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Creative Scrapbooks on a Budget
by: Michael Saunders Scrapbooking at its essence is really about storytelling, but with a visual and tactile, rather than oral, focus. Scrapbooking is also a method for preserving a legacy or history in the form of photographs, printed media, and memorabillia contained in decorated albums, or scrapbooks. The tremendous growth of the Internet has resulted in more creative scrapbook approaches as well as online scrapbooks. The digital photography revolutions has been accompanied by an explosion in creative scrapbook ideas. Scrapbooking stores and online sites are popping up around the world, and these are places scrapbookers can visit to take classes and buy endless amounts of paper, stickers, adhesives, embellishments, and tools. Unfortunately, not everyone has an unlimited scrapbook budget for these products. Working with a small bank account to create a beautiful album can be a challenge, but with a little effort and creativity, you can scrapbook frugally and no one will know the difference.
Starting an album is always going to be the most expensive part of the scrapbooking process, because you have to purchase the empty album. One way you can side step this expense is to create a digital album instead. However, for those of you who want the traditional bound album, my best advice is to watch the sales fliers at your local craft stores. Don't skimp on quality-you want to be sure you're getting an album that is well made and safe for your pages, but you can often find albums at up to 50% off during annual scrapbooking sales. Stock up if you are an avid scrapbooker; you're sure to need another album before sale season comes around again.
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Remember:
There is no wrong way to scrapbook. Typically, the more creative and resourceful the person, the better the page. The main focus of each page should be the picture, letter or other momento, whatever is the most important to the creator. If you are interested in starting to digital scrapbook, or incorporate digital techniques with traditional scrapbooking, there are a myriad of Web resources available.
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