Money Saving Scrapbooking (+ Giveaway!)

So how's the scrapbooking going? The Scrap Play Blog has been up for about a month now, and I hope it's provided you with some inspiration and ideas.  Today, my design team wants to show you how to create frugal, yet fabulous layout.  I also want to hear from you.  How do you save money when scrapping?  What are your secret tricks?  Leave a comment below sharing your money saving strategy, and you could win the brand-new issue of CK's Tips and Tricks magazine.  The giveaway is open until July 15, 2010 at 12pm EST.

For my American Girls layout, I used a paper saving strategy I talked about in an earlier blog post titled "Stretching your Scrapbook Supplies".   I had made a banner from a kit by Rusty Pickle, and ended up with a bit of red, cream, and blue patterned paper scraps.  I quickly punched a bunch of circles out and threw them into my "punched scraps" container.  Later when I saw this picture of my daughter and I at a Memorial Day parade, I pulled them out and used them as a grid for my layout.  This gave me patterned paper and a grounding design element for only the cost of the background cardstock ($.05).  I inked the edges of the circles and the cardstock, and then matted my photo on a small piece of coordinating cardstock.  ($.05)  The letter stickers and little swirly stars are both from a set of My Mind's Eye alphabet stickers.  (With a coupon they cost $2.39)  I used a couple tricks to add detail.  First, I outlined the stickers with a navy blue Sharpie.  Then I mounted the latter stickers on a scrap of clear acetate and popped them up with foam squares to add dimension.  Total cost: about $2.49.  Less if you consider that I still have plenty of letter stickers left over!

 
Angela created her layout using only two sheets of patterned paper.  She says, "To save money and supplies I cut out the foundation paper behind the photo collage to use on another project.  The collage print was FREE.  Most photo finishing processors offer coupons from time to time for free collages.  I also used leftover paper and created my journal circle."   Cost?  Rub-on title: $0.99  Die cuts: $0.55  Paper: $1.00  Total cost: $2.54! 

Amber said, "For my frugal layout, I went back to what I used to do a lot of, which is paper piecing.  I think many people forget that you can make amazing things with just your imagination.  All I used on this layout was cardstock and I love how fun it turned out.  I always freehand whatever it is I want to use and then cut it out in different colors to piece objects together."

Comments

[Jennybean]

One big way I save money is when I print photos. If I want to use a 2x3 photo, instead of printing wallet size and getting 4 copies for 99 cents when I only need one, I'll take 4 different photos I want to do as 2x3 and put them together in photoshop. Then I can print it for only 9 cents!

[Whitney]

I have some chipboard letters and shapes I have gotten. I use where I popped them out as stencils or trace around the actual chipboard pieces on paper scraps and cut them out.