FREE Easter Scrapbook Paper - Frugal Friday

Using this Free Easter Scrapbooking Paper I'm going to create a festive Easter scrapbook spread using a combination of these 4 papers. I love to layer paper!

To download this Free Easter Paper, just click the link above the image of the paper you would like. Keep in mind that when you print them, You'll need to print them on paper bigger than 12x12, so that there won't be a white boarder around the edges. You can also print 8x8 paper from these files. Call or visit your local Alphagraphics and they can help you out. Thats where I do all my printing and they're really awesome.

I'd love to see your creations with my paper, so please feel free to send me a picture of what you create!

Download Easter Paper #1

Download Easter Paper #2

Download Easter Paper #3

Download Easter Paper #4

Free Easter Egg Download - Frugal Friday

I wanted to make some easy Easter cards that you can download as a free easter gift! I made an Easter Egg Template that you can download for free to use for your Easter Cards.

Download FREE Easter Egg PDF

Here is a sample of a finished card! It's a 5x5 folding card.

Step 1: Cut a 5 x 10 inch piece of card stock paper and fold a crease in the center.

Step 2: Cut a 4.5 x 4.5 inch piece of paper and paste it to the front of the card.

Step 3: Take a 2 x 4.5 inch piece of green paper and trip alternating divots to create a grass pattern.

Step 4: Print out the Free Easter Egg Template PDF onto 8.5 x 11 inch paper (I used a patterned 12x12in and just cut it down)

Step 5: Place the Grass and the Egg onto the front of the card according to your preference and knock yourself out with any embellishments you want!

And there you have it! A cute homemade and inexpensive Easter Card!

Birthday Invitations - Little Girl

My sister came to me and wanted a couple birthday invitations for her little girl. She was having a butterfly and flower themed birthday party. I looked at my supplies and lo and behold I had some scrapbook paper and embellishments that were perfect!

They took me just a few minutes to make and I think they turned out really cute! I just cut out 4x5 inch rectangles and decorated them to my hearts content :)

Template Tuesday - My Vacation 12x12 Spread

This scrapbook page design is great for event photos. The template displays 9 photos and still gives plenty of space for journaling sections, embellishments, etc. That's why I used it as a vacation spread.

I'll take you through a 3 step process where we look at the scrapbook sketch, the scrapbook layout, and then the final page.

You'll need to get a circle cutter if you don't already have one, and you'll also want to pay close attention of the boarder sizes.

all of the boarders are .25 inches (so the 3x3 boarder square is 3.5 x 3.5 inches)

EXCEPT for the 4x6. That is smaller so cut it 4.25 x 6.25 inches

The 2.5 x 3.5 photo and the 5x5 circle both have double boarders (also .25 in)

The strips underneath the squares are 4x12 inches

Scrapbook Adhesives - Mounting Squares

We all know that when you scrapbook, you have to tape/glue stuff together right? Well, I find my favorite thing to use to paste embelismnets, borders, pictures, etc. are Mounting Squares.

They come in a little box of 500 and there are a bunch of different brands that you can find at your local scrapbook supplier.

All they are are little double sided tape squares that are easy to dispense from a little box. Plain and simple. I tried using another brand besides scrapbook adhesives, but it had you individually peel off a back to each piece creating way more work as well as leaving a lot of trash. This kind is simpler and way less of a mess.

Just another tool that makes my scrapbooking life a lot easier :)

Template - 8x8 - Mirrored Horizontals

Here's a template I've used several times and LOVE

This is a template for 8x8 albums

All you do is place a horizontal 4x6 in

the top left corner of the page (I always try

to put a 1/8 to 1/4 inch border around my pictures)

and then placing a 2.5x3.5 wallet size image below it.

Add a border to the left side of the page and some

embellishments or journaling sections on the bottom left.

Rotate the template 180 degrees for the next page,

and there you have it!

Why do I love it?

-It gives a very uniformed look

-It makes plenty of room for pictures while

still leaving enough space to get creative

with embellishments or journaling sections.

-You can do a lot of different variations

Here are some samples from pre-made scrapbooks:

Journaling - helping out my handwriting

I wouldn't say I have "bad" handwriting...

But I wouldn't call it pretty either.

When I made my baby book with my mother in law,

we left a bunch of empty spaces for journaling sections.

While I'm happy that I was able to write some

narrative to some of the photos, I don't really

like my handwriting.

To solve this problem, I thought to intermix my

handwriting with sticker letters so that it would

look a bit more designed. Turned out that it

also served nicely as shout outs, so that the

most important words are emphasized.

Here are some examples that I used on last

year's christmas spread:

Target Giveaway

Just wanted to let you know about an awesome Target giveaway! Just click the link and follow the simple steps! Let's be honest, we could all use a little Target money :)

How to print any size you want

It didn't even dawn on me that some people might

have a hard time figuring out how to print a 3x3in

picture (or any random size for that matter).

Then I gave away my first pre-made scrapbook and

thought about how they would print all the sizes.

There are two ways I can think to do it...

First (and less affective I think), You could print

a normal 4x6 or 5x7 and just cut down the image.

The pro to that is there is no extra work before

the image is printed. The con is that You might

have to cut out an important part or the picture.

Second (the way I do it), is to go into an image editing

program (I use photoshop, but I'm sure this can easily

be done on any other editing program such as picasa)

and crop the image to the size you want, and then

dragging it onto a white image that is 4x6 or 5x7. So you

just crop, make a new template, and drag on your cropped image.

Make sense?

So if I want a 3x3 for example, I just crop my

image to a 3x3. Then I go to file, "New". and make that

image 4x6, and then drag the 3x3 onto my new template.

It's nice because then you can get them printed anywhere

and get the size you want.

Here's an example of my end result,

two 3x3 images ready to be printed as one 4x6:

The same principle applies to any size.

If you want a 5x5in, just drag it onto a 5x7

template. If you want two 2.5x3.5in then drag

them both onto one 4x6 etc.

4 Square Template

Right now my very favorite template I've been using is a simple 4 square design. All of these examples are using 8x8 scrapbook paper, but you could easily do it on a 12x12 page as well.

All I do for this one is cut out two 3.5x3.5 squares and place them in diagonally from each other and place an embellishment where their corders connect. Then print 4 3x3 pictures and place them in each designated space.

(If I were making a 12x12 page, I could cut the paper in 5.5x5.5in squares and place 5X5 pictures instead)

What I like about this design:

-It's super cute and always gets a lot of compliments

-It's simple and easy and doesn't require a lot of tools

-It incorporates a lot of pictures on to one page, giving

you great use of space.

Here is a completed example that I used in my Baby Blaine's album:

The following examples are from pre-made

scrapbooks that I gave out as gifts, so they

are still without pictures (but you get the idea)

In this last example, I used a second paper and cut it out a 4X4 square to make a double border.

My Style

I don't know if I'm the only one out there who doesn't

like scrapbooks that have 1000 embellishments and fancy

techniques on one 12x12in page and then they only have one

little picture in the middle. You know what I'm talking about?

I like my scrapbooks to be more focused on the images and

journaling sections than on the cutesy paper or decor.

After all, the point of a scrapbook (for me anyway) is

to document your life, an event, etc and not to look at cool

paper. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE cute paper and embellishments,

just not more than I love my little baby or the holiday I'm

trying to make a lasting memory of.

So that's why I've decided that I want my style to always

be about the images. Once you get deep into the passion

of scrapbooking, I'm sure you just want to try out all the

different techniques you learn about and make the cutest

page ever, but I'm gonna try to stick to my guns and not

get into that particular style.

Paper Tear Edger - Deckle

Coolest Tool Ever?

That would be the tear bar

On the last scrapbook I made I'm pretty

sure I used the tear bar on every single page.

I have the

Fiskars Paper Tear Edger Deckle

that I got from Joann Fabrics

I like the deckle because it gives the paper
a really awesome ripped look. I love to use a

few papers and then layer them to make borders

and variety to the page. I think the best word for

it is just plain awesome.

Best part is, it's really easy to use.

I thought I would just end up ripping up all

the paper that I wanted to edge, but it's simple.

You just pull the paper toward the bar and down a little

and it rips easy as pie!

Here are the different ways I use it:

-A Thick single page, so make it look like one kind

of paper is bleeding off onto the next page

-Stacked paper making a page boarder

-Stacked paper making a cool looking edge

-Ripped in a rectangle to use as a picture boarder

In this example, I used the tear bar on the

striped paper and had it on the edge so it

looks like the paper is bleeding onto the left page.

This was done with a single paper, with no layers

and I had the torn paper take up 1/3 of the page
(using the rule of 3rds as an element of design)

In this example, I used the tear bar with

a single piece of paper, but instead of

having it bleed from another page, I just

had it coming down from the top. Again, I had

it take up 1/3 of the page using the rule of 3rds

as an element of design.

Here is an example of stacking two

torn papers to make a cool edge. I

think the layered look is awesome and

really adds a lot of depth and interest.

Here I used 3 papers total to make the boarder.

The top 2 lairs are torn and they are bordered

with a straight edge paper. I love having the

blue paper as a torn accent to give the border

depth and a little color pop.

This is a similar example of a border, but

I only used two papers to create it, and

only used the tear bar on one side.

In this last example, I used the tear bar
as a picture border. I thought it was

appropriate for this christmas spread

because it kinda looks like open wrapping paper.

This is a gives scrapbooks a really fun look
and like I said before, it's the coolest tool :)