Scraptastic Ideas!

Photos: Before you start scrapbooking

2008-08-16T15:54:00.007-05:00

When I first decided to start scrapbooking I really just wanted to jump right in and start buying cute items. So I did, and then I ended up with all of these items that I really had no use for! I suggest starting by going through your photos so you can have a theme in mind when your out shopping. If your anything like me, you have years and years worth of photos thrown into a box or two! In this entry I will go over a few ideas of how to organize your photos and guide you into buying your first scrapbook items.

The first thing I suggest is buying quite a few photo storage boxes. You can get these at your local hobby store for under $3.00 each. They come in a variety of colors and patterns so you can get them to all match if they are going to be placed on display or coordinated with the photos inside like a Christmas theme. Next you'll want to clear off a large space to work in like the dining room table or even on the floor if you have many boxes! You might even want to recruit a friend or two to stroll down memory lane with you.

You'll want to get started by labeling each of the boxes. I wouldn't suggest writing on the box yet just in case you change your mind. You can get some paper, fold it in half and write your label on it. Then put the paper in the box with the label sticking out for you to see. There are many different labels you can make depending on what your photos are. Some you can use are years, family, names, friends, holidays, wedding, events or whatever works best for you. Now it's time to start filling the boxes!

Once you've gotten the photos separated, you can even go a step further by organizing each box. The photo boxes you bought should have came with index cards. These really come in handy. You can write on the index cards exactly whats inside the box. Lets use a wedding theme for example. I can organize it even further by separating my wedding photos into categories like; girls getting ready, boys getting ready, ceremony, reception, miscellaneous and honeymoon. That way if I'm looking for a certain photo I can go right to it!

Now that your photos are nice and organized you can get ready to start your scrapbook. I suggest taking it easy and start with just one theme (or box). Lets continue to use wedding as a theme. Every time you go to the store you will know just to look for wedding items. You'll want to start with buying an album and paper. I suggest buying a tablet of plain cardstock with the colors that work with your theme. You can always use plain cardstock! You'll also want to buy some patterned paper too, you can buy a wedding themed tablet or you can pick out your own favorite paper. This can get a little costly though. Some other necessities you'll want to pick up is glue, adhesive photo stickers, a sharp pair of scissors and a set of good markers. You'll want to make sure all of your items are acid free so they won't damage your photos in the future.

You've got the necessities now it's time to buy the fun stuff! All the 'extras' you put on your page are called embellishments. Some of my favorite embellishments are brads, rhinestones, silk flowers, ribbon, stickers, 3D stickers, die cuts, alphabets, rub ons, vellum and I could go on and on! These items will definitely get you started, then you can move on to mastering some harder techniques like embossing, stamping, tear bears and more. I plan on going over some of these harder techniques in a later blog. Like always though if you have any questions or advice please feel free to let me know by comments or emails! I love seeing others creations so make sure to leave a photo in the comment too!

How To Make A Tear Bear

2008-08-09T17:51:00.006-05:00

Tear Bears are so cute and make an adorable accessory to your craft project. Here are some free instruction on how to make them yourself. Materials needed:

Mulberry paper (thicker the better)
Bowl of water
Cotton swab
Thick needle
Glue
Scissors
Black cardstock paper
Black pen (.005-01)
White gel pen
Chalk (optional)
Plastic type paper (optional)
Small oval holepunch (optional)

If you would like to you may make patterns for your pieces with the plastic type paper or you may free hand all the pieces to give them each a unique look. If you decide to use patterns you will want to cut out these pieces: head, tummy, inner face, ear, arm, arm paw, leg, and leg paw.

Tearing the Paper

Put a pattern piece on the mulberry paper. Dip the cotton swab in water, then trace around the pattern with the wet cotton swab. If you don't use a pattern then use the wet cotton swab to draw the piece on the mulberry paper.
Hold the pattern piece on the paper and gently tear around the piece. Try to pull away from you to make the bear a little more fluffy.
Tear all of your pieces out before putting them together. To make the bear more fluffy you may want to layer the pieces. You can make them the same size or make the top layer a little smaller. For example I always layer the ears so I make four ears, two large and two small, then I put the smaller ear on top of the larger ear to make it look more fluffy.

Fluffing Time

I like to fluff my bear before and after I assemble it. Lay the pieces on a flat surface and take the needle at an angle and pull out away from the center of the bear. Try to just pull up the first layer of paper as mulberry paper is as many layers.
You want to start by going all the way around the tip of the edges and if you want it extra fluffy you can go back around a little lower as many times as you want to make it really fluffy.
This is a technique that may take a lot of practice to get just right. I suggest tearing off some small pieces and try it out before you try it on your bear. You can even use some scrap pieces left over from tearing out all of your bear pieces.

Assembling the Bear

If you made layers for your pieces you'll want to start with gluing them together now.
I always start with the face. Glue the inner face onto the very bottom of the head. I always let the inner face hang down a little lower then the head. Tip: Only put glue in the center, try not to let any glue get on the 'fur' part. If you do take the needle and slide it under the fur to raise up and after it dries you can refluff it.
Cut out a nose out of black cardstock or use a hole punch. Glue the nose at the top center of the inner face. I usually put a tiny bit of the nose on the actual head and the majority of it on the inner face.
Cut out two eyes out of black cardstock or use a small oval hole punch. Glue them directly on the head. You can play with these and see what you like best. If you want them vertically or slightly slanted.
Take the ears and glue behind the head on each side toward the top.
Next, glue on the tummy by putting glue on the very top of the front side. Glue it to the bottom of the back side of the head so that the head is on top of the tummy.
Now you can glue on the arms and legs. Try out many different angles to see what works best for the bear that your creating. Decide if you want it standing up or sitting down, holding something or arms to the side. There are so many possibilities. Make sure to glue the arms and legs to the backside of the bear so the whole tummy is showing.
If you want to you can put leg paws and arm paws on it. I usually always put leg paws on but not always arm paws. Really just depends on what look your going for.

Final Touches

Now you'll want to draw on the face. I use a white gel pen to make a line on the top of the nose and for putting dots on the eyes. I use the black pen to make eyebrows, three dots for cheeks and a mouth. If I want it to be a girl bear I will put eyelashes on the bottom of the eyes. You may want to play around with some different examples on paper before you put them on the bear to help decide which look you want.
You'll want to go back through your tear bear and fluff one more time to make sure it looks how you want it since you've been handling it a lot.
Finally, you may add brown chalk around the edges of the bear to give it some dimension. I usually add it right to the fur part to make it stand out a little more. You can even put a little pink on the cheeks too.
The different type of bears you can make are endless. Try lots of new things, like different types of faces, different poses, you can even make clothes to put on them and of course and a cute little bow in its 'hair' next to the ear. I also like to make just the head and paws and put them on a title or tag so it looks like it is holding on to it.

I hope this helps you make a special tear bear for your next project. If you ever have any questions feel free to ask by comment or email. I'd be more than happy to help you make them. There too cute not to share with the world! Also, if you have any advice or techniques you like to use feel free to share them with everyone in the comments section. You may also leave pictures too I love seeing other people's creations! If you would like to be updated whenever I post a new blog please email me at scraptastic@live.com with ADD as the subject. Be sure to check out my items available at ebay too here!

Starting Out On Ebay

2008-08-07T15:07:00.003-05:00

I just recently started selling items on ebay and thought I would share with you a little about how to get started. Brace yourself this is a long one!

Your Most Important Ebay Decision
The most important decision you'll make regarding ebay is deciding on what to sell. You'll want to sell something you already know a lot about like a hobby, something from your occupation, or even items that you use everyday. This way your already familiar with the product, where to buy it at, how to use it, how much money its worth and much more. Just make sure the product is in high demand. For me it was an easy choice, Scrapbook items. I love to scrapbook, and am familiar with many different products and techniques to use, I even sell handmade items.

Choosing Products & Pricing
Now that you've decided on a type of product you can start your research. First, brainstorm about what different items go with your product. Lets use cameras as an example. What other product can you use with a camera? A tripod, batteries, lens, filters, flashes, bags and even expand to studio equipment like props and lights or even photo editing software. You can go on ebay and look under the Camera category or whatever you decide on, and see what subcategories they have to see what other people are selling. While your there you should click on a subcategory and in parenthesis it will have a number of how many items are listed in that category. This is a great for researching, because if it has a lower number there is less supply of that item, thus less competition. You should also look up the specific item your wanting to sell and see how many are actually selling, just scroll down the list and see how many items have bids, and how many do not. Put some of them in your 'items watching' summary and see how much they sell for. Now that you have products picked out, how much are you going to sell them for? I like to start by looking at competitors prices. You want to be competitive with them, not to high where nobody buys from you, but not to low where you don't make a profit. I think of it as I may only make a small profit on an item, but if I sell several of that item it grows into a large profit. Be sure to consider all the ebay fees too.

Buy It Now or Auction Style
They both have great benefits and it really just depends on what your needs are. Lets start with buy it now (BIN), if you have a large inventory on a certain item this might be your best choice. You can set a specific amount for your item that your guaranteed to get. Customers are able to get your item right away instead of waiting for an auction to end, which they might not even win. They are also able to buy as many as they need with this option. There is a lot more control over your listing and profit when you use BIN. Although BIN has more fees, it may be cheaper in the long run. For example, if you set up a BIN listing with 10 products versus 10 separate auction style listings it could be cheaper for you. With auction style you can start a listing with a lower price to save yourself some fee charges. This can be a risk though because your item might not sell for as much as you would like it too. You can always start you listing at the price that your hoping to get and if it goes for more than that's great for you! Sometimes bidders will get into a bidding war with each other and make the price skyrocket. People want to 'win' so badly they'll end up paying way more than what they normally would. I've seen this happen many times. There is a lot to consider and if one isn't working for you switch to the other style and see how it does!

Writing A Successful Listing
The first thing you will want to start with is a Description for your item. You'll want to give your customers as much detail as possible. Some things you'll want to include is the condition (new, used, etc), measurements, colors, uses and anything else you feel they may need to know. The more the better. Next you'll want to establish some shipping, payment, terms of sale, and return policies. Do you want to charge a flat shipping rate to all customers or have it calculated by ebay? Then you'll want to decide how you want it shipped by priority mail, first class or another service. You might want to let them choose by giving them a couple of choices. Also decide on a combine shipping policy. I recommend letting customers combine shipping charges because they are more likely to buy more items from you so they can pay one amount instead of buying something from you and something from one of your competitors. This may be the thing that decides if they want to buy from you or someone else. Next, payment options. If you don't have a paypal account I would recommend getting one. Most ebay customers will pay by paypal. You can also choose to let customers pay by money order or personal check, but make sure to establish a holding policy for the check to clear in your account. You'll want your customers to pay or contact you in a certain amount of time, this information you should put in the terms of sale section. If there is any other information you want your customers to know make sure to put it in this section. Last is a refund policy. You'll want to establish some kind of a return policy based on if they can only return something if there was an error on your behalf not on just because they didn't like it. You'll want to make sure that all of your listing policies are consistent with each other. It will probably take awhile to get your listing just as you want it. As you start selling you will probably change things often! I use Auctiva they have great templates with an outline of these policies. You can make a master template and reuse it every time that way you don't have to retype them with every listing.

I hope this helps you get started with the basics of ebay. There is so much that goes into it I could write for days! I plan on writing more tips and tricks of ebay soon. Meanwhile if you have any questions or comments feel free to ask via email or in the comments. I will do my best to help you out. I'm not like most people that don't want to share their secrets of success! Make sure to check my blogs often as I write about many different hot topics including relationships, parenting, scrapbook ideas, business, beauty, health and so much more. If there is a topic you would like me to discuss feel free to let me know. If you would like to be updated every time I post a blog just send your email address with ADD as the subject to scraptastic@live.com Be sure to check out my scrapbook items on ebay here!

Deciding To Be A Stay At Home Mom

2008-08-06T11:43:00.011-05:00

I am a stay at home mom of a very busy 2 year old daughter. Before I had my daughter I was an optemetric assistant and quit when she was about 6 months old to stay home full time. It can be a really tough decision to stay home full time. The biggest concern for us was finances. We had just bought a larger home and new truck, could we really afford to live on one income? We deceided to make two lists, the first we wrote down both of our annual income, all of the monthly bills, and all of our spending from our checking account statement. On the second list we wrote down all of the costs we would have if I did work, like daycare, gas, work clothes, lunches or any other expense. After adding up all the costs of me working and daycare, I wasn't really profitting very much. Daycare is the kicker! So we took another look at the first list to see if we could cut out anything to save a little money. We were use to spending freely and that was the first thing that needed to stop. Our new rule was 'if you don't need it, don't buy it' sounds easy enough, but occasionally I still buy the 'I just want it' item! There are lots of little ways to save money, like buying some generic brands instead of top brands, every little bit helps when your on a new budget.

Another thing you might ask yourself is if you want to stay home full time or part time. Will your company allow you to work part time or even bring some of your work home with you? This could be the best solution for you if finances are an issue, or even if you love your job or the people you work with and aren't wanting to completely give that up. This way your able to keep working but still be very involved in your new babies life. It's easy to get lost in diaper duty and being a mom when you stay home, so going back to work a couple days can help you to stay yourself and not just a mom and wife. I definetly encourage every full time stay at home mom to get out of the house once a week ALONE. It' so easy to lose yourself when your only around a baby or toddler every day, trust me I speak from experience!!

I hope this helps you in making your decision. If you ever have any questions or comments please feel free to ask by comment or email. I am starting an online business from the ground up and will be blogging about helping others do the same so check back often. I will also be blogging about many other topics like parenting, relationships, Ebay, scrapbooking, beauty, health, fitness, and other hot topics! A little bit of something for everyone! If there are any topics you would like me to discuss, or advice, questions you may contact me at Scraptastic@live.com If you would like to be updated on new posts please email me with ADD as the subject. You can check out my ebay items here. Thanks and have a great day!