how do you use some of your scrapbooking tools?

[scuba]

i'm looking for ideas on how to use things. i haven't bought any punches or stamps yet because i don't know what i'd use them for. same for embellishments.

i have lots of scissors and cut cool boarders on my pics and on background paper.

I try and do as much cropping as possible online before printing out to use my photopaper best.

i use fun papers as whole page backgrounds but also sometimes use smaller pieces as background for one pic at a time.

i have different shapes plastics stencil and outliners but i don't know what to do with them.

i adore all the fonts. my handwriting is pretty good but i just love all the different styles you can create. i print-out on white or colored cardstock/paper.

Do you have ideas for using things in different ways or how to use things that I'm not using yet? The Michaels by me has yet to hold a scrapping class :(

[Quoth]

I use punches and stamps a lot, if you're thinking about punches, buy basic shapes, squares, circles, tag shapes that kind of thing. They're more versatile and you'll get your money's worth by using them to make your own embellishments such as tags, serendipity squares, neat matting for individual letters etc.

I love stamps, there's 101 uses for them! Again I try and buy things I know I'll use more than once.

What else do I use...I love using metals - letters, plaques, charms but they're relatively expensive and bulky so I don't use them too often. Buttons, ribbon, fibres are pretty especially on baby albums. Eyelets and brads are handy for all sorts, attaching tags, or vellum or mulberry paper when you don't want to use a heavy adhesive, dotting the "i" in a title etc. The fancy shaped ones are nice just double or triple matted in a square and used as an embellishment especially in colour blocking LOs.

Try a search on stamps and punch art on twopeasinabucket or scrapjazz for loads of techniques and of course you'll see examples in the galleries for inspiration.

In fact anything you're not sure of you can probably find out about between those sites. Seriously. I've learned everything online. I've never been to a class or crop in my life, SBing is only just beginning to become more popular here - ask most folk on the street and they wouldn't know what we mean by it. They'd think it's a kid thing.