So I thought I would start by giving you a bit of run down on the basics needed to start card making and some of these are great for scrapbooking too. I think anyone can enjoy creating cards and scrapbooking pages. No one said you have to be a super artist to make some amazingly cute cards, I find creating to be very relaxing which helps me to destress from the real world, which lets be honest some days we need that.
So to start with you will need card stock. For those that have not got into paper craft yet saying get card stock could be truly terrifying as there as sooooo many options. Some that I always have on hand it white and black. White is great for stamping on so I like to always have flat white cardstock for this purpose. Textured card stock is super amazing but for stamping and colouring I find you get better definition on plain old flat white card stock. Lots of shops have pads of card stock that are group in colour families. For example primary colours or pastel colours etc… and they work really well together. If you don’t feel confident to choosing colours that work well together invest in a colour wheel which you can find in any good stamping and scrapbooking store. These helps to explain what colours work well together to help you take out the guess work. Black is good for giving definition to a layered card, this works in both card making and scrapbooking. If you are buying card stock for scrapbooking you need to be aware of acid free. Anything thing you use in scrapbooking needs to be acid free and this is because it wont react with your photos causing them to deteriorate over time. If like me you have the really old albums that had the sticky cardboard and you peeled back the plastic to place your photo and then place the plastic over the top then you will know that the photos will start to loose their colour. Now some of this is because the older paper used for photos was not as good as we can get now but some of its because of the acids in the adhesives. The good thing is there are so many acid free products it make scrapbooking super easy. You don’t have to worry about acid free for card making as you are usually not using photos.
You would think that folding board is just fold and press but this can lead to the edges of the card breaking and taking away from the total effect of you card. For this reason a bone scorer is another basic that all card makers need. The thicker the card (or the higher gsm weight of the card) its really important to score the card using the pointed end of the scorer before you fold. What its actually doing is softening the point that you want to fold so that when you fold it you are not left with a jagged edge were the paper has kind of torn. Once folded run the flat edge of the bone scorer over the fold to give it a really crisp fold.
So now for adhesives so that you can stick all your bits together. Double sided tape is a must for both card making and scrapbooking. This is great for sticking all the card layers together or photos onto your pages. Another form of adhesive I have on hand is called gloss accent. This has multiple purposes as it can be used to stick smaller items such as rhinestones onto your card but is great for giving a gloss accent to some parts of your card. I personally like the ranger brand of Gloss Accent as I know its acid free and safe in scrapbooks as well as using it on cards. This also has a great fine applicator on the bottle which is great for fine applications just always have a pin on hand as the nozzle will get a bit clogged at times. Don’t let this put you off however as its an amazingly useful product which I feel should be in everyone’s crafting kit.
So everyone needs a way to cut the card stock and my favourite tool is my paper trimmer. I have tried so many different ones over the years ( I think I have about 10 paper trimmer in my craft room lol) I have two favourites. Firstly my Carl disk cutter. The reason I love this one is because it has so many measurements on it. You have all the standard paper sizers such as A5 which is the most used size for base cards. It also has all the standard photo sizes on it such as 4 x 6inches. It has both inches and cm on it so you can follow any instructions that you find and wish to create. The down side to this cutter is its large which makes it hard to take to craft groups to create with your friends and its too big to cut the small pieces of card. This leads me to my other favourite trimmer. This one is the Fiskars paper trimmer. It still has cm and inches on the base and it has a swing out arm so you can still cut as big as the 12 x 12 card stock that is so popular in the scrapbooking world. It is so much easier to take to create cards with friends and is so much better at those smaller fiddly bits that you will sometimes need to cut. There are so many different cutters out there to choose from and all have good points and no so good points these are just the 2 that I have found that work the best for me. When choosing be sure you can get replacement blades as there is nothing worse than a blunt blade that will tare the paper rather than the clean cut that you are looking for. Even though my Fiskars paper trimmer is really old I was able to find the replacement blades online which was a huge relief as it is my favourite cutter. The other tool you will need is a sharp pair of small scissors. Look for one that cuts all the way to the tip and has a really fine tip. This will make it easy for the projects that you need to cut around stamps of other designs.
I love to use my stamps to help me create my cards and over the 20 years that I have been making cards I have a very extensive collection. I tell my Hubby not to ask how much its cost me over the years because I am pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answer to that question lol. You don’t need to have the collection that I have to create amazing cards. When I started I think I may have had about 4 or 5 stamps. Maybe think about what kinds of cards you want to create then get stamps that will suit that. Sentiment stamps are really great and can be used to great effect on their own. My first stamps were a basic flower, a bear stamp and a happy birthday stamp. An alternative to stamping is using die cuts. These come in a huge variety of themes and are usually pre coloured so lend themselves to creating cards really quickly and just as effectively as stamping. Looking for either of these options all you need to do is find a really great scrapbooking shop and they will have both. So I live in Perth Western Australia and I find that Spotlight usually have a great supply of papers and die cuts but are fairly limited in their stamping range. I love to visit a shop in Maddington called Scrapbooking secrets and it has loads of papers and card stock and a limited stamping section but still really good. The other shop I love to go to is in Joondalup and its call For the Love of Scrap and this store is amazing for both stamping, card stock and sooooo much more. I have no connection to either but they are my favourites in WA and the staff are always lovely and super helpful. Your other friend is online shopping (this phrase makes my poor hubby shudder as I am really good at the online shopping) as everything is there and can be delivered to your door. I love to support my local stores were ever possible as I love to visit and meet other like minded people and the staff are amazingly helpful.
So if you decide that stamping is the way you want to go. This will mean that you need inkpads to use. My go to stamp pad is the Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad that i feel everyone needs in the basic kit. This is a fade resistant dye ink and its super versatile. Colouring is something I will go into in anther post as there are so many options but this is good for all forms of colouring as it doesn’t bleed when you use markers or water colours.
So if you are starting out this would be your shopping list
- card stock
- bone scorer
- double sided tape
- gloss accent or other clear dimensional medium
- paper trimmer
- small pair of scissors
- a few stamps or die cuts
- black inkpad (dye ink is my choice for the reasons above)
- ruler
- lead pencil
If anyone is out there that has wanted to start but had no idea were to start I hope this has helped and I will be expanding on this with more information in future blogs.
In the mean time Happy Crafting and enjoy yourselves.
THE CRAFTY UNICORN 