Scrapbooking: Outside the Box

1) Adhere your papers and pictures with different techniques.

If you are brave and a little bit savvy, try sewing the pages to each other with thread, either by hand or with a machine.

You can also try stapling pages and photos. It adds some metal elements and a cool touch.

Some companies even offer paper clips in fun shapes and sizes. You can use these to hold things together on your page, and they work great for thicker papers that would usually require much more adhesive.

2) Incorporate rubber stamping or chalks into your pages.

Who said scrapbooking was all about paper and stickers? You can use rubber stamps and colorful ink to stamp designs onto paper to create your own customized paper. The nice thing with this is that you can choose the perfect design and colors that will compliment your layout.

You can also use chalks specially made for paper crafting to add color to your pages or to color in your stamp designs. The neat thing about chalks is you can give them a kind of smudged effect which allows you to blend colors seamlessly and creates yet another different finish for your page.

3) Every heard of embossing?

Well, it’s yet another cool thing to try. Embossing powders come in a variety of colors, some solid and some with glitter. You will also need an embossing heat tool. This heats and sets the embossing. You typically use a rubber stamp with ink and stamp your design. You then sprinkle the embossing powder over the wet ink. Shake off the extra, and then use the heat tool to set the embossing powder. You should move from one side of the design to the other. DO NOT just move the tool, back and forth all over, as this will take the design longer to dry. Once the color of the powder begins to change, you can move to the next part and so on, until the entire design has changed. You will know it’s done when the finish on the embossed areas becomes raised a bit and is either shiny or smooth and really glittery (depending on the embossing powder you chose).