Scrapbooking Glossary - for mini albums and stuff
This is my version of a scrapbooking glossary for mini album terms. It's a little cheeky and light hearted, intended only to give us a laugh or two. It will surely help us get through a website or instruction sheet or scrapbooking blog without scratching our heads and wondering 'what the heck is that supposed to be?!!' I swear I still do it on regular occasion. I can't keep up.
Acid
This is the nasty stuff found in materials such as paper and cloth that causes them to discolour, become brittle and over time eventually turns your photos and albums yucky. A good example you may have seen is a really old photo album where the photos have faded and the plastic sheets that protect the photos is brittle and broken.
Accordion mini album
A mini album following the concept of the accordion fold. Valleys and Mountains etc. One of the most basic and popular mini albums to make. My first mini album was an accordion folded album. Made it for xmas and it is still sitting on a shelf with nothing in it. no pictures, no pretties, Nothing! I might finish it one day.
Acid-free
Good stuff. Products that are acid free are our friends. There is something about acid free products being 'PH neutral...' but all I really need to know is that acid free products are good for our photos which means I can use em in my scrapbooks. Acid free = photo's last a long time.
Acrylic Album
A mini album made from clear acrylic sheets. The point of this album is to make good use of the transparent effect of the acrylic pages. The pages can come in different thicknesses. I prefer 2mm or 3mm.
Album
That wicked book that we set on our mantelpieces or coffee tables in plain view of any friends or family that may happen to visit. They come in many forms, the standard being a 12x12 leather bound (if we're lucky) But of course we can turn just about anything into an awesome album these days....and so we do.
Altered Art
Anything that has been altered in an artistic way is considered to be altered art. For example, you take a childs favourite Sesame St board book, cover it with paper and fill it with photos, or you turn a bunch of bottle caps in to fridge magnets. Altered art. Heck, slap a bit of paper on to your mouse (computer mouse) and bam, you have yourself a piece of altered art...kind of no one ever said art has to make sense.
Bazzill
Only the best card stock in the world. Let's put it this way - if scrapbooking products were food, bazzill would be the rice. Pretty, pretty cardstock which comes in many different forms of beautiful. Sparkly bazzill, textured bazzill, scalloped bazzill. i heart bazzill :)
Bind-It-All
This is a fabulous mini album making product that we all should have! Manufactured by Zutter, you can quickly and easily bind your minibook projects with double Owire bindings. It is light and compact so you can take it with you to crops.
BLOG
Now I know we have all wondered what the heck is a BLOG? From all appearances it simply looks like an online diary. So why don't they just call it an "Online Diary"? because that wouldn't be kewl!! (note kewl is the cool way of spelling 'cool'...c'mon folks, keep up) So where did they dig up the term BLOG? To cut a long story short BLOG is a portmanteau of "web log" That is, WEB + LOG = BLOG. Far too tricky for me.
BLOG Lingo
Now if you thought BLOG was a tricky word wait till you see some of the lingo people speak on their BLOGs. I tell ya, there's a whole other world out there where no one speaks anything but BLOG lingo. Fortunately for us we only have to know enough to contend with a Scrapbookers blog.
Here are some of the more common tricky scrapbook blog terms:
DH = dear husband (unless he is being a jerk, then we
simply sub the Dear for damn or d..... hahaha)
SO = significant other for us unmarried types
SS = daughter
DS = son
FIL = father in law
SIL = sister in law
MIL = mother in law
RAK - Random act of kindness
Brads
Decorative two-pronged fasteners used to pretty up our layouts/albums. They're very handy and can be used to bind mini albums. Brads are getting pretty fancy these days.
Book rings
Aka loose leaf rings. Used to bind an album together. You can purchase them from any stationary products store. Super easy to use, you simply punch holes through your album cover and pages and clip the book ring through the hole.
BOM - Book of me
A book of me or BOM for short is exactly that - a book about me or you or you know what I mean. Every scrapbooker has to make a mini album or altered book all about yourself. A little strange for those who don't feel comfortable with the concept but well worth the effort. Your children and other future descendants would love to get an inside peek at what makes you you.
cropping
The 'art' of cutting out the extra bits and pieces that we don't need or want from a photo - eg. thumbs, fashion faux pas, butts (lol!) and those weird people in the background you didn't even know ere there when you originally took the photo.
Coffee filter mini album
A mini album made from any number of regular supermarket coffee filters. They use the open end of the filter as pockets to hold tags for extra photos and journaling and are usually bound at the opposite end. Of course coffee filters are not acid or lignin free so you can expect some damage to your photos over a long period of time. (so don't use one of a kind photos)
Chipboard
Aka book board, I can only describe it as thick card board like the stuff your cereal boxes are made of but thicker. You can totally use your cereal boxes (although they're not acid free) to make your mini album. It may be a little flimsy but you can get away with it if the album is small enough otherwise go for something a little thicker. You can find good quality chipboard that is thicker at all good craft stores and scrapbooking stores.
Dry embossing
Very funky technique using a stylus to create a bumpy or depressed design on paper or other materials.
Glossy Accents
This is one of my all time favourite products! It is super versatile and a small bottle lasts forever. I love it. It is a clear glaze that adds dimension to your accents. You can use it as an adhesive to stick those fiddly little items like beads and bling crystals. Tint it with ink to make glass paint. Another product that is very similar is Dimensional Magic and Diamond Glaze.
Gusset
What is a gusset?? Ok, now if you can picture in your mind a grocery paper bag sack. When it is laying unopened it is flat - is has length and width. When you pick it up and open it the sides - which are kinda folded in a triangular shape - open up. Now your bag has length, width and depth. The fold in sides of the bag are the gusset
Heat Embossing Tool
Used to melt and set your embossing powders. It works just like a hairdryer but it packs a lot more heat. You can buy a special scrapbook/stamping heat embossing tool or buy a generic hot air tool or hot air gun from a hardware store for half the price and they both do exactly the same thing...blow hot air.
Lignin
Sounds like some sort of Latin name for a bug "Cimex Lignin..." In fact it is actually the bonding stuff that holds wood fibres together in trees??? Paper that isn't lignin free like newspaper will eventually yellow and become brittle over time. Not good for photos so stay away from any products that don't outright say 'lignin free' if you want your photos to last.
Jump rings
A small ring of wire use to make jewellery. They are used in scrapbooking to link elements together, for example - to link charms to a length of ribbon. You can use jump rings to bind small mini albums together. These are very hand to have but surprisingly they are a little on the expensive side I reckon. Get them from any jewellery or craft store. Some scrapbooking companies make them also like Junkitz and 7Gypsies.
Matting
Matt your photos to make em stand out. Normally you would cut a piece of plain or patterned card slightly larger than your cropped photo, then take the photo and adhere it to the top of your card.
Mini album or Mini book
A small album? A small work of art incorporating photos scrapbooking products and a certain amount of creative flair. Made from anything you can get your hands on including, patterned paper, card stock, adhesive, chip board, coffee filters, paper bags, basically anything paper and otherwise.
Modge Podge
Sounds like a cute breed of dog, like a little old ball of wrinkles or something. It is actually an adhesive that acts also as a sealant, very handy for mini books. Almost all the mini albums i make are covered with a couple of light coats to seal it and then a coat of acrylic spray. Use a foam brush for even coverage.
O-wires
These are used with your Bind-It-All machine. They are the binding that you often find on notebooks, exercise books and some calendars. They come in a number of different sizes to allow you to make smaller or larger books as required.
Stab binding
I love this. Its the Japanese art of binding paper together to form a book. It's very chic. I figure you can use this method or an adaptation of it to bind a together paper bag albums.
Wallpaper
I will use the term wallpaper to describe covering chipboard or other surfaces with paper. The best way I can describe wallpapering a square shaped chipboard cover for example is to bead the pva glue onto the chipboard in a zig-zag motion starting about 1cm from the upper left corner and finishing at the bottom right hand corner (or left, it doesn't matter which) then taking a foam brush and spreading the glue evenly with outward brush strokes starting from the centre of the chipbboard. This will help prevent the chipboard from warping as the glue dries.
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