Scrapbooking!

I was sifting through old photos from Sixth Form the other day and it was bringing back so many memories, unfortunately the photos were in the back of a draw as I don't really have anywhere to put them.

As I was reminiscing I decided that I needed to put these into a scrapbook so I could look back at them and they'd be to hand rather than just in a draw.

My desk is often a huge mess and it gets crazy when I scrapbook, but it's my favourite time because all my crafting things are out and I'm in my element. 

So what are the essentials I'd recommend for Scrapbooking? 

Scotch Photo Corners could not be more useful when it comes to putting photos in my scrapbook, I'm not big fan of glue as it gets everywhere and if you're sticking whole pages it can warp them a little and ruin the look of your book, but these corners can be placed anywhere and seem pretty easy to remove too. (So you can change your mind later!) 

What's in my craft boxes? Well I have plenty of different inks, a huge stash of wash tapes (Check out the Washi tapes post for ideas on how to use it!) and stamps. I also have coloured strings from RE and various Hobbycraft bits and bobs.

Pens! Pens, pencils, markers all of them, if you've got them in your stash they can be invaluable, you can draw with them or just make your hand writing much prettier. 

I love the Uniball ones, they have plenty of colours and I've had these for months and they're still going. 

Tips on Scrapbooking!

I find it's easiest to sketch out where you want everything to go and once you're happy stick everything in. 

Grab your pencil! It might seem like common sense but sketching out in pencil first with either drawings or text is a good way to make sure you like everything together. And if like me it takes a couple of goes to get it perfect. 

Simple isn't boring. It can be super fun to draw illustrations and pictures but sometimes a whole book of this can be distracting and hard to enjoy. Sticking two similar pictures next to each other can be just as effective as filling a page.

I love Washi tape! (Just in case you hadn't noticed) In the above page I took two group shots from different nights and taped them in with a grey patterned Washi tape. I like that this is all I need to do to this page and the pictures just speak for themselves, they bring the colour and life to the page.

Sometimes you just want to doodle on a page. And I think doodling is good when there's only one or two pictures on a page. Try different fonts and colours that match your pictures to tie the page together. 

I'm big into arrows and laurels at the moment so I used used them throughout the book, I outlined my photos with arrows and straight lined text on this page and let the pictures take the focus.

Add a quote that means something to you is a wonderful way of reminiscing when you flick through your book. 

Or just fill your page with pictures of the people you love. 

Last tip? Just love your pictures and the rest will fill the pages. Is there something hilarious about  a picture you remember every time you see it, include it in your page and the memory will be even stronger when you look back. 

Once I've done a little more of my book I'll give you guys an update! 

Katy!

What to do with Washi!

Washi tape is one of my favourite things for crafting!
I started collecting rolls of it when I spotted the prettiest patterns in Paperchase, they were just too colourful to resist.

I have a ridiculous amount of different tapes and most of them I haven't had a chance to use yet so I set my self a challenge today to see what I could use them for with the things I have at home. 

1. I decided to use my yellow chevron tape in my scrapbook instead of gluing the pictures in, I think it looks pretty nice, I'm planning on theming this page in yellow. That's me and my bestie halloween of my first year and G in his Flash suit, multiple people got pictures with him that night. (I'll be doing a scrapbooking post soon, once my book is a little more full)

2. I've seen posts on Pinterest using Washi tape to label things and I really do think it's a wonderful use! We have tons of plugs and wires lying around the house and I can never figure out which ones are which. This is a fun, colourful way to organise odds and ends, you can use Washi tape on most things and it comes of quickly and easily and of course it looks lovely!

3. For cards and envelopes, decorating cards with Washi tapes is one of the things I found most on Pinterest. I actually made the envelope and card, the envelope took a little figuring out but soon enough I had something to decorate, I lined the edges with my turquoise stripy tape on both sides.
For the card I just overlapped layers of my pink tape until I had enough space to write a little message. This one I'll be posting to my best friend.

4. The first page of my Shorthand book was looking a little plain so I jazzed it up with some stripy red tape (one of my favourites) and just used a black sharpie to write my subject and name.

6. Lastly I have a little Kilner jar I use for change, pens and anything in between, which I decided to wrap with my grey and pink tapes. The tapes both have the same floral geometric style print on them and I popped one line of each onto the jar.

These are just some of the many things you can use the tape for and I'm sure I'll find even more uses soon. For now I'll be covering anything I can get my hands on with Washi tape.

Katy