Started gluing!

Oct 14, 2005 28 Replies

I finally started gluing stuff down. I think it looks cool so far, but it's obviously a beginner's work. Everything looks ok at first glance, but then if you really study it you'll see my cuts aren't _exactly_ straight, and some things are a little crooked. I'm sure if I had more professional tools than my cheapo little sliding cutter thingy, which kind of wobbles and I suspect isn't exactly square, then it wood look better, but what the hell. No templates, no real measuring, just pretty much eyeballing.



I need some more stuff though. All rectangles looks too . . . rectangular. Since I've already broken my "no flowery girly stuff" rule with the pretty papers, I may cut out some butterflies from this old wrapping paper I have, or something.



Thank you all for your help so far, and I'm going to try to scan at least some of the pages when I'm done, but they are bigger than my scanner so that's a whole 'nother project in itself.



I don't know if I'm going to continue with scrapbooking after this project or not. I do enjoy it, but it's so mind consuming that I keep thinking about it when I should be concentrating on other things, like work or driving.


Luna, When I first started scrapbooking I didn't have templates or special cutters. When I wanted shapes I looked around my house - in cabinets, toy boxes, on walls. It's amazing the number of items you can find around the house to use to trace around. Don't worry about perfection. Oone thing I tell my crop group when I teach a LO is that if it looks perfect then it does not look handmade. Make each page from the heart. The only two people in this generation you have to please is yourself and your sister, and if you are giving from the heart then you have pleased your sister. Good luck with your album. Do you have a digital camera? I don'thave a scanner to show my LO's either, so I just take pictures and load them to my webshots account. Works for me...... Sandy

I don't have one, but my sister does! I could totally get her to take some pics and send them to me. Cool idea!

Ok. I thought you could use acidic things as long as they don't touch the pictures? I don't know if the fancy papers I'm using are acidic or not, so that's one reason I have the acid free cardstock between the pics and the papers.

I decided to cut shapes out of the leftover scraps anyway, it looks better.

Just found this message from Provo Craft on their message board about the paper I'm using:

Some of these beautiful papers have inclusions- which means they throw in little bits of flowers, newspapers, leaves, etc. Because of this they cannot be called acid-free per se but they are VERY CLOSE! I'm concerned about the whole acid-free aspect of paper crafting too but feel safe in using these papers in my projects.

So, I think that "very close" comment, plus the fact I've got the cardstock buffer, should be fine.

Yahoo glad you got started and you're having fun. I have one word for things that are looking too rectangular.... corner rounder! OK it's 2 words. :D When I found out about the corner rounder my pages started looking more like what I had envisioned in my head.

Lynne

Hi Luna! Don't give up on the hobby yet. In the beginning I was costantly thinking about layouts too. It slows down some. Hey, I purposely make things crooked on my lo's. Don't judge your work based on anyone elses. I'd have seriously low self esteem if I compared my work to some I've seen here and elsewhere.

I just got back from a cruise and this is the first trip that I can say I actually thought before taking a pic. I mean, like, "Is the background too busy?", or "I already know what I want this lo to look like.". I guess I'm stepping into a new plain of the hobby, and it only took me 5 yrs to get here. Maybe I'm a little slow?

Remember, just don't give up yet.

Katrina in KS

Welcome back from your cruise,Katrina. I thought of you and wished it were me! LOL

Hugs, Sabrina in Kentucky Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies. Tracy Briseno

Congrats on the gluing!! :) I have problems with gluing LOL :) I do alot of eyeballing. My DH always says that if it isn't perfect then its a work of love. People will know that it is homemade when it isn't perfect.

Like Lynne said, use a corner rounder. You can get them at Wal-Mart :)

You should keep going with it. It does consume you but its so much fun :)

Actually, I don't have a problem with the sharp corners. It's just the overall shapes being all the same. But I'm adding some of my own cut out shapes to jazz it up.

Good for you Luna! Don't ever think badly of your first layouts. It won't be from the heart if it's "perfect". Just keep at it! I bet you'll find yourself enjoying this in no time.

Welcome back Katrina. You'll have to tell us all about it and share pictures and layouts!!! Us cyber people live throught those of you who venture out into the "real" world!!!

M-C

Good for you!!!I am glad that you have taken the plunge. There are some LOs that I am very careful with about the acid free thing and others that are more for my fun and enjoyment and that I am less careful with. After all there are some LO's that some people will not give two hoots about in a few years.

So I say do what looks good to you, if the pictures are precious to you or your guts says that they will be in later years than be more careful with those. Otherwise let your creativity do the driving and just buffer the way you already know how. Obviously you've done your homework! A applaud your attitude!

M-C

*sigh* Glue smudges. On everything. All the photos, and the pages too. Dries clear, right, but not invisible if the light hits it right. I even got glue in my eye. My sister better like this book.

Oh, by the way, ok, the book I am using is one of those with the screw posts, and I'm only using half the pages, so when I take the extras out the remaining ones are kind of loose. I don't think Michaels has extra posts so I could buy shorter ones, and I don't order things online, so I don't know if I should just leave it as is or what.

LOL,, sorry but that made me laugh. That is probably why most of us use those rolls of adhesive. I think I would leave them in and just put just some pretty papers in the empty ones. The other thing you can do is cut some carboad strips and puch holes in it. The add as many of those as you need to the album to fill the empty space.

HTH, M-C

I sometimes have to use glue too, but I use a fine tipped glue pen for adhering smaller things, and its a little less messy. I too use those rolls of adhesive squares. I get the biggest box (1000 count) of Fiskars brand at Walmart for around $5.00, and they last me a while!

I've found once pages and photos get glued in the pages take up WAY more space than you'll think. I totally made that mistake with an album I made for a friend. I don't have the extra posts extenders and her album flares open, because the page take up more room than I gave them. Some day I'll come across some extenders and fix her album.

Lynne

That's fine, I was laughing too. I tried those adhesive squares to start with. I really didn't like the look it achieved, especially when pages were turned and my items would bubble up wherever the square wasn't. So I tried tape instead, but I was having dexterity issues with getting the tape _exactly_ on the edges, because I want edges and corners to be really stuck down to prevent them curling up in the future, as happened with some old portfolios I have.

Cardboard strips are a great idea! Thanks!

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