How I Scrapbooked with very little money....less than $8!!

 When my oldest son was first born, there were so many things that were wrong. I didn't want to miss a moment of his life. Truth be told, we never knew if he would be with us down the road and I wasn't going to miss capturing a moment of it!

The problem was once he was well enough to stop weekly doctor's visit's, the feeding pump was reduce to 3x a day feeds instead of 24 hour feeds, we were pretty strapped for cash. Having a baby who requires a lot of medical supplies, special formula, etc can be pretty draining emotionally as well as monetarily. So, that left us with very little in the way of extra cash for the fun things in life.

I wanted desperately to do a scrapbook for my son but, with no money, I didn't want it to look cheap and terrible. So, I hesitated making it until right before his first birthday. All it took was perusing a local superstore one day and seeing an actual scrapbook on clearance for $5 and this package of embellishments. Not stickers or things like that. This package of cardstock like borders, trim, etc. It also came with a few squares of matching cardstock. None of them big enough to use as an actual page but, enough that it gave me ideas. It was on clearance for $2.50! 

I am going to post a few to show you that a) you don't need embellishments to make a great looking scrapbook. Not a single one of these has a sticker, or decoration of any kind other than what I bought in that simple package on clearance, b) that you can do it and c) it won't look too terrible either.

I simply glued the little pieces of trim or cut up cardstock onto the actual white pages that come in the scrapbook sleeves when you purchase the book or a refill. 

Even got adventerous and put a poem on a couple pages here is a part of it. It wasn't the best back then but, looking back, it wasn't too bad considering that it was my first and I had NO idea what I was doing! :)

Eventually, a few months later, I was able to afford a colored paper pack, which included frames, trim, etc and went to town with it. :)

Everything you see here was simply done by hand, with paper, a scrapbook safe pen and and a little creativity.

Scrapbooking is easy as pie too! materials can be cheap if you time it right and use what you have around the house! For glue, most glue sticks are scrapbook safe and cheap when school season rolls around. Same goes for stickers and things like that, if you again time it right. Right after the holidays you can usually find a few on clearance here and there. That is usually when I try to stock up if I have the extra cash.  For embellishments, you can sew things onto your paper, glue buttons, fabric, etc. Don't be paralyzed by fear of perfection. Just grab your pictures and go for it!

If I can do it and while it is not "professional", it isn't bad and I got quite a few compliments for the first year, than you can do it too! Happy Scrapbooking! :)