No-cost Scrapbooking Supplies
Now that so many good scrapbook paper and embellishment designers are Web savvy, there’s an abundance of free printable scrapbook papers. That means all you need to know is how to do an online search and download files and you can have an almost endless supply of images to create beautiful scrapbooks. That’s why popular artist Mary Englebreit recently remarked that the Web is a great source of digital scrapbooking images that will yield nearly anything you might need. And she should know about quality images; products with her illustrations sell like mad!
The following are some samples of the types of free scrapbook graphics I’ve found on the Web:
Babies and Children
As is the case with wedding ceremonies, the birth and growth years of a baby often generate a lot of pictures. And, of course, people who scrapbook love to use those photos to create family keepsakes. Fortunately, this can be done for next to nothing using just scrapbook images from the Web. If you haven’t looked at baby images for a while, though, you might be surprised to learn that the colors are less traditional than they used to be. Chocolate brown, burnt orange and red are popular, as are various shades of green. Of course, you can still find lots of blue and pink, it’s just that you can find a lot of bolder color choices too. And for older children, there is a lot of free clip art that portrays a range of special interests, like gymnastics images and football clipart.
Vintage
There seems to be an upsurge in the number of people looking for vintage scrapbooking supplies. Maybe that’s because antique art is so timeless and doesn’t date the final product to any particular modern era. Antique greeting cards make terrific vintage scrapbooking embellishments, as do clip art images from years gone by. And when you can find digital scrapbooking papers made from compilations of vintage images, you’ll have the best of both worlds. Antique designs also cover a wide variety of subjects, including images as diverse as vintage flowers, magician posters, Victorian fashion illustrations, vintage nautical clipart and historical sailing ships. So whatever subject you’re trying to cover in your scrapbook, you can probably find antique art to match.
Holidays
The holidays are great subjects for scrapbooking, since those are the times we gather with friends and family to create special memories. And it’s not just the “showier” holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and Halloween that inspire scrapbooks; it’s the minor holidays too. You can find lots of patriotic scrapbooking papers and embellishments on the Web for holidays such as Veterans Day, Fourth of July, Memorial Day and Flag Day. There is also free environmental clip art for Earth Day, as well as images suitable for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and just about any other holiday you can think of; even the off-beat and downright bizarre ones.
Floral and Butterfly
I’ve definitely noticed that scrapbookers love flowers, and why not? They’re appropriate for almost any occasion. Butterflies attract a large audience too, because they bring to mind so many things we love: freedom, summertime and other happy things. Flowers and butterflies are also diverse, because you can find them in both illustration and photographic form, and in modern and vintage forms. There are even free butterfly scrapbook papers that span both vintage and modern in the same collections.
Wedding Images
Scrapbooks and weddings are a natural combination, because couples usually have at least one photo wedding album. But if you can make it a wedding scrapbook instead, you can preserve your memories in an even more creative way. There is a surprisingly good selection of wedding scrapbooking images on the Web that will allow you to create a lasting memento for little or no cost. And if for some reason you don’t find any specifically for weddings that appeal to you, flower images would also be a great choice.
So the next time you go looking for scrapbook graphics, check out what’s available online. You might find some amazing free things.
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