Welcome!

This blog is dedicated to providing free scrapbooking supplies, which I design myself. I have a blast creating them and love sharing, so I hope you'll enjoy using them. I also design quite a bit of free clip art, all of which is available through my Free Clip Art Sourcebook. It's free to download and there's no registration information required.

The History of Scrapbooking

If you're a scrapbooker, you're in good company. Legend has it that scrapbooking began as early as the 15th century with something called the "commonplace book." These books were used to record information that everyone could access, such as prayers, medical formulas, weights and measures and other tidbits that people needed to know. They initially held what was considered to be important information but over time their use expanded to include recipes, articles and other items of a less urgent nature.

In Victorian times, women co-opted the art of scrapbooking and used it to create friendship books that contained memorabilia from visits they received from friends and suitors, places they had gone and life in general. Friendship scrapbooks were filled with photos, poems, engravings, cards, signatures and even locks of hair.

There have also been some famous scrapbookers. Thomas Jefferson kept a scrapbook and Mark Twain actually spent his Sundays creating scrapbooks. He then developed a product called Mark Twain's Adhesive Scrapbook, which included pre-pasted pages and was sold through Montgomery Ward. Although he is certainly a famous American literary icon, his scrapbook was actually one of his most popular books.

When the mini-series Roots came out, a whole new generation of people became fascinated with genealogy. It's not a surprise that a resurgence of interest in scrapbooking followed shortly thereafter.

As you know if you make scrapbooks, scrapbooking has become a hobby that many people passionately pursue. This is probably because people can not only create lasting memories for family and friends but also because scrapbooks allow people who otherwise wouldn't have the abilities to be artists to be incredibly creative. For a scrapbooker, any time stickers, rubber stamps, ink, paint, ribbons and buttons are all in one place, it's irresistible not to make something wonderful from them.

I hope the scrapbooking supplies you find on this blog will help you be more creative and have a great time!