It’s time for you to think a little bit about how you create scrapbook pages, and about any changes you want to make to your style or process.

Why?

Because you need to have that information on your mind when you consider buying a scrapbook kit, and when you decide to create your own.

If you like having a plan on how to use up most of your kit supplies, you want to join a club that has cutting guides and samples for you to emulate. If you love making two page spreads, you want a kit that has two sheets of each paper design, rather than one. If you like embellishments, you will want a kit that has a lot, and if you don’t use them very much at all, you’ll want a kit with fewer doodads to play with. If you like techniques, you’ll want some new to you supplies, and  inspiration and instruction from a design team or kit club owner.

So that’s what you need to think about when you consider buying a kit. Is what’s in the kit going to work with how you currently scrap, and is it going to encourage you to expand your crafting skills or style?

With that in mind, let’s look at the kit clubs I mentioned last week, and break down exactly what’s in a kit, so we can use that as a jumping off point to building our own kit.

Across the board, each kit has 4 sheets of solid color cardstock. The amount of patterned paper varies from 6 to 10 sheets, and the amount of embellishments varies a lot as well. The smaller kit has just four packs of embellishments, and no alphas, while the larger kits have one or two alpha sets, with lots of embellies. They handle the embellishments by either having full packs, and not as much variety, or by doing partial packs, with a lot more variety.

So what do you put in a kit? Well it really goes back to what you want to get out of it.

Me, I know I like to have the option of doing double page spreads, but I solve that problem by using the large stock of white, black, and kraft cardstock I have on hand. I don’t embellish a lot, but I want to use what I have, so I need to remember to add a bit of variety. I like mixing alpha sizes, so a couple different alpha sets are in order. And mini books are a ton of fun, so maybe a mini album base would be a good idea as well.

Here’s what I’ve put together:

This has four pieces of colored cardstock, 10 patterned papers, two alpha sets, a mini book base, a few paper bags, a transparency, and a few packs of embellishments. How did I decide on these? Great question! I’ll talk about that later this week. 😉

Now go look at some of your favorite kit clubs, and look at the kinds of supplies in them. Make a list of them, and start doing your own stash dive! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Do you love kit clubs? There are so many wonderful and inspiring ones out there. They have an eclectic and interesting mix of products, and their creative styles vary widely, so you can usually find a kit club that works for how you create pages.

Generally, there are two types of kit clubs: ones that stick to one or two product lines while assembling the kit, and those who mix and match multiple product lines and manufacturers, and sometimes even design their own product.

A couple examples of single line kit clubs would be ones like the Kit Terrific Club from my local store Captured Moments, or the monthly kits  created by Little Red Scrapbook.

Sample of typical kit club supplies from Captured Moments

Sample of kit from Little Red Scrapbook

These are great examples of how you can pull together patterns from a single manufacturer and make them play nicely together. One of the benefits of the Kit Terrific Club are the cutting directions and visual samples they put up on their blog to show members how to assemble pages and use all the parts of each kit.

Sample page from Captured Moments

Gossamer Blue and Studio Calico are two companies that do the manufacturer mixing style really well. Studio Calico has become the gold standard against which most kit clubs compare themselves, while Gossamer Blue is just a year old, and full of fresh ideas.

Studio Calico sample kit

Gossamer Blue sample kit

One of the fun things about both these companies, is that they usually have a unique stamp available, either in the main kit, or in an add on. I love being able to add stamped images and techniques to my pages, so that’s a great bonus.

I LOVE kit clubs. They are full of ideas and product you wouldn’t necessarily use together. But they can be expensive, especially if you still go out and buy more supplies on top of your monthly kit fees. Be honest. Who doesn’t do that?

There are some options for you. You don’t have to buy each and every month’s kit or sign up for a six month subscription. Most kit clubs offer an option to purchase a single kit at a time for slightly more money.

You could also do what the lovely ladies over at Counterfeit Kit Challenge do. Each month they find a kit to use as inspiration, and then their members create their own kits with the product they have on hand. That’s  a fun way to use up your stash, and they always have goods ideas for ways to adapt what you have to create something similar to what you want.

Not sure how to put together your own kit, or how to use it ALL up? We’ll be talking about that a lot more over the next few weeks, so be sure to pop back in, or sign up for my newsletter, so you can get notified when new posts are up.

In the meantime, do you have a favorite kit club? Give them a shout out here. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s looking for new kits and ideas.