ways I can save on my digital scrapbooking supply =)

Found some ways to safe money in making digital scrapbook =)

1. This is the most obvious, hunt for freebies and sales.

So far, the one I encountered the most for freebie is quickpage. If you are new to digital scrapbooking, this is basically means a page that was already decorated, with an empty spot where you can put your picture in.  But, some designers are very generous and they often gave a small add on kits for free or even the entire big kit for a limited time. The only problem with this is that I have to check the sites practically everyday =p Some of the freebies came from newsletters, some from facebook's pages and some from the store websites.

2. Get free patterns and styles online

The other day, I want glitter. I have this page that supposed to be a bit glamorous. I have done some different pictures of that same holiday's moments in paper scrapbooking, and I want to make my digital one looks a bit like that, with glitter and dark colors. Unfortunately, while I have lots and lots of glitters, I had no glitters style yet.

Fortunately, when I tried to google for free glitter style, I found quite a lot of them for photoshop. In fact, I found a lot of free styles, not only glitters. I think they are actually made more for making websites rather than scrapbooking, but some of them actually looks just as nice in scrapbooks as the one sold in online stores.

The same thing goes for pattern. There are a lot of free patterns online that actually can be used as substitute for those sold in stores.

Granted, if I want something specific, I will still buy it in scrapbook store. But if I just want some simple styles or patterns, and not my heart set on, for example, the plaid pattern that has to be like that and has to have that color, then I just browsed around for some free one =)

3. Free brushes.

This is quite useful for a few things that I want. For example, lace. Unfortunately, these free brushes are sometimes on the shapes of a part of the whole thing. Like on the lace, it's a piece of lace and if I want to make the whole long lace, I have to use the brush over and over and over again.

So while it's free, and sometimes I found lace on the shaped that I didn't find in store, this one actually cost me a lot time and patience.

4. Making my own mask

This one is actually thanks to my friends, Luc, who studied design. She taught me how to make my own mask using brushes.

Again, like the lace thing above, this has a benefit and a downsides. In one hand, it's practically free, since I can used photoshop's own brushes or get a free brush online. The shaped of the mask will also fit my picture perfectly (sometimes the masks that I bought hide this part that I want to show or show that part that I want to hide), because I can costume made it for each picture.

In the other hand, it costs me quite a lot of time to make.

First attempt at Kirigami

Sometimes ago, I found a book of kirigami in daiso. Kirigami is a Japanese paper cutting art but of course, the book is nothing complicated. It has some beginner type of projects, printed on the beautiful papers, and all you have to do is 'just' cut it. Still, it's only 2 SGD, and I can spend quite sometimes
making all that shaped, so I count that as a good buy =)

Cutting the papers is not as easy as it looks. Some of the part that I have to cut has tricky shapes or quite small or both. The book suggest using a certain type of cutter. I don't have it, unfortunately,  but I do have it's sibling which I used for scrapbooking =)

Yet, it's also not as difficult as it seems. I think I should be able to make it neater, but I don't think my results are that bad either =)

My love affair with scrapbooking

I love scrapbooking. Sometimes, especially when I saw the content of my wallet, I hope I am not.

My first experience with scrapbooking is thanks to a Groupon's coupon. I have seen it before, and passed some stores that were selling scrapbooking supplies beforehand, but my thought was more like that it was a glorified cut and paste, and why should I spent so much money on it?

Then I got a coupon for a cheap scrapbooking lesson. One finished page with 3 or 4 pictures, and I can keep the leftover supplies seems like a good deal.

I fell in love.

At first, considering the prices of the tools, I intended to make it very, very simple: cut and paste. I can buy one patterned paper for the background, cut another paper with cute pictures for decoration, and  put the photos on a stock papers for frames.

One of the paper that's very nice for decoration

Then I got kind of bored. It's nice, but it's way too simple, and I want more. Luckily for me, I found some stores with quite nice sale =)

Now, I can of course, substitute my materials with their cheaper counterparts. I mean, paper is cheap, right? The problem came with the lignin and acid free thing. If you are familiar with paper scrapbooking, all the things for scrapbooking - papers, glue, sticker, etc - came with that writings. Over time, lignin and acid will make the paper etc, including your picture, became brownish. And this kind of defeating the purpose of scrapbooking: preserving your memories.

For tools, I tried to replace them. For example, if an embossing device is sold in daiso - plastic, not as good as those that purposely for scrapbooking, but still can be used - I bought them rather than the one in scrapbooking supplies store. But for materials, so far I can't find any cheaper alternative that's still acid and lignin free.

So yes, sale is a blessing.

It's more interesting when you can add pattern to the paper yourself by using ink or glitter and template or layout or stamp. Depending on how much you prepared to sacrifice for this hobby, you can also get a puncher for the paper edge, paper corner, an embossing machine, etc. Me, I am doing it as thrifty as possible....meaning I am hunting down this sale, and valiantly told myself that no, I don't need an embossing machine, ever.

My glitters, procured in a very huge sale. I love them

This one is a stitch piercer. Not as easy as it sounded, but made for very nice decorations =)

Some cute hanging brads that I bought online. Imagine them hanging on top of the photos =)

Cute quicklet eyelets from the same store. Can you tell that I love teddy bears?

Now, I used to love the paper version and only the paper version, because with paper version there's texture that I can touch. Even the paper itself sometimes had velvet pattern on it.

When I touched the pattern, I got velvety texture

But then, I stumbled upon digital scrapbooking and fell in love all over again.

Digital scrapbooking is way cheaper than paper scrapbooking because I can re-use the elements over and over. But I also found out that this is not including the software, so if you already have a Photoshop or something like that, it's okay. But if you are not, well, digital is way, way more expensive I guess.

Also, if you want to make a good one, you will became a very best friend with this Photoshop (or something like that) program..I am not a stranger to Photoshop, but neither am I an expert on it.  Lucky me, I got a few good friends who are really good at Photoshop, which means free, one on one tutorial..lol.

So far, one of the thing I love the most of digital scrapbooking is its ability to modify the picture itself. Granted, I can achieve the same result if I manipulated the picture first before printing it, but somehow I feel like I love to just save my result and use it.

The other thing is masking. with paper scrapbooking, I can framed the picture and I can cut the picture, but I can't made it blend into the background.

Also, with digital scrapbooking, error is okay, I can re-do it. With the paper one, if I had glued it, then that's it.

I noticed, that I can categorize digital scrapbooking kits' designers as two groups.

One is those that tried to imitate paper scrapbooking.  This group, they made paper and decoration that we can 'cut' from the 'paper', brads, buttons, and ribbons. They also made glitter style, edger which is the way to imitate edge puncher, stamps, or paper template to imitate embossing.

The other group, They still have stamps and glitters, but not so much trying to emulate paper scrapbooking. I can further divide this group into two.

Half of them relied heavily on picture. So, they took pictures of real world things, extracted them, and polished them for the embellishments. You can, of course, cut and paste a picture of flower in your paper scrapbooking, but it won't looks at realistic as in digital, maybe because cleaning picture up in Photoshop is easier than using scissor...Besides, usually when you do it in paper scrapbooking, you will use a ribbon or paper flowers instead of cutting a picture of real flower.

The other half relied on drawing. They used tablets for drawings or scanning their drawings and made the pictures into embellishments.

Of course, there are some that's into mix media... and it doesn't mean that the two big groups are mutually exclusive either. It just the things that came to my mind when I saw the kits.

And talk about digital's advantage, there's another one that I don't like to admit, simply because it's not something that I like. Digital has a quickpage, where all you need to do is inserting your picture into the empty space of the layout and voila, it's finished. I think you can probably get the paper equivalent of this in a photographer' shop, but I never saw it in stores that are selling paper scrapbooking supplies.
Personally thought, I don't like them. After all, half the fun of scrapbooking is on the making. The other half of course, on displaying  =p

Beautiful pearls

One of my favorite kind of component is pearl. So far, I have found out 6 kind of pearls, fake and real, in general.

1. China's glass pearl. This is the cheapest of all and the worst quality of all. Personally, I don't like these pearls. They are good enough for bookmarks, Christmas tree decoration, or some hanging accessories, but definitely not for jewelry. For one, they are way too light, there is no mistaking them for real pearl. For another, the coated is easily scratch. I also dislike that the hole is way too big, it's hard to make a knot between pearls, unless I used a very thick thread. Mostly, I used them for trial because yes, they are cheap and I won't cry if I destroy some in experiment...

2. Czech glass pearl. Personally, I never have or use one. But I have read that this glass pearl has better quality than China's one.

3. Shell pearl. Funnily enough, these pearls, made from the shell of real pearls (freshwater and salt water pearls) are actually cheaper than the Swarovski ones. They have nice weight, and have more luster than even real pearls. There is no mistaking them for real pearls, though. But they do provide cheaper but still nice alternative than real pearls. They also often come in colorful options..

4. Swarovski pearl. This fake pearl is the one which in my opinion looks the most like real pearl. Swarovski pearls also better in some sense because unlike real pearls, they can withstand perfume. They have nice luster, nice weight, and easier to maintain than real pearls. They are also cheaper, of course. While real pearls are not expensive if I just want pearls, they can cost arm and leg once I want those of A grade and in perfectly round shape. Needless to say, I love these Swarovski pearls.

5. Freshwater pearl. This one is way cheaper than salt water one. If I bought button or teardrop or potato shaped one, the price is reasonable, and they still look pretty. The round one is not as round as salt water one, though.

6. Salt water pearl. This is the prettiest, and most expensive of all. >< They are usually only round shape.

Salt water and freshwater pearls are divided into grade, with A being the highest.

For me, one of the trouble about salt water and freshwater is that I can't keep them on plastic storage. It will dry the pearls and made them prone to crack. ><

My new blog for my idle hands

I moved my blog for my idle hands here, because after considering, I think the old one has too many private entries related to it and it ties with too many things. So, this is my new blog. I will migrate some of my entries from my old blog here in this few days.

I am still making new beaded jewelry, but lately I am occupied by a new hobby: making clay charms. It's not exactly a new hobby, but the last time I touched clay has been years and years ago, and it was quite a disaster for me. A lot of crumbs and nothing to show for it, not to mention difficult to clean 'flour' everywhere.

As my habit, before I started again this time, I did some browsing in the net, 'researching' about it. The new and quite popular one to use currently is oven dried polymer clay. I am quite tempted to use that one. The most popular brands are USA made and the resulting charms that I saw are really cute. Unfortunately, I have no oven to be 'sacrifice' for it, as I read that it can left some smell on the oven.

So, back to the air dried for me. My old one is Japanese stone clay. It can be stored for quite sometimes, and can be used for making models. In fact, my sister love this one and she had made figurines to clocks using this one. But in my opinion, judging by seeing her work, it's too messy for my taste. I don't exactly have a huge space for all of my craft items.

There're also paper clay, which is affordable and very easily to procure, but I found out that this one is not exactly popular for making charm.

In the end, I decided on using Japanese resin clay. It was said to be very light, the colors that was sold just exactly what I wanted, and it seems good for making charm.

I found out later on, that this clay has some limitation if I want to make very complicated shapes. But, for making simple charms, especially if I want them to have texture and looks like bread, marshmallow, biscuit and the like, they are perfect. Additionally, they are very, very light. So I can use my result for earrings or as charm for bracelet or as pendant. It was also said to be waterproof, but I haven't tested this claim yet...