What are your frugal hobbies?

I read this question on another forum and it made me think about my frugal hobbies.

• Biking - I love to work out and I bought my Specialized Allez frame back in 2003. It was a leftover from 2002, so I picked it up for $500. Over time, I purchased better components for it, and I still ride it today without having to change or 'upgrade' any more components.
• Reading - I love to read, and what a great frugal hobby. I can share books with my sister and friends, or go to the library.
• Running - I love to run and all I have to invest in is a good pair of shoes. I purchase them from a local running store, who gives me credit towards coupons that I can use for future purchases.
• Scrapbooking. Initially this was a huge investment. In fact, this is the one thing that got me in trouble with my credit cards. But now I have so much 'stuff' all I have to do is purchase adhesive (always with my Joann or Michael's coupons!) and some cutting blades when they get dull and now I have cards and gifts for everyone!

What are your frugal hobbies?

Paper Piecing - A Great Way to Use Your Scraps

In keeping with the green theme, a great way to not only save money, but re-purpose your scraps is to start paper piecing. Don't throw your scraps in the landfill! Start saving them and then you can paper piece.

What is paper piecing? Paper piecing is using cardstock and patterned paper to create paper embellishments for your scrapbook pages and greeting cards. They can come from easy or intricate patterns. You can find some great patterns in children's coloring books. To get you started here is a pattern that was used to complete the piece shown above. Have fun!

Reusing a cereal box!

Of course, cereal is the big breakfast around here! I do recycle my cereal boxes in the containers, but since I have a ton of magazines that I'm unwilling to get rid of right now, so I thought, "how can I re-use them?". Here's a project I started & will finish today and post finished pictures later. I took one box of cereal (see above) & cut it at an angle, like a magazine holder. I have 1 magazine holder and used it as a template:

I then chose a color scheme for my 'new' magazine holder & traced my template:

Sorry for the blurry picture! I then cut it out for both sides, cut out the spine and started gluing!

Stay tuned for the rest!

Storage Ideas

Here are some other creative uses to keep all your 'stuff' contained:

• Priority Mail Boxes: Use Priority Mailing boxes and make your own vertical paper holders.
• Shadow Boxes: Take two old shadow boxes/knick knack shelf units and use all the little openings to hold the numerous little items for scrap booking such as ribbon rolls, stamps, stamp pads, little containers of eyelets, sequins, buttons, and beads.
• Flat Ware Trays: Use a divided silver ware type basket to hold felt tip markers and ink pens and most used scissors are stored in old coffee mugs.
• Cigar Boxes: Use cigar boxes to store items like paint sample chips and tiles.
• Parmesan Cheese Containers: Use old parmesan cheese containers for ribbon/fiber storage.
• Tiny Bags: Use the little bitty ziplock bags that extra buttons come in on new clothes to store Ink Blending Tool foam pads. They're the perfect size and don't add bulk in storage, but keep the foams separated so the inks don't mix.
• Garage Storage: Use the little storage bin thing that holds screws and nuts and bolts.
• 3 Ring Binders: Use an old binder with inserts for stickers so that they are easy to see.

Any other ideas for items around the household? Please share!

Recycled Fish!

Ok, here's my latest eco-friendly embellishment:

A box of Rice Chex can go a long way! All I did was use one of my templates & trace the fish on the box. Then I traced the template on red & blue scraps of paper, cut everything out, adhered them using 3-in-1 Adhesive (that stuff is the best!), and voila! Two little fish to adhere to your card or scrapbook page. Plus, if you want, you can further embellish them. The edges of my fish are chalked for a little dimension. If I was using these instead of selling them, then I would add some of those little googly eyes. For now, these little buggers are for sale at my Etsy store:

RememberWhenCreation.etsy.com

What have you come up with using cereal boxes? I want to know!

Stay tuned for my 'new' magazine holder!

Gear up for presents!

“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” -Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

When I talk about 'green' scrapbooking, I'm really doing the Earth an injustice. I'm limiting myself to just one little niche in my green endeavors - scrapbooking. What about the rest of the paper craft genre?

Even though it's only February, the holidays are here before you know it and everyone is scrambling around purchasing, buying, purchasing, buying, blah, blah, blah. So if you take some time now, you can be ready to MAKE some gifts come November. Here's what you can start saving:

• Cardboard - think of all the things that arrive in the mail or some type of cardboard packaging you get when you purchase something. Start breaking it down and putting it in a safe place. There are many projects we can do with this stuff.
• Tins and powder drink containers - we are big drinkers of Gatorade in this house. Every 10 days, I'm trying to do something clever with the container. Hold onto a few of these - I'll show you what we can do with them.
• Paper bags - some stores are going back to these instead of plastic. Throw a couple in the closet and we'll get creative with them.
• Shredded paper - are you shredding all of your confidential information? Good - you need to. Now bag some of that stuff and I have some ideas for it.

Stay tuned as next week I'll show you some project ideas with these materials.

New Uses for Toilet Paper Rolls!

Wow - this is an innovative idea from Paper Jewels blog. She is using the toilet tissue rolls to make little mini albums. Check it out:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfiLIG0gd74

I feel the need to save some rolls and make a mini album for the blog. What a great way to reduce waste & reuse an item!

Have any you made? Send them to me and I'll post them here!

Use for yogurt cups!

“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” -Henrik Tikkanen

I know in most areas of the country, you can throw your yogurt containers (or sour cream containers) in the recycle bin. However, what do you do with them if you can't? Or, if you don't have a recycling program in your town?

I have an old cutting board that I have designated as my painting board for chipboard letters or for painting the edges of papers, etc.

You can see where I have squeezed out all colors of paint on the left side of the board. So, in an effort to try & keep it a bit neater and not have lumps of dried paint on it, I decided to put my yogurt cups to use. Our county does have a recycling program, and trust me, I fill up our bins as much as possible. The beauty of using the yogurt cups is I can use them and wash them out & still throw them in the recycle bin.

If you are in a part of the country that doesn't have a recycle program, then you can keep a bunch of them & use one for each color that you paint with. Stay tuned for more uses of yogurt cups!

Recycling Ribbon

Don't we all just love ribbon? Maybe it makes us think of when we were little girls and our dresses would have ribbons on them or maybe our Mom adorned our pigtails with them.

Ribbon is a major embellishment in scrapbooking, and it can add up. So where can you find some ribbons to repurpose? How about this:

• Christmas or other gifts received throughout the year


• Clothes you no longer want


• Gift Baskets


• Thrift Stores!

I'm sure you can come up with some other ideas - share them with us by posting a comment!

New uses for bottlecaps

New Uses for Bottlecaps!

My husband loves his IBC Root Beer, and I love the bottlecaps! I am designing a Word Book for my niece, Allison, and I had a few bottlecaps lying around, so I decided to incorporate it into her book.

What can you do with a bottlecap? you ask. Turn it into an embellishment! A 1-inch circle punch is the perfect size for a piece of paper to fit inside the bottle cap (oh - wash the cap first as it can be a little sticky!). I also grabbed a rub-on word and stick for rubbing.

I used the word 'courage' because I feel Allison is taking a giant step next year in leaving home for college. I know when I was 18, I was not ready to leave the roost. I admire this quality in her.

After adding the rub-on, I simply adhered the circle punch to the bottle cap. You can use a glue dot or any other strong adhesive.

Finally, I used the remainder of my 3-in-1 adhesive in adhering the bottlecap to the Word Book:

Here's the full Word Book. It's not done yet, and if I find some other goodies to recycle and use on the book, I will post them as well!

And remember, if you are interested in a custom made Word Book, please visit my website at http://www.rwctc.com/! Thanks for stopping by today!

Save Money on Your Scrapbooking - Go Recycled!

The human race will be the cancer of the planet. ~Julian Huxley, attributed

In our financial crisis, many of us are looking for ways to cut costs and curtail our spending. This is definitely a possibility in scrapbooking, if you think outside the box a bit. Let's talk about storage first. Here are some ideas for uses of household items to aid you in organizing your scrapbooking:



Jars - we all have empty jars of sauce, baby food, jelly, peanut butter, gravy -whatever you have eaten! Now, I know most of us wash them & throw them in the recycle bin, but what if you can use them for storage? See my post: http://scrapwithjan.blogspot.com/2008/12/scrapbookcraft-room-challenge-pt-ii.html
Wash them out with warm, soapy water and let them dry. Voila - pretty storage solution for flowers or ribbon!

Priority Mail Boxes: Instead of recycling them, they are very sturdy & make great paper holders! You can use them 'as is' or cut out a 'magazine-style' holder to see your paper. Use your scraps to make them pretty!

Nut & Bolt Organizer: Sometimes the man in your life may have something to repurpose. You know those cool metal or plastic boxes that have all the little drawers in them for different screws, nuts & bolts? Why not clean it out, maybe repaint it in a pretty color, and use it to organize your alphabet stickers or brads or buttons or other embellies? I'm on the lookout for a used one (hopefully for free) that I can use in my scraproom.

Silverware Tray: Do you have an extra one of these lurking in the attic? You can use it to organize your colored pencils and pens!

Cigar Boxes: How about these? Are they hanging around too? Use them to store scraps of paper or ribbons or other embellishments. You can also either decoupage them or paint them to match your room.

Yogurt containers: Eating yogurt is huge in my house. We each consume at least 1 a day. Of course, I wash them out & recycle them, but I had an abundance of glue sticks and didn't know what to do with them. So, I took a bunch of paper scraps, some modge podge & now I have a nifty holder for my glue sticks. I have also used another one for a set of alphabet stickers.

** I am on vacation & unable to download photos right now. Please stay tuned for pictures starting the week of Jan. 19th! Thanks for understanding! **

What ideas do you have? Share them with me! Together, all our small steps can make an impact on Mother Earth.

Goodies from a Thrift Store

As I change my business over from selling 'stuff', a.k.a. supplies to creating meaningful memory pieces, I am also embracing using recycled or gently used items in my creations. I think one way to not only save money while supporting my business (or habit) but to also save our planet is to thrift store shop, as I have mentioned in previous posts.

I visit the Hospice thrift store quite regularly as I have found some really great treasures in there before. The other day I stumbled upon packages of these little goodies:

I found an unopened package of these royal blue, puffy, material hearts and 2 packages of these acrylic stars, for the whopping price of 25 cents per bag! The original Wal-Mart stickers were on each of the packages and were priced .83 and .57 respectively.

As long as these items don't touch my photos, there is no reason why I can't use them on my layouts or other projects. Pretty cool, huh? What goodies have you found lately?

Frugal Scrapbooking - thinking outside the box

Many people mistakenly believe they cannot afford to scrapbook. Not true, I say! As with any hobby, there may be some initial start up costs and investments; however, there are always bargains abound!

Do you think that a non-scrapbooker will know whether you spent $30 on a kit or found bits & pieces and put several pages together for $4?

Creativity is part of scrapbooking, and my belief is that we are trying to preserve memories. It doesn't matter if you don't keep up with the latest and greatest! Protecting your photos and mementos, along with recording your important events and thoughts is what scrapbooking is all about.

What can you find within your own 4 walls already to get you started? Here's an idea to start you off:

1. Ruler
2. Pencil
3. Scissors

Let's start a list!

Frugal Scrapbooking Tips

I love a bargain, and who doesn't these days? I came across yet another article about saving money on your scrapbooking & thought I would share some tips with you:

1. Look around the house. You would be surprised what “scrapbooking” supplies you can find. There are many household supplies or products including: paperclips, craft paint (not only can you use it to accent a page, but you can use it the same way you use stamp ink), old envelopes and used stamps (great for destination/travel pages), old/broken jewelry (use as embellishments), shopping/clothing/market tags (you can paint over, dye, or cover them), wrapping paper, gift ribbon, hair ribbons or rubber bands, game pieces, old maps, book pages (as backgrounds), cereal/shoe boxes (for chipboard) and much more. Just be careful that these items are acid free or at least if they are not, won’t be touching any of your photos.

2. Go digital - or at least a little bit. There are many sites out there that offer freebies every week or so. Not only can you use them to do digital scrapbooking layouts, but you can take parts of them and print them off to use on your regular scrapbooking layouts. And the great things about these is that you can print them again and again for different pages. Check out www.scrapgirls.com and www.digitalfreebies.com for some freebies.

3.) Have a scrapbooking supply swap. The next time you get together to scrapbook, just tell everyone that you are having a “swap” table where people can bring supplies they don’t use any more or don’t want. You could also make it a sale too if someone wants to sell something they have.

Scrapbooking may not be the cheapest hobby out there, but it needn’t be expensive. I am sure there are lots of other ways that each individual can make it even more affordable. If you have any more ideas for making scrapbooking cheaper, let me know your great discoveries. Post them here so we can all share!

Frugal Scrapping

Each month, I try to bring you an article about cost-saving in your scrapping hobby. Have you ever thought about using office supplies on your LO? Using some items from the office supply store is a great way to embellish your pages while saving a little extra money in the wallet!

Think about your layout - you wouldn't want to use office supplies on a formal page, like a wedding album. Use these supplies on pages that are more informal. Let's think about embellishments: colored paper clips, different size clips - they sometimes have brads! Sure, they aren't the cutsie ones that you'll find in my store, but if you are looking for a basic gold or silver brad, check it out.

How about tags? You can find those little ones with the white string for hanging. Think about how you can 'label' the photo on your layout. Staples - you can attach your journaling block using staples for some added texture to your page. Envelopes - sometimes you can find different sizes, colors & shapes to make an interesting journaling spot on your layout as well. Just remember, these products are not acid-free or archival safe, so you don't want them to touch your photos.

Spend some time browsing the aisles or the clearance section of a local supply store and keep an open mind - you might find an interesting piece to add to your layouts! If you do, share them with us!