The Supplies I Can't Live Without

So...I learned something about myself today...I am apparently a perfectionist. (Those of you who know me are now giggling wildly.) In five hours time I have managed to finish five premade layouts. That's one per hour. Pathetic. After nearly ten years of scrapbooking you'd think I'd be faster. And even worse...even though I would use each of them, they still look kind of sad to me without pictures. But...they are done and have just been emailed to Jenna. I'm actually going to be kind of sad to see them go. Jenna will be posting a preview of the items up for her charity auction on her site Mom, the Intern tomorrow...December 2nd. Go check out some great crafts!

So now...after I've pretty much used a good smattering of the supplies I have...I'm going to share with you my favorites for scrapbooking. Now...when I say supplies here I'm meaning things that are not tools or paper. I don't consider paper a supply...I consider it a necessity.

When it comes to scrap supplies, my tastes are always changing. It's very visible in my pages. But even if an item is no longer popular, I tend to keep it in my stash. Every once in a while it's fun to use something that I haven't played with in a while.

Right now I don't really have any front runners, my favorites are all pretty even. So...here we go...in no particular order...

1. Chipboard

I LOVE chipboard. Okay...so I might have lied when I said that my favorites are even. Chipboard is very clearly my favorite. I use it all the time. I have chipboard in all different shapes and sizes. I primarily have letters, but I also have some shapes, some complete words and some other fun stuff.

I use it a lot of times for titles or just a little spruce up on the page. I used quite a few chipboard numbers (and some altered chipboard letters) to make these.

I also really like my Grungeboard. It's a soft and flexible chipboard like material made by Tim Holtz.

2. Brads

These aren't as popular as they used to be, but brads are still VERY useful. I tend to gravitate towards the round ones, but they come in a ton of different shapes, sizes and colors.  Brads can be used for a lot of things: the basic holding two pieces of paper together, the center of a paper flower, pinning down a photo anchor, tacking down ends of ribbon...you get the gist.

3. Paint

I love paint. It's so pretty. I don't use this item a whole lot (mostly because I'm impatient and I hate waiting for it to dry), but I usually really like the results when I do. The little jar you see down in the lower right is the most fun paint I own. That baby is crackle paint from...who else?...Tim Holtz. (I swear, I'm not paid to advertise for him. His stuff is just awesome.) It's super easy to use and produces a really great effect on anything from paper to chipboard to wood.

4. Buttons

An oldie, but a goodie. These aren't anything fancy, they're just plain ol' buttons. I keep mine separated by color in little glass jars. They can be adhered with pop dots or sewn to a page. They're fun, colorful and super easy to use. If you want a quick way to embellish a page...this is it.

5. Letters & Numbers

Like my buttons, I keep these divided in little glass jars. I collect basically any letter item I can get my hands on so in these jars you'll find plastic beads, metal stencil letters, wood scrabble tiles, letter charms and mailbox letters. It's just a nice fun assortment.

6. Flowers

These, I'll be honest...I love them, but I still find myself occasionally scared to use them. Sometimes it's hard to make a good looking center. The smaller ones like the ones featured above are pretty straightforward - just use a brad - but the larger ones can get a bit tricky. It's nice to layer those ones with smaller styles. It gives a lot of depth and I just think they look pretty.

7. Ribbon

Another old standby. I have A LOT of this. I use everything from "official" scrapbook ribbon (like above) to the little 0.50 spools on the rack at JoAnn. I also repurpose a lot of ribbons that come on presents and what not. I use it on a good chunk of my pages for one thing or another...and who can blame me when it can come in cute packaging like this...

8. Eyelets & Snaps

It's my one artsy photo of the night. I promise I was sober when this was taken.

My eyelets and snaps are contained in all the little colorful cylinders you see above. For those of you scratching your head, an eyelet is a round metal "o" (think baby grommet) and a snap is an eyelet without the opening...it's just a circle.

These both have to be attached using special tools...which is where the Crop-a-Dile comes in handy. The old school way is to use an eyelet setter and a hammer. This makes you feel like Hephaestus and it's really, really loud. (Hephaestus is the Greek god of fire & metalworking for those of you wondering - and yes, I really did know that...I'm weird like that.) If you plan on using a lot of these, suck it up and by the darned Crop-a-Dile. You'll thank me.

Well...that about wraps it up. Sure, there are other supplies I own and use, but these are my most frequent fliers. We didn't quite make it to 10 (unless you count Letters & Numbers and Eyelets & Snaps as two entries each), but I still think I gave you enough little ideas.

Make sure you swing by Mom, the Intern tomorrow to start checking out the auction items! She'll be including the five layouts I created today.