These 5 scrapbooking secrets are sure to bring out the best in all of your albums and pages. Though inexpensive, they are the wonderful ways to add memorable value to the pages you will cherish and love for many holiday seasons to come!

1. Buy your embellishments on December 26! As always, the day after Christmas, lights and gumdrops and shiny tinsel are always at rediculously low prices. Make sure to buy the things you could use as scrapbooking page embellishemts. Look for deep discounts on Christmas stickers and patterned paper. You might even stock up for next year!

2. Save your wrapping paper! We once joked about a frugal couple who saved their wrapping paper from year to year. For scrapbooking however, this can be a truly memorable piece. In your layout, why not put some of the wrapping paper as the background for the picture of that special someone opening the present...covered in that very paper! (You may opt to coat the paper with a archival safe gloss spray to keep from introducing acid into your album.)

3. Squash the bow! Unlike wrapping paper, I knew many families growing up who would save the Christmas bows that were placed on presents. Try pressing them just as you would dry flowers. Placing them in a heavy book or underneath a heavy object and use them as decorative backgrounds glued to the pattern paper.

4. Watch the boxes! These days almost anything you buy at Christmas time

5. Use your senses! Christmas is such a special holiday and in many ways is unique because of our senses. From thousands of twinkle lights in our yards to a gingerbread cookie, even the smell of a christmas tree, all contribute to our memories of the holiday moments. Try capturing as many of them as possible in your scrapbook albums. Instead of conveying events, write about smells, sights, feeling, emotion, and sounds. This means you will need to either write them all down temporarily, or finish the pages quickly in order to remember all of the details that made the moment truly special!

Christmas and scrapbooking have always gone together. With friends and family and so many warm memories, this should be a time you capture all of the moments and record them for generations to come. These 5 scrapbooking secrets are simple, inexpensive, and effective ways to put the most into this year's scrapbooking album...and the many wonderful seasons to come!

Kathy Williams loves scrapbooking and rubber stamping. She enjoys these hobbies and spends much of her time at her online store http://www.rubberstampingfun.com.

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