Wednesday Sponsor Giveaways: Elise Blaha, ReVa, Studio Calico, & SheyB

Don't worry about your layout "looking right" - go with the flow and let your photos and story the focus of the layout. Look at your photo for inspiration if you're stuck! But the most important advice is to HAVE FUN!

Buy the basics, do not hoard, don't scrap every photo, scraplift if you are stuck, use your own handwriting and tell your story.

I wish someone would have told me to keep my picture's organized it's hard to go back and do that.

I wish that someone (anyone!) would have told me to stick with just a few colors of cardstock and not feel compelled to buy every color under the rainbow. 8+ years later I still have much of that rainbow cardstock...and now I primarily scrap using kraft, white, cream, or brown. Oh well!

let go of making it perfect!

Don't be afraid to copy others' ideas. I look for inspiration on the various websites and create a layout based off of them. It also gets the creative juices flowing :)

try before you buy if at all possible, and purchase little by little to see what you will actually use. storage is a concern, so less is more until you know what will actually get used. and use what you purchase! saving it for something special leads to clutter and paralysis when you actually sit down to make something.

I wish someone told me that its "OK" for your pages not to look like the "perfect" pages in all the idea books! Use other people's work as inspiration, but you don't have to copy cat! Just tell your stories!

Do what makes you happy and don't get caught up in thinking that you have to "keep up with the scrapping Jones'!"

Best advice: you don't have to scrapbook chronologically, nor do you have to scrapbook everything! Pick your favorite photos or events and scrapbook those. Seriously, when you take a few thousand photos a year, it is just not realistic to scrapbook everything.

my advice to a new scrapper would be to use what you have.look around your everyday life and put those things into your books and pages.Also, i would tell them that all the latest and greatest products are really cute but you just dont need to keep buying in order to create meaningful pages and books.
i wish someone would have shown me the pleasures of working with stuff from my everyday life earlier on.

I wish someone told me I didn't need a ton of stuff to start with. I bought a lot of stuff I really didn't need or like.

i wish someone would of told me to just stock up on solid color paper and then buy patterned paper when you know what you're going to use it for!

Hi Ali-
I hope all is well with the family. The advice I give people I meet who are new to scrapbooking, actually I will give it to anyone, is to not save supplies. When I first started I would get something really neat and I was super excited to use it, but I wouldn't, I would save it. My thinking was that I was keeping it for that perfect project, but it would never come. The item would sit there not being able to contribute to anything. What a waste.

I would tell any new scrapbooker to KEEP IT SIMPLE! It's so easy to get caught up in all the "goodies". All those fun patterned papers, cool embellishments and fun gadgets and tools can be a lot of fun but they can also be a little overwhelming too, especially to a new scrapbooker. Try to remember to keep the focus on the storytelling and capturing and recording all those special moments. Remember that your journaling and your photos are really the most important part. All the other goodies are just the icing on the cake.

I would advise not to buy too much from the onset, it'll only confuse your senses... look through scrapbooking magazines, read blogs, look at different online galleries to figure out the styles that appeal to you most. Then rush to the store!

adhesives adhesives adhesives...still don't know which one works best!

Less is more...don't cut around people in pictures or cut them into odd shapes(makes it hard to copy them later if you need to)...take lots of pictures (sometimes it takes awhile to get a good one)...and lastly, don't use your own handwriting if it is not easy to read-do hidden journaling instead(I know people would disagree with me on this one, but I think it can be awfully distracting). Needless to say I started at a very young age(hence the horrid handwriting)-when scrapbooking wasn't cool and when the only products you could buy were from the drugstore.:smiles:. Then I would tell them to buy a good trimmer, nice cradstock, a great pen, and good adhesive...and let loose, you can always change what you don't like when you feel more comfortable. Thanks for the opportunity!!

I would tell a new scrapbooker not to be so concerned with "the right way" and the "wrong way" to scrapbook. There's no such thing. Don't compare your stuff to others. Develop your own style. Do what you love and what makes you happy and stop worrying about what others pages looks like and whether or not other people like your pages. If you like them that's all that matters.

I'm sure there are a bunch of ideas I could pass onto a new scrapbooker - It is okay to touch (allow others to look through your books!) - and use what you have - otherwise, it just collects dust!
I hope I win!