Card Making – Unique Ideas To Create Lasting Memories
By: Vera Raposo

Card making is the perfect way to express your feelings for others in a unique, creative way. Holidays, birthdays, and special occasions are preserved in our memories forever through cards and photos.
Purchasing greeting cards has traditionally been the way to express affection, excitement, sadness, and any other number of emotions. With a little creativity and thought you can create personalized cards that will leave lasting impressions on your friends and family.

Photos, textured paper, and your personal sentiments can be used to make greeting cards for all occasions. With the technology that is now available, it is easy to scan and print copies of your favorite photos and mementos and include them in your hand made greeting cards.

For holidays, you may want to create cards in unique shapes such as Christmas stockings, turkeys, hearts, pumpkins, and flags. You can include photos of previous holidays, printed clip art from free online sources, and small reminders of any other traditions or events that are special to you and your family.

Colored paper and fabrics can be used as a unique background for your cards. It is simple to attach textured paper and printed photos to greeting cards with two-sided tape or glue. Your card making efforts may include the use of scented oils, glitter, dried flowers, and stickers in holiday shapes.

Birthday cards can become treasured gifts through the use of a photo collage, clippings from newspapers from the day the person was born, and pictures of activities or hobbies that are of interest such as sporting or musical equipment.

Your card making efforts can be as simple or as complex as you desire and you are sure to leave those who receive your handmade cards with a wonderful memory that will endure for a lifetime.

Article Source: http://www.scrapventurearticles.com

Vera Raposo has been scrapbooking since her oldest child was 5. With tons of scrapbooking tips and ideas, Vera is now sharing some of her best scrapbooking ideas for your new baby in her newsletter www.baby-scrapbooking.com

Tips On Organizing Your Scrapbook
By: Vera Raposo

You can create more scrapbooks in less time of you take a few moments
to organize your thoughts and supplies. Before starting your newest
scrapbooking project, plan out everything you will need and have it close
at hand.

This includes supplies such as tape, glue, and pens, photos
and memorabilia you intend to use, and an idea of how you want your
pages to flow from one to the next.

Effectively organizing your scrapbooking projects includes keeping a
written record of what worked for you in the past and what did not.

Notes of materials and fabrics that worked and those that were difficult to
maneuver, the types of paper and decorations that were the easiest to
attach, and which particular supplies were the most effective will save
you a lot of time when starting a new scrapbooking project.

Basic supplies such as scissors, paper, and page protectors should be kept in a special box or container so they will be within easy reach when you are
ready to begin your next project.

Keeping your family photos and mementos in a central location will make
it much easier to locate the ones you wish to include in your newest
scrapbook. Your calendars and journals should be kept up to date. This
will save you many hours if you don’t have to take time to remember
dates and places.

Make a special effort to keep your information current. Digital photos can be placed into directories according to the special event, the person, and the places in which the photos were taken.

Advance planning and making an effort to keep your scrapbooking items in a
central location are the best ways to keep yourself organized and make
scrapbooking a joy rather than a stressful experience.

Article Source: http://www.scrapventurearticles.com

Vera Raposo has been scrapbooking since her oldest child was 5. With tons of scrapbooking tips and ideas, Vera is now sharing some of her best scrapbooking ideas on her radio show at www.ScrappersTalkRadio.com.

I was asked how to make stairs in a layout. I have come up with a few ways to do this.

1. Fold a brown (or whatever color) strip of paper back and forth and gently attach it up the page so it looks like stairs up the page.

2. Take a paper the length of where you want it to go and then draw a straight line ever so often across it. Every half inch let’s say. Then shade in every other spot. The shaded spot will then look like the toe kick of the stair.

3. Paperpiece stairs- Cut darker and lighter paper in stips the size you want the stair to be. Cut the darker color a little shorter, this would be the toe kick area. Depending on your layout, start with a toe kick (darker strip) then place a lighter strip on top of it, make sure and overlap the lighter color so it looks like it is hanging over the darker color. Put another toe kick strip above the lighter color, but don’t overlap it at all, just let it touch. Then repeat with the lighter color overlapping on that one as well.

If you have scrapbooking questions, please send them to me. littlescrapbookshop @ gmail.com

Sometimes you just don’t need to improve on a good thing. Many of the top scrapbook adhesives have been around for 10 years or more. I’m not saying that some haven’t been improved over the years, or companies haven’t come out with an adhesive that really made certain projects easier.

But my scrapbook room is not complete without these items. They are the same now as they were 10 years ago and I love that. I appreciate that I can still have the product loyalty after all these years.

My top picks in adhesives and yes they are in order

1. Hermafix Dotto

2. Foam Squares – especially since I love to stamp and cut out images.

3. Glue Dots

Seriously, anyone that has been scrapbooking for a while is laughing right now because we’ve all used these products since they came out. But they are something I can never be without in my scrapbook supplies.

What are your must-have adhesives?