day 36

Total savings this year, $37.33 :)

Ok one thing I have noticed while looking at tomorrow's ads if that everyone is starting their school supply sales. I love school supply shopping! Crazy right? Well as I have said I go to night school, so I use supplies for that and in September my daughter will be starting 3rd grade and my son will be in preschool :) As if that was not enough reasons to buy school supplies here is my other reason...Scrap booking!

I started scrap booking before my daughter was born because my boyfriends mom at the time owned a scrap booking shop. Instead of getting flowers after fights I would get scrap booking supplies and it grew from there! But with a new boyfriend (who ended up being my husband 7 years ago today) I no longer got a free supply of scrap booking goodies so I had to figure out a way to make scrap booking affordable.

There are a couple supplies I will not scrimp on like acid free card stock paper and acid free glue. But when you can find these on clearance or at over stock stores like Big Lots they can be pretty cheap. Also I only buy the 8 and a half by 11 papers...why?

Binders!

Especially the ones with the clear pockets on the outside. I decorate the front and back with my own creative covers. they might not be as professional looking as those store bought books but I don't know about you but I can't stand the way professional books are put together with the screws. That and you have to take the book almost completely apart to add pages. I find it very annoying.

Another reason why I buy 8 and a half by 11 paper is because I can use sheet protectors.

By using the sheet protects I can make sure that my pages stay nice and have the extra protection. I highly recommend this way of scrap booking especially this time of year...it saves so much money!
Example:

@ my local walmart - this album
is $19.99
A scrap booking kit costs $14.99 but the album matches the paper which leaves little room for creativity.

also at my local wal mart
A standard binder like the one shown above is only $3.47 (1/2 inch for smaller scrapbooks, 3 inch binders usually are about $5
25 sheet protectors are $7.94



I usually buy the 100 count. On the website it says that they are $11.94 however, when they go on sale...which should be soon, I can usually buy them for cheaper then that. In the 9 years I have been scrap booking I have only gone through 3 packages of sheet protectors and have 6 scrapbooks that I have used them in :) In the long run, my way is much cheaper. Maybe one of these days when I am not so focused on couponing I will show you my binder scrapbooks. Have a nice day!