I always took a lot of pictures, but I never knew I would take thousands once I had a child! Since I take so many pictures, there is one way I love to display these photos--in a scrapbook! This allows me to not only display my photos but tells our family stories in a fun way that I hope my son will cherish forever!

Are your photos in boxes or scattered in photo albums? Its time to take the next step and scrapbook those memories! You may think scrapbooking is an expensive hobby, and it can be! Happily, there are ways to scrapbook on a budget. You can create beautiful pages without spending a lot of money. Here are 5 of the best ways to scrapbook on a budget:

Utilize Coupons and Special Sales - Some of the local craft stores carry a wide variety of scrapbook supplies. Several of these stores have weekly sales and coupons. Michaels, for example, has 40% off one-item coupons almost every week. This is a great way to build up your scrapbook collection and save money. Another place to find supplies is garage sales and warehouse sales. You may laugh but people actually sell their scrapbook stuff. I've been to a few garage sales where the person is an ex-consultant and needs to get rid of inventory. Local stores and scrapbook companies also have warehouse sales where you can really find some bargains. Look in the paper and sign-up for some local scrapbook store mailing lists.

Attend a crop - This is where you get together with other people to scrapbook. This is a great money-saver because you can share tools and ideas. It is also very motivational to scrapbook around other people. If you don't know anyone that scrapbook, join an on-line chat group to find others in your area. Chat groups are good also because you could participate in a swap where you swap some products! Yahoo has several scrapbooking chat groups

Local Scrapbook Store Workrooms -- Most local scrapbook stores have workrooms that you can pay to use by the hour. It is usually between $1-$5 an hour to use all of their tools and workspace. Again, with this extensive collection of supplies, it allows you to use them for your scrapbooks without having to invest the money in them.

Use the Internet for ideas and free fonts -- There are several great web sites that have layout & title ideas. Some of my favorites are: dmarie.com, scrapbooking.com, twopeasinabucket.com and creatingkeepsakes.com. This is a great way to get layout ideas without having to buy the costly idea books. There are also hundreds of free fonts on the web. Just do a search for "free fonts" and you will find several sites that allow you to download fonts for free. One good free font site is 1001freefonts

Use household items as templates and embellishments. There are lots of scrapbooking tools that are very expensive that you can create at home. For example, if you are looking to make perfect circles, you can trace around cans or jars. Another big scrapbooking trend is to use buttons, ribbon, twine, raffia, and fasteners to embellish your scrapbook pages. Just by looking around your house, you can find items to help make your page creative!

This is only a short list of ideas on how to scrapbook on a budget. Scrapbooking is one of the fastest growing hobbies in America. I encourage you to be a little creative and find your own ways to scrapbook on a budget. If you have any further ideas, email me at Erica@personalscrapper.com.

About the author

Erica Oesterreich is the owner of Personalscrapper.com. She creates scrapbooks and ABC albums for her clients. She has been scrapbooking for 4 years and loves to teach others about scrapbooking. If you are looking for a great gift for someone, consider having a scrapbook created for them. For more information, please check out her web-site at www.personalscrapper.com or email her at Erica@personalscrapper.com

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