The scrapbooking trend is certainly here to stay - long gone are the days of ordinary cutting of photos and cute ribbons. The craze of scrapbooking has gone beyond the simple and has developed into one very sophisticated operation!

Nobody needs to dye the paper, cut the graphics and paste the decorations for themselves anymore. Most people do not even draw anymore. And certainly, only a few ever stitch their own scrapbooks. Today, all that needs to be done to get started is buying blank scrapbooks that are already prepared, pick some really nice embellishments and decorations in the craft stores and poof - you’re well on your way to a great scrapbook!

Still, for the newbies in scrapbooking, the basics tools are still the best. In fact, in getting started with scrapbooking, you may want to stick to the old and basic materials first just to be able to get the feel of scrapbooking. Although the new trends and materials provide great convenience, it can sometimes do all the work for the creator, leaving the essence and fun of creativity behind.

To get you started, here are some of the basic materials that you should have in hand.

SCRAPBOOK PAPER

You can’t get started with scrapbooking if you don’t have an scrapbook to begin with. There are many types of blank scrapbooks that you can find in your craft stores or scrapbooking specialty stores. Choose one of these to get you started.

The next step would be to compile pieces of specialized papers, recycled ones, colored papers, art papers or construction papers that you can compile once you’ve selected your album. Some scrapbookers choose many different types of papers because they don’t want to make all the pages uniform.

SCISSORS

You can’t easily make a great scrapbook without a good pair of scissors in your box of tools. This is perhaps the most basic of your tools as this is the one that you will be using in cutting shapes and graphics as well as putting designs on the pages itself.

You can also buy scissors that cut designed lines and not just your usual straight lines. Much like the pinking shears used in sewing, these specialized scissors can be real handy when cutting graphics and decorations for your pages.

CUTTERS AND CUTTING BOARDS

Not all cuttings can be done with scissors. Sometimes, you need a cutter to make your work a little easier. When using a cutter, make sure that you have a cutting board underneath to avoid cutting papers underneath, or even worse, putting cut lines on the surface of the table. In addition to the cushion, cutting boards also have guide-lines that will help you cut paper in a straight line. This will save you a lot of work in sketching and using the ruler to help cut a straight line. Cutting boards also have measurements that will help you when you need to cut paper at a certain length.

STICKY STUFF

This is another tool that you cannot go without when doing scrapbooking.
Some people may use a glue gun, especially when trying to put on decorations that are really bulky such as buttons or gemstones, but it can often make the page very bulky and wrinkled. Stick to the basic glue stick, glue dots and other paper-friendly and photo-friendly adhesives available in the market.