Is scrapbooking a time and money sucker?

Probably, if you buy every silly thing marketed. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Just be creative.

Scrapbooking can get expensive if you go to the store to buy every possible thing. If you get creative though, you can most likely find things all around to use instead though. If you buy the scrapbook photo albums, they come with pages in the sleeves already. You can use those pages, buy different pages (which can get expensive), or be creative and find pages from other sources (like newspapers and such). The decorating the page however you want can get time consuming and expensive (again if you buy everything). I am really into scrapbooking and spend a good amount on it, but I always try to buy my scrapbooking stuff when it’s on sale.

There’s also digital scrapbooking. I don’t have any personal experience with it, but I’ve seen some one else’s work with it. There is software you can buy or sites you can go to that have pages already made and you just upload your photos into them and then print.

If you get together with some friends who are into scrapbooking, you can use a lot of their tools. You will need to spend some money on an album, and on papers, and stickers probably.

I think it can be but doesn’t have to be. I think it can be a meaningful process.

It’s a lot of fun when you get together with other people. Most supply stores have classes you can join. The trick is to make them informative and interesting enough for your heirs to cherish. I’ve seen tons of them at the second hand stores, so you can get good supplies there.

My friends that do scrapbooking also make handmade cards, and get double duty out of the supplies. I would start with a class that has supplies there, so you can see if it’s really for you before you invest a lot into it.

@YARNLADY That’s a good idea- secondhand stuff. Do you see them in Goodwill stores or somewhere else? I think that’s all we have near us.

It all depends on you.

My wife has invested heavily in physical scrapbooking. Specialized cutting tools, stamps, papers, pens, pencils, albums. There are unique paper sizes and incompatible cutting dies and whatnot. You spend a premium for acid-free inks, pastes, and media.

And don’t even get me started on the carrying cases and other storage solutions you need.

I was so happy when my wife expressed interest in getting Photoshop Elements. Apparently, many of the scrapbooking magazines provide step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce the results in their articles using Elements.

I’m slightly optimistic moving to digital scrapbook production will save me some money over time. I’m very optimistic it will save us a lot of space and storage.

@robmandu Yeah, I’m definitely not that interested. My mother is obsessive about card making, as @PandoraBoxx mentioned. She’s got a room devoted to all her paraphernalia. Custom made shelves to hold things and everything. It’s ridiculous. Too bad she lives too far away to borrow things from. I’m not sure she’d let me borrow anything anyway. She’s protective of her card “babies”. I think she’s actually the reason I fear getting too involved.

Oooh, i’ve recently started this too and it’s SO much fun! Even if you budget scrapbook, you’re going to need quite some time to do it. Buying the little scrapbooking goodies and decorations get expensive, but they’re so cute i can’t help but buy them, haha.

What you can also do to decorate the background page, is use leaves from the garden? I haven’t tried it yet, but i collected some leaves while we were on honey moon last month and am going to use them in the album. How’s that for cheap? Hehe.

Also, to decorate the page, you can get some paint and spongers, then get that stencil paper (not sure what it’s called, but it’s thick see-through paper) – anyway, you use a sharp tool to cut shapes out of it and then put it down on the background page and stencil your shape or pattern onto the page with the sponges. You can cut quite a few designs out on an A4 size see-through paper stuff.

And those glitter glue pen thingies. They spice up the page nicely too