Frugal scrapping tips

here's mine! i used them on for a crop challenge a while back... any you'd like to add?

my frugal tips

1. if you use zots glue dots paper thin, you can double their mileage buy buying the medium instead of small, they are the same price. then fold over the wax paper, so the dot is covered on both sides by wax paper and cut through the middle. you now have 2 that will work almost as well as one at half the price.

2. Keep an eye out for clearances at Joanne's and michaels they often have items at a fraction of their normal price. Sometimes they even have just plain SALES for 40-60% off...

3. Get on the mailing list for joanne's and get the flier of Michaels from the newspaper. You can gradually buy things you can't afford that way, for example, if you want punches, buy one each month till you have what you want, using your 40% off coupon.

4. Hang on to tickets and fliers and other cool ephemera which can make for a great embellishment at no added cost.

5. If you buy kits, find a friend you can swap with. when they have "used up" their kit, and you have done the same, swap kits. There's almost always plenty left to do a few layouts and you will have paper that you've not already done a million layouts with.

6. Do whatever crops you can online to win free stuff innocent0002.gif

7. invest in at least one set of alpha stamps, they are much cheaper in the long run than stickers and rubons, specially for a long title

8. If you own a diecutting machine, such as a cricut or whatever, buy fun foam or felt and make your own "thickers"

9. The same goes for felt flowers and other embellishments, MUCH cheaper than the bought variety... cheap felt though might backfire, i use at least part wool felt.

10. When you make a layout where a big part of the paper is covered up, like how i like to make a frame by cutting my patterned paper to 11.5 x11.5 AND Placing over a peice of cardstock, cut a square out of the back of the cardstock about 9inches square or so... you have enough room to adhere to the pp, but you can use the center for matting or another project.

11. keep a scrap bag going.... throw all your little peices into it, use those for cards, other layouts etc. some of my best layouts were made from scraps!

12. save tiny strips of ribbon, you can staple them on in a V fashion and make cute layouts. here's an example of what i made with a LOT of those
Reduced: 87% of original size [ 588 x 600 ] - Click to view full image


13. use older lines of pp, they often sell online at a fraction of the cost

14. set up a running search on ebay for your favorite brands or products, you can setup daily email notices. be careful not to go crazy though, watch out for shipping amounts and know retail values!!

15. mix alphabet fonts of stickers and rubons for a cool look AND to use up leftover alphas!

16. After you've seriously depleted your alphas to where you really can't use them anymore randomly place on cardstock to make a cool background, like this
Reduced: 85% of original size [ 600 x 313 ] - Click to view full image


17. download cool fonts from some of the free sites online, they can be just as cute and much cheaper than rubons!!

18. If you are interested in digital scrapping, check out some of the free sites for that, there are a number of blogs as well as sites like 2 peas that have regular freebies available for the taking.

19. do a search on google for something like "coupon code photo processing" a lot of photo processing sites onlines have free introductiory offers or just regular freebies or discounts.

20. if you print your own pictures. buy the sets of paper and ink that you can buy that's in the ink section... i use HP 95 and for about $30 i can get 100 sheets of photo paper plus the ink cartridge, where as just the ink costs at least $25 by itself.

21. DON'T BUY CHEAP PHOTO PAPER can't express enough. its a waste! i bought some Kodak paper when i was super broke, it was like $6 about half of the other brands... but when i printed with it, it curled up and the ink looked all wonky and ick! total waste of money. My favorite paper is HP.

22. Find some of the stores that buy scrapbook store excess product, like frugalities.com and dollarscrapbooking.com (i THINK, off the top of my head, might want to do a search on that one if its wrong) they have some GREAT deals... do, however watch out for shipping...

23. if you are like me and pretty much the only decent scrap stuff you can find is online wait for free shipping sales, OR wait till your total is high enough for the free shipping some sites offer, OR find someone to order with you to half shipping with!

24. if you have weird colors of brads that you never use, holding them with a tweezer, dip them into a versamark pad and smoosh on some embossing color in whatever color you wnat them to be, use a heat tool, and voila, instant usable brads. This IS of course if you have a heat tool and embossing powder, which are a good investment anyway, the embossed look is SO COOL.

Ok, thats all i can think of for now...