by M. Sparga

Created on: January 17, 2008

Scrapbooking doesn't have to blow your budget. If you know what to buy and where to look, you can make your funds go a long way and still produce some impressive scrapbook projects.

Embellishments

Those glitzy finishing touches, like stickers, die cuts, and brads, might add style to a page, but they can also add to your expenses. With a little creativity and resourcefulness, though, you can make your own embellishments or find economical places to buy them. Your local dollar store might be a treasure trove of inexpensive scrapbooking items. Hardware stores can turn up surprising results to the careful shopper; look for different types of mesh or double-sided metallic tape to use on your layouts.

Perhaps the ultimate source of cheap, decorative embellishments is languishing in a drawer or box somewhere. Pull out your old greeting cards, or start saving the ones you receive, and you're sure to find some great images and sayings to include in your layouts. Birthday cards, holiday cards, and thank you cards are a great source of embellishments. Similarly, the ribbons and bows you get on presents will sometimes be a perfect fit for a layout. Just be mindful of whether they are not acid-free, and arrange them accordingly so they aren't directly touching your photos.

Paper Scraps

There's a reason it's called scrapbooking. Any bit of paper, tissue paper, magazine clippings, or fabric could make a great (and cheap) addition to your scrapbook project. If you're concerned about acidity levels affecting your photos over time, it might be worth it to invest in some archival spray so you can take advantage of the many scraps available to you. Then you can turn junk mail into the perfect photo corners, and it won't cost you a dime. Some scrapbookers use brown paper bags since they're much easier on the budget than cardstock. Or rather than discard your scraps of cardstock, you could turn them into a mosaic. The key here is creative recycling that turns waste into art.

Lettering

You don't have to rely on expensive stencils and chipboard letters to produce some creative titles for your pages. You have plenty of low-cost alternatives available to you. A simple set of markers or colored pencils can turn your own handwriting into a decorative element on the page. If you splurge on chipboard letters, consider tracing them onto thin cardboard first so that you can make your own stencils to reuse again and again.

There are also countless free fonts online that you can download to your

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