Every craftsman knows that the best way to approach a project is to come prepared with all of the tools necessary to complete the work. Same goes with scrapbooking, especially with all the creative juices flowing, you won’t want to be halted by the mysterious missing scissors! The best way to start your project is to create a space that has all of your materials and tools within arm’s reach. The most basic tools you’ll need are as follows:

Photos and Mementos
You’ll want to have the photos for the page(s) you’ll be working on handy. Be thinking of which photos will require cropping and trimming. If you also have mementos to partner up with the photo, then you’ll want to have those nearby as well. It’s a good idea to create an envelope for each page that will store these items together so that they don’t get separated.

Scrapbook with pages
You’ll want to start with your pre-made hard cover scrapbook with the insert pages. For some, it’s much easier to prepare the scrapbook by taking the insert pages out of the book, and then assembling the book along the way or once it’s all complete. This will keep the pages nice and flat and allow for the adhesives to dry nicely before bending and curving inside of the book.

Paper
Have all of your papers neatly categorized for easy decision-making when it comes to making frames and accents for your pages. Having them sorted by color will help make it easy to select. You may also wish to categorize them by their purpose - vellums in the ‘accent’ stack, background pages in another stack, and then your scraps and smaller papers for framing and creating borders.

Decorations/Embellishments
Start a collection of store-bought trinkets as well as everyday household items that you have around the house. Create an organized system of storing your decorations such as your brads, eyelets (you’ll need an eyelet tool), stickers, objects, ribbons, buttons, cut out images, rubber stamps and ink pads.

Cutting Tools
There are a lot of fancy tools out on the market to make scrapbooking a cinch, but the very basic tools required will be a high-quality pair of scissors, a paper trimmer, hole puncher, and some basic shape punches. This will put you off to a good start and allow you to test your creativity and skills.

Measuring Tools
There are times in scrapbooking that precision is everything. Though tearing papers and creating that fluid sense of ‘hand made’ quality is nice, you will also find the need to make straight and clean lines too. Creating that perfect border treatment for your famous photo will require a basic ruler, and a good grid-cutting mat that will make it a breeze to cut your papers to perfection.

Adhesive
Once your page is laid out and ready to be assembled, there are many options in adhesives, from the permanent never-going-to-budge glues to the oh-so-forgiving dots of glue that allow you to set, and then reset your elements. Double-sided tape also works great, but you’ll want to be sure your placement is spot on, or you’ll risk tearing your paper if you try to reset it.