested eyelets, slide the smaller eyelet inside the hole of the larger one before putting both eyelets through the hole in your paper.

Flip your paper over, just as if you were setting only one eyelet, and then place your setter in the center of the smaller eyelet. Pound the setter with your hammer a few times, and both eyelets should set at once, linking them together and adhering them to the paper in one easy step. Nested eyelets look great when using a larger shaped eyelet, such as a scalloped flower and a smaller round eyelet, to create the center of the flower.

Embellishments Lesson

Embellishments Lesson

Tools needed for this lesson: 

Raid your craft boxes and art and office supplies for some great scrapbook embellishments! The sky’s the limit.
Glue dots and strong liquid glue are great adhesives for bulkier embellishments.

Lesson:

The list of items you can use as embellishments for your scrapbook pages goes on and on. Here are a few common (and a few not-so-common) embellishments and some quick ideas on how to use them to decorate your scrapbook pages:

Alphabet Tiles – Use tiles from an old game of Scrabble® for a title on your page. You can also buy imitation alphabet tiles that look similar to Scrabble® letters that come on a sheet of cardstock. Create your own alphabet tiles by printing your letters on cardstock and cutting them into small rectangles. Chalk the edges and you’ve got homemade alphabet tiles without the bulk. Take it a step further, and include different colors of paper and font styles. Use foam adhesive behind your letter tiles to make the letters look three-dimensional.

Beads – String them on wire or thread to create a frame or other design for your page. Glue individual beads to your page to use as confetti, grains of sand, or eyes on a paper doll or paper piecing. You can find beads in craft stores and scrapbook stores in all different colors, sizes and shapes. The possibilities are endless! Mix and match sizes of beads for variety. Attach strings of beads in the same way in which you attach wire.

Beaded Trim – Beaded trim is becoming more and more popular. This ribbon trim has strings of beads hanging from it and can be purchased in craft and sewing stores. It can be found in all sorts of colors and styles with beautiful beads and sequins. Use them to add some pizzazz to a frame, or to create a border on your page.

Brads – Brads are an easy embellishment! Just poke a hole in your paper, stick the brad through the hole and press down the tabs to make it stay. They now come in various colors, shapes and sizes. Use brads to hold down vellum or tags, as the center of letters, or to create a hinged journaling box.

Buttons – Do you have a stash of buttons from your sewing box? They make fantastic embellishments for scrapbook pages! Sew them onto your page with embroidery thread or wire, or glue them to your page. They make great decorative elements and because of the variety of shapes and sizes, they can be used in countless ways. Create borders of buttons in various colors, button-centered flowers, frames, photo corners, and more!

Charms – Charms aren’t just for bracelets anymore. They can dangle on your page and tell a story all by themselves. Charms are detailed metal embellishments that can be found in shapes and themes that fit your life and photos perfectly. Depending on the style of charm you are using, they can be attached with thread, wire or glue and will add an elegant aspect to your layout.

Die Cuts – Whether you choose a basic die cut, or a laser cut die cut with intricate details, die cuts make great additions to your layouts. They are a very quick embellishment and can be decorated with chalks, gems, eyelets, stitching and other materials to add even more detail. They come in a variety of colors and themes and you’ll be amazed at some of the details in the laser cut die cuts.

Embroidered Patches – Look for embroidered patches in the sewing aisles of your craft store or in scrapbook stores. Many embroidered patches are self-adhering and can be added to your scrapbook pages in seconds. There are often detailed patches that are available in multiple themes.

Eyelets – Eyelets are also a fabulous addition to your page. In the eyelet section of this CD, we’ve mentioned some great ways of using them, as well as instructions on how to set them.

Fibers – Beautiful and delicate fibers can be found in rich, gorgeous colors and designs and are a wonderful addition to your scrapbook layouts. Use fiber as borders, frames, to tie tags to your page, to hang charms, or to wrap letters in a title.

Gems – Gems add a bit of sparkle to your pages and can be glued directly to your project. They can also be found in craft and scrapbooking stores and are perfect decorations for royal pages and a princess’s crown. These can also be found in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes to fit your needs.

Glitter – Glitter sold in scrapbook stores is very fine and brilliant in color. A little bit of glitter can really dress up a sticker, title, or die cut in seconds. A liquid glue, or tacky two-sided tape works wonderfully to create beautiful designs using glitter.

Mesh – Whether you use self adhesive mesh, a piece of screen, or any other kind of mesh material, the unique texture and design adds wonderful borders and backgrounds to your layouts.

Micro Beads – Micro beads are small beads that are glued to layouts and embellishments using tacky two-sided tape or a liquid glue. They are used to add texture and color and can add a fun touch to your pages.

Nail Heads – Nail heads look similar to brads from the front, but they have small prongs that go through your paper and flatten out on the backside. They come in many shapes, sizes and colors and are a quick and attractive detail to add to your layout.

Paper Clips – They may seem like office supplies to most people, but to scrapbookers, paper clips are unique designs that make wonderful page accents. Paper clips can be found in different shapes and colors, such as triangles, swirls, and squares.

Picture Pebbles – These transparent stones are wonderful ways to magnify small photos and stickers. Simply cut a photo to the size of the stone and glue it directly to the stone using clear drying glue. The shape of the stone slightly magnifies the photo or sticker beneath it, and draws special attention to a small item. These are also used quite often to replicate drops of water or magnify special words in titles or journaling.

Ribbon – Craft stores always have a large section of decorative ribbons in numerous styles. Satin, sheer, printed, and decorative edge ribbons look wonderful on scrapbook pages as borders, bows, frames and accents.
Raffia – Raffia can add another dimension of texture to your page. It can be used as ties for tags, texture behind a photo or title, or as a companion to paper piecings such as corn husks and pumpkins.

Sequins – Sequins are a great way to add some sparkle to your pages. Use strings of sequins as frames or borders, or use individual sequins to decorate and embellish letters, paper-piecings, and other layout elements.

Stickers – When you walk into a scrapbook store, you’re sure to find at least one wall of stickers. With many different styles and themes, there’s a sticker available for nearly any page. Stickers can be used in titles, as decorations on frames, as a border, in mosaic squares, and even as part of your journaling. Many stickers have a clear background, so they blend into your background paper perfectly.

Tags – Just because your layout isn’t a present or an item for sale doesn’t mean tags won’t look great on it. Tags make wonderful embellishments, journaling blocks, photo frames, and title blocks. Use a template, or create your own tags, and decorate them in thousands of ways to create beautiful page elements.

Tinsel – Tinsel, or thinly cut metallic foil, can be used as grass, behind titles, and behind photo mats to add sparkle and texture to your pages. The best way to attach tinsel to your layouts is to use tacky two-sided tape, letting the ends of the tinsel strips fray out from the tape.

Twister – This raffia-like product comes in a thin strip that can be used as is or unrolled to create a wide piece of textured, colored paper ribbon. It can be used to thread through buttons, as borders on a page, to mat a photo in a special way or to use as a background border for other embellishments.

Wire – Sculpted wire is a great way to create a string-type look, without worrying about whether it will keep its shape. Wire can be bent and shaped into all sorts of things and looks great when it is dressed up with beads!

This is not an exhaustive list of embellishments that can be used. Some scrapbookers use non-traditional elements such as twigs, leaves, pressed flowers, doll clothes, and jewelry to decorate their layouts and to help tell the story. Whatever you use, enjoy creating all kinds of variations and new “looks” for your layouts.

NOTE: Most embellishments are safe to use in your scrapbook pages. Be sure to store your albums upright and be careful about what items actually touch your photos. If you are especially worried about your photos being damaged, use double print photographs or create imitation 3-D embellishments using papers.

Dry Embossing Lesson

Dry Embossing  Lesson 

Tools needed for this lesson:
Paper
Light box
Plastic or brass template
Metal and/or wooden embossing stylus

Lesson:

Dry Embossing on Paper - Dry embossing is easy with a few simple tools. Start by choosing a template and the type of paper or metal to emboss. Since you are creating a raised design using the thickness of the template as a guide, thicker templates such as brass or thick plastic work best. Thin templates will work, however it is harder to create a defined design with them. They also bend more easily, which can make embossing with them more difficult. Dry embossing produces the best results when using cardstock, vellum or scrap metal as the embossed material.

Depending on the design and paper you use, the type of embossing tool needed will vary. Small details require a metal or wooden embossing tool with a small tip. The small tip allows you to follow the detailed curves and sharp points of a design. A metal embossing stylus with small metal balls on either end works best for dry embossing on paper. When embossing on scrap metal, a wooden stylus with a flat and wide tip on one end as well as a small and pointed tip on the other end works very well. A metal stylus tends to rip through the metal much more quickly than the soft wooden stylus.

Once you have chosen your template, material and tool, it’s time to start embossing. If you have chosen to emboss on paper, put the template underneath your paper. It’s best to use a light box or a window underneath the template and paper in order to see the outline of the template through the paper. Light colored cardstock is easier to use because you can see where the template is located underneath the paper.

Be sure that the template is placed face down, so that when you look at the backside you see the reversed image of what you want to emboss. For example, when embossing with a lettering template, the letters should appear backwards while you are embossing them. You’ll be working from the backside of the paper. When you turn your paper over, the letter will be embossed facing the correct direction. There’s nothing more frustrating than embossing a letter backwards right onto your paper!

Once you have the template and paper lined up, apply pressure to the paper with one hand to keep it in place and trace the outline of the design with the embossing tool using your other hand. Press hard enough with the embossing tool to make an indentation in the paper, but be careful not to poke a hole through the paper. Learning the correct amount of pressure to use takes a bit of practice, and will depend on the thickness and type of the material you are embossing.

Once you have outlined the design, you can lightly “color in” the middle sections of the design. Use the larger end of the embossing tool to press the center of the design. Using soft pressure and going over the area multiple times will help avoid harsh indentation marks in the center of your design. This will raise the entire design, rather than just the outline.

When you are finished, flip your paper over, and you’ll see an embossed image on your paper. This can be left as is, or decorated with pens, chalks, glitter, or other embellishments.

Dry Embossing on Metal - Metal embossing is done with a slightly different process. Since metal is not translucent, and is much thicker than paper, you can emboss with the template on top of the metal, instead of underneath.

You’ll need a soft surface to work on. A soft foam pad, such as a mouse pad, works wonderfully to allow enough “give” to emboss the metal sheet. Place your scrap metal face down on the foam pad. Again, you will be working on the backside of the metal.

Next, place your template face-down on top of the scrap metal. Using the small end of the wooden stylus, outline the design of the template. Be sure to hold your template down firmly to keep it from slipping.

Once you have embossed the outline, use the wider end of the wooden stylus to press the center of the design. Use soft pressure and go over the area multiple times to avoid harsh indentation marks in the center of your design. Flip your scrap metal over to reveal your design. To create a more defined outline, use the small end of your wooden stylus or the small metal ball end of your metal stylus and carefully outline the raised image. This will give the raised image some added definition.