Scrapbooking For Dummies! Crayola Makes Scrapbooking Easy, Fun & Affordable!
Written: Sep 21 '04 (Updated Nov 09 '04)
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Pros: A great assortment of Crayola products, great for the whole family to use.
Cons: Can be hard to find.
The Bottom Line: Looking for a way to preserve memories without having to purchase a thousand individual products? Check out Crayola’s “Collecting Keepsake” art set.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Crayola Collecting Keepsakes |
I’ll admit it, I start a lot of projects and only finish about half of them. The current state of my bathroom, namely the ceramic tile floor, is a great reflection of that statement however I’m not the only one to blame for that situation …. but that’s a whole different review. One of the things that I always wanted to do was make those cool looking scrapbooks for each of my boys. I got the paper, the stencils, the die cut outs and even the expensive acid free, environmentally safe blank paged books. Yeah, I got the funky scissors that made the creative borders, stickers and all the little odds and ends … and for the most part all that stuff sat in a huge rubber storage container being broke out occasionally when I had photos developed, one of the boys won an award or some milestone was reached. Each time I’d drag that box out I’d feel guilt – I wasn’t a great mom because I didn’t have individual scrapbooks for each of them, books that showed every little memory. That’s when I knew I needed to start looking for something that was all-inclusive, something that I’d have no choice but to use since I’d have no excuses not to. When I saw the Crayola Collecting Keepsake set at the website I knew that if there was any hope for me to ever get the boys “memories” , this was it.
Crayola Collecting Keepsake
First off, if you are looking for an awesome gift for an expectant mom who isn’t exactly the craftiest person, this is something that you have to hunt down. Anything and everything she’ll need to get started is included, all she needs to do is provide the photos and mementos. This wouldn’t be practical for wedding unless it’s going to be used for the bridal shower kind of stuff but for babies, this is a great starter kit that’s colorful, easy to work with and gender neutral so it can be used for boys or girls of any age. The front of the book can be colored if you wish or you can use the provided stickers or stencils to give it a little more depth. The beauty about this kit is that almost everything you need to get started is included – you will need to supply scissors and a ruler but other than that, you get a lot of different items to start you off on creating a nice looking scrapbook. This has a suggested retail price of $19.99 but I found mine for $13.99, a price that I just couldn’t argue with! I am not sure if Crayola still makes this product or not since it doesn’t show up in the Crayola Online Store any more and that may be why it was being sold for $13.99 instead of the almost twenty dollar normal price. This would make a great gift for preteen girls too – they can have a place to put photos, mementos, award ribbons etc without having to have them [or you] invest a ton of money into buying all the items individually. I doubt boys would have much interest in this kind of thing and when I asked my brood if they wanted me to get them one of these they laughed me out of the room.
What You Get
The large scrapbook has a plain white cover with the word “Memories” across the front, this can be decorated in any number of ways and it’s pretty easy to personalize with someone’s name or an event. The book comes with twenty blank pages and for the curious few, the pages are acid free so you can mount photos or sensitive items to it without worrying about them being compromised in the future. The pages are 9 x 11.5 so there’s plenty of room to get creative but it isn’t so large that it’s hard to carry around or awkward to store. That was one of the biggest detractors to me getting really into scrapbooking – some of those books were so big you’d need some real muscle to lug it around once it’s filled up. Not to mention the pages were so awkward to work with that I would get frustrated when trying to work with them. You also get a few framed pages that you can use to fill up spots that are lacking any mementos or photos; you only get a few of these so you may need to stock up on some of these at your local art or stationery store. I suggest getting ones that can be cut apart or have several designs on a page, this way you are going to get the most for your money and you’ll end up with a lot of options when it comes to designing a page.
The construction paper that comes with it is touted as being “acid free” however when I looked over the wrapper I couldn’t find any information about this so take it for what it’s worth. If you are preserving something that requires it to be acid free, spend the extra money to buy some at a craft or scrapbooking store. The sticker that come with it are pretty basic and seem to vary from set to set, when a friend of mine purchased one of these [and never opened it until I almost strong armed her into doing so] she had different stickers as well as different colored construction paper and frames. This shouldn’t really be a big deal since all of these are pretty much gender neutral and can be used for a variety of different scrapbooking needs. You are given two plastic stencils to work with too; these are pretty basic shapes like balloons, animals and assorted shapes. These are great to start out with but if you are going to really get in to the whole scrapbooking thing, you will need to invest in more designs. Don’t expect too much from these stencils and you won’t be disappointed but you can expect some smudging when working with markers since the bottoms of them are flat.
You get two packs of markers with this set; the first one is the basic fine line washable variety [blue, red, yellow, green] that can be used for writing words or working on borders. To me these were a nice addition to the set but without any larger markers to work with you will exhaust the ink supply on these quickly. The second set is the Crayola Mini Stampers – these are so fun to work with an are great for filling in smaller areas. One thing that I really hated about scrapbooking or creating personal pages is that I always ended up with these little white areas and they really irked me. Having the mini stampers to work with will almost eliminate blank spots but these can be used for so much more. I really like using them on layered paper – just cut out the shapes you want to work with and use different images on each of them then just stack them on top of each other with the edges exposed for a really cool look. Some of the shapes include a spiral, kissy lips, smiley face, exclamation mark, question mark and a few others. These may take a little time to get used to using but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it’s as easy as pie to turn boring pages into ones with some real zip.
The Bottom Line
This makes for a great introduction to scrapbooking and if you mess up a few pages it’s no big deal. One of the nicest things about this is that you can use it for boys or girls of almost any age without having to worry about it being age or gender specific. Almost everything you need to get started is included in the kit and if you have any other art supplies in the house they can most definitely be used with all the items in this kit.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2004 Freak369
Other Crayola product reviews ...
• Big MiniStampers • Doodle Pad • Watercolor Pencils • Art & Craft Brushes – 8 Count • Create-A-Kid • Collecting Keepsakes • Halloween Treat Pack • Halloween Boo Bucket • Washable Water Colors – 8 Color • Pencil Pouch • Crayola Crayons – 24 Count • Metallic Crayons • Superfine Markers – 5 Count • Gel FX Washable Markers • Tub of Fun • Crayola Sketch Pad • Point Tip Scissors • Sidewalk Chalk – Chicks & Eggs • Art & Craft Brushes – 4 Count • Twistables – 16 Count • Stack-N-Store Art Tower • Washable Water Colors – 24 Color • Sidewalk Chalk – Animal Assortment • Crayola Lap Desk • Click ‘Em On Washable Markers • Washable Markers – 16 Count • Alphabet & Number Pad • Blunt Tip Scissors • Spinning Desk Top Organizer •
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $13.99
Type of Toy: Arts and Crafts
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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