When you go shopping for scrapbooking supplies you likely stop by your local (or online) scrapbooking store or the crafts aisle. While those are excellent places to find supplies don’t leave out the less obvious places for some really good finds! Check your desk drawers and the office store for some neat embellishments to go in your albums. Some of these would include: Paper Clips: Paper clips are not limited to the same shape anymore. You’ll find them in circles, hearts, squares, rectangles, S shaped and more. You’ll also find them in all sorts of colors! Use them to hold items together on your layout or just as a shaped embellishment. Clips my be purchased at the scrapbooking store, but save a bundle by looking in the office aisle first! One of my best finds was at our local Walmart. They carry circle clips, a box of fifty of them for under three dollars. Compare with Making Memories brand….huge savings! Layout used with the permission of Sarah Tyler.
Transparencies: Another product “borrowed” from the office are transparencies. You may use them to cover the top of your shaker boxes, inside a slide mount, apply rub-ons, paint on them or print them on your home printer. Journaling takes on a whole new look when put on a clear transparency since it allows the paper or even photo underneath to show clearly.
Brads: Definitely get them out of your desk drawer! You aren’t limited to the large gold brads used in kindergarten class (you know the ones that held the arms on your puppet?) Brads are here to stay in a myriad of colors, sizes and shapes. There are hundreds of novelty brads including stars, hearts, squares, leaves, flowers, animals, bugs, etc. Be sure to check the office aisles for variations on the big gold brads of yesterday. They are handy for many things on a scrapbooking layout. See the ScrapFriends forum discussion on this topic for 70 ways to use them.
Life’s Adventures
Life’s Adventures paper, Children to Cherish, Be Blessed
Rub-ons, Children to Cherish, Be Blessed
Tags, Children to Cherish, Be Blessed
Black Prismatics Cardstock, Prism
Black Soot Distress Ink, Tim Holtz, Ranger
Mini brads and Photo turns, 7gypsies
Permanent Bond Glue Runner, Adhesive Tech
Label makers: Remember playing with these as a kid? Perhaps you have one sitting in a desk drawer just waiting to be put to creative use. Use punch label makers (or the more sophisticated ones with a typepad) to print captions or titles for your scrapbook page. The tape comes in many sizes and colors to make customizing easy.
Heritage Music Score paper, Provo Craft
Black cardstock
Alpha Tags, Sticker Studio
Life’s Journey labelmaker look stickers K & Co.
Black 12 x 12 Magic Mesh
Guitar clipart downloaded from the Internet
Tag shape downloaded from Internet
Life’s Journey Metal Art, K & Co.
brown eyelet
fibers
Staples: Staples are showing up everywhere in scrapbooks and cards. Attach small embellishments with them or just staple through your paper. Look for several available color options.
Slide Mounts: Remember those white thin boxes encasing photo slides of days gone by? Purchase them empty in every color imaginable, and now they aren’t limited to a square shape. These are great for frames for small photos, to put around small embellishments or to use as the basis of a shaker box.
See Cathy’s how-to for lots more ways to use slide mounts.
Your closet and sewing basket contain many embellishments just waiting to be used in a creative way!
Ribbons and Fibers: There are a great variety of different fibers and ribbon you can use in your scrapbooking. Try yarn, embroidery floss, natural cotton or sheep’s wool fibers, twine, and other types of fibers. Fibers are very commonly used for embellishing tags, as a border, or wrapped around another page element. See the ScrapFriends forum discussion for 50 ways to use it.
Twill Tape: Used in sewing, twill tapes can add texture and dimension to your layouts. You can use them plain or purchase twill with words on it. You may stamp on twill to add designs. You may also adhere the twill to paper, line up carefully, (run a test print first) and print the words yourself on your computer printer. See our how to article for instructions on how to do this. You can also die twill tape in custom colors.
Eyelets and Grommets: You’ll find eyelets in all sorts of places besides your tennis shoes! Scrapbooking eyelets come in every size, color and shape imaginable. Novelty eyelet options are endless, including animals, sun, stars, leaves, sand pails, flowers, etc. etc. etc. See this article for how to set an eyelet. Looking for ideas how to use eyelets in the discussion? Join our discussion in the ScrapFriends forum.
Tags: Tags are everywhere. Tags in scrapbooks are very popular. They come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors. You can purchase them or make them yourself from a template or paper punch. Use them to mat photos, hold your title, or as a stand-alone decorated page embellishment. Tags often have fibers through an eyelet at the top.
Fabric: Fabric is naturally lignin and acid-free and safe to use in your scrapbooking album. There are a great variety of things you can do with it. Use it as a background on your page, as mats for your photos, or clothes on your paper dolls. In this layout, the journaling is printed directly onto a piece of muslin. Layout used with the permission of SarahTyler.
Zipper Pulls: Not just for jackets! Zipper pulls are available with in all sorts of shapes and colors and with words printed on them. They are made of both plastic and metal. You can find them in the scrapping store, or try your local fabric store. One company that makes them especially for scrapbooking is Junkitz. You can read our review of them here.
Lace, ribbon and buttons: Sewing in scrapbooking is HOT. You can purchase a mini scrapbooking sewing machine or use your regular one. Sew on the paper, sew through buttons, sew on the lace….Gluing them is fine too. Lace, trims, ribbon, and buttons all make excellent additions to your scrapbooking pages.
A Family is one of life’s special blessings by Veronica Adkins
cardstock; Bazzill
patterned paper; Bo Bunny Press
ribbon; Made with Love!
flowers; Bazzill Blossoms
brads; Bazzill
ink; ColorBox & CTMH
lace trim; unknown
metal word; Miss Elizabeth’s
chipboard; Heidi Swapp
stamps; Technique Tuesday & Making Memories
rub ons; doodlebug designs inc.
paper glaze; Aleene’s
adhesive; Adhesive Tech
Check the Jewelry and Toolboxes
In Your Jewelry Box:
Charms: Not just for bracelets anymore! These make a relatively non-bulky addition to your scrapbooking layout. You can hang them from ribbon, fiber, wire, or attach with a glue dot. Chamrms are found in all shapes and sizes in the jewelry making aisle at your local craft supply store, in bulk on EBay, or in themed sets from the scrapbooking store. Don’t forget to check your jewelry box for old jewelry that would lend itself perfectly to being included in your albums.
Beads: Whether plain, shaped or with letters printed on them, beads add texture and color to many page accents. Use them to embellish journaling boxes, tags, borders, etc. Alphabet beads spell the title on this layout.
Dog tags: These may be in your jewelry box just waiting for you to rediscover them. Whether plain metal rectangles or ones with words already on them, these are a popular page embellishment. Hang from fibers or small chains to give a dramatic affect.
Watch parts: These are used frequently in vintage, collage and altered art. You can purchase the faces, hands, and gears packaged especially for crafters, or take apart some of your own outdated watches! Layout used with the permission of Sarah Tyler
Chains: All sizes and colors. Use to hang page elements such as dog tags and more..
Try the Tool Box Too!
Hinges and clasps: Sure you can purchase these especially packaged FOR scrapbooking, but its often at a premium price. Visit the hardware aisle for a wide variety of sizes. They are commonly available in gold, silver, and brass. Hinges are very handy for attaching flip-up elements to your pages. Use a similarly colored mini-brad through the holes of the hinge for a nail looking effect. Brads may also add stability when you use them to attach the hinges.
Drywall tape: Use this mesh as an alternative to the purchased pre-made mesh brands. You can color it with chalks, acrylic paints or spray paints. Mesh makes a great border on the page and adds creative touches on all sorts of embellishments. You can use small pieces on tags or use a whole strip behind your photos. Dozens of ways on how to use it is found in our review of the brand Magic Mesh and also in this how to. Also see our how-to article on colorizing drywall tape.
Wire: Wire comes in different guages (sizes) and colors. Used on the scrapbooking page as stand-alone embellishments (shape wire into words or shapes) or wrap it around another element such as a tag or journaling box.
Sand paper: Used to “distress” paper, especially in the vintage, collage and altered art styles. You can purchase fine-grained sand paper from the hardware department or a small block by Puzzle Mates. The “Scrapper’s Block” was made especially for the purpose of distressing papers. See our review of the Scrapper’s Block.
Paint chips: These little strips of color variations are found in the paint section of the hardware store. If you are purchasing paints, hang onto your samples to use in your books, but please don’t steal them from the store! You can purchase 12″ Paint Stripz from Puzzle Mates and save our reputation! Read our review about these stripz here. There is also a discussion with many uses for paint strips in our forum.
Laminate chips: The little squares of laminate as used to show countertops in the home improvement store. Use them for great looks on cards and in layouts. Card used with the permission of Rachel Thacker
I challenge you to locate at least six “found” objects from your desk drawer, wardrobe, jewelry box, or tool box and set them aside for use in your layouts.