The whole Kit and Kaboodle

I walked into the craft store high on the smell of designer paper and all the supplies a crafty girl could ever dream of having. My body moved me to the scrapbooking aisle where all of those glorious kits were awaiting my arrival. A beautiful kit caught my eye, and before I knew what was happening, I had 3 or 4 kits in my cart. I had a kit to make for a Mother's day project, a kit to make some birthday pages, a couple random ones that I thought I just couldn't live with out. All of them had caught my eye with their beautiful or unique paper! Dazed by the numbers of all the pieces they included. I spent a small fortune at the beginning of my scrapbooking passion.

 Later, at home I tear open all my new packages thinking I was ready to scrap the world! Only to discover the first kit only included 5 actual papers. Really. only 5. Hmmm. This seemed odd to me, why would they give me 5 papers? I mean the pages in your scrapbook come in pairs. Oh well, I was still happy to get my hands busy scrapping, so I tore into it. I had seen on the back of the kit they had two layouts saying how that would help me, so I turn over the kit to have a look, and copy their layout. I soon discover that the layouts that were on the kit were for enlarged professional photos, and my standard size shots of my loved ones looked strange in those layouts. Coming up with your own lay out, especially when you first start is time consuming....so an hour later ( or more) I have a lay out. I pull out all the doo-dads and accessories that were included with my 150 piece kit, and I realize, there are like 100 buttons. Buttons are a cool. I like Buttons. Who uses 100 buttons on 5 pages? The trend continued with each kit I opened, lots of buttons or useless accessories, and a few cool papers. Captivated by the number of pieces in the kits, and the cool paper I paid a lot to learn...Kits aren't all they are cracked up to be. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part the Kit is not worth the money. 

My punches above my crafting table.

If you are new to scrapbooking, but you feel you are going to scrapbook for a long time. I suggest investing your money in the items you can use over and over. Punches are my favorite. You will use punches on all different papers and cardstock for many different projects, so they will keep being useful over and over again. While if you spend a small fortune on pretty paper, once it's gone, it's gone. There are so many beautiful papers you can find for cheap. Just because a pack of paper is expensive doesn't mean it's better than the clearance pack that caught your eye just the same!

The moral of my story is newbies beware, the Kit doesn't always include the whole Kaboodle! ~Beck