The Art of Scraplifting 

To be an efficient scraplifter, you must first admit your addiction. I use to feel shame that my layouts were not nearly as inspiring or wonderfully designed as those seen in magazines, until I discovered that you could ‘borrow’ someone else’s brilliant design work. Here are a few tips that I have discovered:

Buy lots of magazines and use sticky notes to mark the pages that you feel a connection to. Visit the many websites available, and by right clicking on your mouse, save the picture onto your hard drive in a special folder you created just for scraplifted ideas. It is very helpful if you have a large hard drive to hold the many pictures you will collect. Join one (or more) of the many online groups that are for scrapbooking addicts like me. Many of these also have lots of layouts to inspire you to ‘borrow’. You must also be a frequent visitor to your local – and favourite – scrapbook store. The store is a treasure trove of ideas, classes, and of course, supplies. Collect sketches whenever possible. Pagemaps offers free sketches each month. Get yourself a large binder to collect such goodies and refer to it whenever you feel stuck or just need some inspiration. Keep a notebook in your purse for when you see a design in a magazine, and you have no money to buy it, to make a quick sketch and write yourself notes so at a later date you can refer to it. Scour through yard sales for magazines that another avid scrapbooker is purging from stash. 

When you find a layout you like first you should decide what attracted you like the layout

o Is it the design of the layout? How can you incorporate it to the pictures you want to us?

o Is it the colours or paper used? You can usually find layouts with the newest papers you are stumped as to how to use

o Is it the embellishments? Often you can find out how to make your own embellishments that fit the layout you are working on

o Is it the journaling or title? Often a title pops off the page at you and makes you take a second look – go ahead and use it

o Is it the photograph? Can you take a picture similar and use it on a layout?

o Is it the number of photographs on the page(s)? It is sometimes a challenge to put more photos on a page and you can often find ideas that help with your layout

o Is it an idea for a layout you hadn’t thought about doing? Who would of thought of taking a picture of yourself driving your car and creating a layout on how busy Mom’s can be.

Once you have mastered copying someone else’s work, you will start to add your own take to the layout. You can change the size or number of pictures used, the number of papers you use may vary depending on your style, and the availability of the paper and embellishments that are shown. Once you stop feeling shame, you too will create amazing layouts that will have people oohing and aahing over your albums. And when they tell you how talented you are, you can smile and say “Thank You”.