Kari's Keen Knowledge

Have you recently started to scrapbook? Perhaps you're an experienced historical page designer that let themselves get carried away with embellishments while using a less than quality book.

It happens. And it's terribly devastating the first time it does. You're making page after page, each one looking better than the previous when suddenly the spine to your half finished scrapbook bursts apart, spilling memories, glitter, and paper to the floor. Through a broken heart and many tears, you gather the pages and stare hopelessly for some ingenious feat of engineering to stitch together your entire book back to the way it was.

Unfortunately, unless the staples came out without tearing holes in the pages and spine, trying to stitch or glue your original (probably paper) scrapbook back together is a lost cause. Even if you could, you wouldn't want to. Why? The quality job (although very lovingly attended to) isn't going to keep your work together for very long as time takes a good whack at it.

Solution? Cut your scrapbook apart. Carefully. (What?!) If not all of your staples came out, take them out very carefully so as not to rip any more pages and then slowly, precisely, begin to cut your pages apart. You're going separate each page, trimming it to a straight edge and keeping both sides of your page in mind as you do so. Once you've freed each individual page, go shopping.

Buy a quality scrapbook with a solid spine and cover that is capable of holding your opus together for many years to come. Make sure to buy a book which has the same size paper you're using. Simply slide in your pages that you've already made and then continue on.

If you decorated the front of your paper scrapbook that burst (I did) simply trim the edges of that and tape it to the front of your new hardback scrapbook. You should get one that has a permanent plastic cover so that it will protect your outer embellishments.

There you have it, and now you know!