Scrapbook Essentials For Beginners and Beyond
Few things bring more joy than opening a personalized, beautiful, high-quality scrapbook, especially when you feel confident about the layout, colors, and design choices of each page. We’ve all sat, squished on a couch with loved ones, flipping through old photos and laughing and reminiscing about the highs and lows of life, then stood up and felt more connected.
That’s why we create these pages, they remind us and connect us. However, not everyone feels ready to jump right into crafting and might need more support and guidance as they start their scrapbooking projects. We have brainstormed dozens of ways to help combat the overwhelm, insecurity, and timidness we sometimes see around scrapbooking.
So, we’ve created a basic list of what supplies you’ll need to get started, as well as a few kits and bundles to check out. We carefully curated this list, complete with the basics and a few ideas for adding more personalization or dimension to your final project. Find out what you need to start making a scrapbook your loved ones will ask to pull out at the next family gathering!
The Importance of Quality Scrapbook Materials
We know that one of the central reasons we craft is to create a tangible item to remind us of something meaningful. It can be a card wishing someone a happy birthday, a gift tag with a special message, or a scrapbook page full of images and memories.
Regardless of what you make, you want it to last a lifetime and beyond—you don’t want yellowing, fading, or deterioration to ruin your memory. That’s why using high-quality materials matters: not all glue, paper, stamps, and ink are created with the same dedication to longevity.
Our products at Stampin’ Up! are carefully designed to make sure your project lasts through the years. Many of our papers are acid-free and lignin-free (check the paper description on the product page) to help prevent deterioration and discoloration. Additionally, our glue and adhesives are also acid-free, so you don’t have to worry about discoloration or deterioration. By using high-quality archival materials, you can pass your memories down to future generations through paper crafting.
Key Scrapbooking Essentials for Every Crafter
If you are just getting started crafting, or maybe you have a few crafting supplies but don’t know what other essentials you need, we’ve compiled a list of our beginner scrapbooking essentials. Building up your basic collection of crafting supplies shouldn’t be stressful, and with our guide, it won’t be!
10 Scrapbooking Essentials
1. Paper Trimmer and Cutting Blades Multipack
The Paper Trimmer, complete with an extra-wide cutting base and extendable ruler, makes it easy for beginners to create crisp, even lines. It is a must-have for beginners, as it will help build confidence and skill, allowing you to create paper crafts without the headache of cutting a perfectly straight line with scissors. Make sure to grab the Replacement Cutting Blades Multipack to ensure you can easily replace the blade.
2. 12×12 Cardstock
Your scrapbook layouts need to start with a solid base layer, and our high-quality 12×12 Cardstock is the perfect choice because it’s acid-free and lignin-free (making it ideal for memory keeping), and the ultrasmooth surface means that your stamped images will always be clean and crisp. Our cardstock offers so many creative applications—our cardstock is dyed all the way through with no white core. In contrast, our two-tone cardstock has two shades of the same color on both sides with a white core, so you’ve got plenty of options when it comes to the appearance you want to create with your scrapbook layouts.
3. Stampin’ Glass Mat
Give yourself the gift of a dedicated surface, complete with measurements, palette, and even a reusable cloth for wiping stamps when you get the Stampin Glass Mat. This combination of a glass mat with measurements, a silicone palette for mixing custom colors, and a Simply Shammy that only requires water to clean stamps is a crucial piece of a crafter’s toolbox.
4. Stampin’ Seal and Stampin’ Seal Refill
Stampin’ Seal is a great adhesive for scrapbooking. This is an instant-bond, permanent adhesive you can easily glide across your paper, making it an option for your projects with no drying time! Make sure to grab a Stampin’ Seal Refill so you can keep crafting!
5. Stampin’ Dimensionals
Don’t let the name intimidate you—in crafting, dimensionals just means a two-sided foam adhesive piece that you can easily place on your paper to add dimension. This allows other features to literally pop out of the project by adding a little height. The project below shows how the strawberry plant cut out is a little raised, not glued flat to the page.
6. Multipurpose Liquid Glue
This little glue pen is a powerhouse. With its dual-sided design (including a narrow tip for detail work and a broad tip for larger jobs), acid-free, and clear-drying glue, your projects can flourish! Trust us, this is every crafter’s favorite adhesive.
7. Black Journaling Pen
This new addition to our line of pens and markers is one we’ve perfected—the perfect tip, ink that won’t fade or yellow, acid-free, smudge resistant, and works beautifully on all types of materials.
8. Memory Protectors
Acid-free, archival-quality memory protectors ensure your hard work, creativity, and memories aren’t yellowed, faded, or disintegrating throughout the years. Our 12”x12” scrapbook page protectors come in side-load or top-load versions.
9. 12”x12” Album
There is no joy like slipping a freshly completed scrapbook page into a scrapbooking album—it’s almost part of the ritual of creating the page. It’s a way of honoring the memories, the love that went into the page, and the connections you have in your life. We created our 12”x12” Album to make it easy for you to collect your pages and organize them in a meaningful way.
10. Scrapbooking Workshop Kit
We created our Scrapbooking Workshop Kits to jump-start your creativity, regardless of your skill level! Each kit makes three two-page 12”x12” scrapbook layouts and includes paper, embellishments, dimensionals, stamps, and ink. To make the most of this kit, we recommend acquiring all of the above-mentioned tools and materials to make your experience great!
Our Scrapbooking Workshop Kits are designed to create pages for the key seasons and holidays of the year. We love this product, and we’ve poured our hearts into making scrapbooking accessible to everyone because we believe in the power of creativity, community, and memory-keeping.
Want to make sure you remember all the good times you had in the great outdoors? Our Weekend Adventures Scrapbooking Workshop Kit has nature-inspired paper, themed stickers, and images so you can capture your hikes, road trips, and adventures.
Capture your outdoor memories with the Weekend Adventures Scrapbooking Workshop Kit! With nature-inspired paper and themed stickers and images, this kit makes three two-page layouts to document hikes, picnics, spontaneous road trips, and more. Try the optional Linen Thread technique featured in this kit with the additional products listed below!
What Comes Next? Scrapbook Supplies to Expand Your Creativity
When you have a few scrapbook layouts under your crafting belt and are feeling ready to branch out a bit more, there are a few more supplies that you can add to your scrapbooking process that will add more creative options to your memory-keeping.
Alphabet Dies
These Mini Alphabet Dies are small enough to pack a wordy punch (Pictured below to create the word “visiting”.) You’ll be able to customize your scrapbook layouts with names, locations, teams, events, occasions, and anything else you can dream up and want to capture on your pages. Our set includes multiples of highly used letters and diacritic symbols for French, German, and Dutch words.
Stamp Sets for Scrapbooking
Stamp sets that include journaling and date stamps are a scrapbooking workhorse! Using these types of images throughout your scrapbook adds uniformity to your projects while helping you to easily and stylishly include key details like dates and locations throughout your project. The Keeping Traditions Stamp Set has some festive holiday elements along with useful elements that can be used all year round. The Turtle-y Sweet Stamp Set includes multi-purpose banners and graphic elements that work year-round, along with sentiments that could be used to commemorate celebrations for any age.
Stamp Ink for Scrapbooking
When you’re ready to start adding stamped elements to your scrapbooks, you’ll want to make sure you have a high-quality black ink pad. Our Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad is perfect for adding journaling elements to your layout.
Clear Block Bundles
Stock up on high-quality, reusable acrylic blocks for your scrapbook stamps. Place the stamped image on the clear block to allow for easy inking and placement. You’ll use the blocks to temporarily mount your stamp image, then remove them for storage. Easy as pie.
Stamp Cleaning Supplies
Keep your stamps and stamp blocks nice and clean and ready for your next project with our Simply Shammy or Stampin’ Mist and Stampin’ Scrub.
Scrapbook Supplies for Next Level Layouts
If you consider yourself a more advanced scrapbooker, you might be interested in some enhancements, such as tools and supplies, that will allow you to really get your creative juices flowing.
Flip Flaps
Want to make a dramatic addition to your project without complicated steps or materials? That’s what Flip Flaps are for! They add an interactive, visually interesting dimension to any project, but are especially helpful when you have many elements you want to add to one page and don’t have quite the space to add every ticket stub, picture, journal entry, or embellishment.
Use Flip Flaps to add little notes, additional pictures, or even a pop-up to your page, and enjoy your family’s reaction to these delightful details. For more ideas on how to use Flip Flaps, watch the video below:
Take Your Pick Tool
Adding gems, embellishments, and small elements to your design is infinitely easier with our Take Your Pick Tool. One end is tacky putty that can easily pick up sequins, paper accents, and other small objects. The other end has two changeable, double-ended tips with a paper piercer, mini spatula, small stylus, and large stylus.
Two-Tone Cardstock
Two-Tone Cardstock is perfect for paper craft techniques like tearing, distressing, and tone-on-tone layering because it’s a two-color, white-core paper. One side features a color at 100% saturation, while the other side is a muted, or screened-back, version of the same color. It’s like getting two colors of cardstock in one! It’s also great for scrapbooking because it’s not as heavy, and the two colors offer a choice (which side to display) on a scrapbooking page, without having to purchase two separate colors. All of the projects pictured below use two-tone cardstock.
Patterned Scrapbooking Paper and Sticker Sheets
We’re all about creating clever and coordinated shortcuts that make your scrapbooking and paper crafting easier. Case in point: our patterned paper and sticker sheet combos. Some Designer Series Paper packs also come with a sticker sheet that is meant to complement layouts. For example, the Wildflower Celebrations pack includes sentiment stickers along with cake, festive borders, and florals (see below.) The Cute As Can Bee pack has stickers that coordinate with the sweet bumblebee theme and offer journaling space.
Our Favorite Scrapbooking Essential—a Helpful Demonstrator
Now that you have your basics covered, you are ready to create beautiful, long-lasting scrapbooks. But if you find yourself wishing for a bit of guidance or in need of a creative buddy, we suggest connecting with a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator in your area. They can help you master the scrapbooking essentials we’ve shared above and offer more ideas for creative layouts and memory-keeping.