Have you heard of Smash Books? (also known as Smash Books or Smash Journaling)? I recently was exposed to a new product by Paper Crafting Company EK Success (K & Company) called Smash Folio’s. These things are really cool! They are 40 page wire bound, hard covered, finished bound journaling books ready for you to get your SMASH on in! The concept is that you can kind of have a junk drawer in your journal. Stick anything inside from a fun quote to the birthday card from Uncle Mark to a photo to a ‘doodle of a poodle.’ If you want to see them in action, check out this video that K & Company put together.

The Smash Folios, if you choose to go that route come with a Smash Stick – which is a pen and glue stick in one and it is secured to your folio with an elastic loop. (See photo below) The product line also comes with a lot of extra stuff you can purchase from journaling tags to sticky flags to clips to decorative tape and more and I personally feel like all of the products are very reasonably priced. (The folios themselves run about $15 USD and the extras range from $1.99-$5.99USD). The joy of this style of journaling is that you can use ANYTHING to make your album yours. So far I’ve stuck in some photos, a few quotes I printed from Pinterest and I am planning to stick in the receipt from Target this weekend highlighting my $36 in coupon savings…

The only additional supply I’ve found I’ve needed, and it’s just to make things easier on me, is my Xyron Create a Sticker machine. These little guys are available at any craft store that sells scrapbooking stuff, even Target. The small 1″ sticker maker runs about $7 and the larger one that does about 2.5″ stickers is usually around $15. Simply stick your item in one end, pull or crank and pull it out, as a sticker, on the other.

I was discussing my new found love of SMASHING in the forum, when Angel shared that this is how she has always journaled, and she uses Artist Notebooks for hers. I went out to see how much one of these would run and picked up an 11×14″ wire bound artist sketch pad for about $20 (full price). I had a coupon, so I paid less.

My plan is to use my Smash Folio to capture ME in 2012. Most of my scrapping focuses on my kids or family activities, but I am terrible about scrapping myself – so collecting bits and pieces of me will be a fun way to see who I was this year. Tickets from events, brochures from things I do, pictures (especially phone pictures, I take a lot of those of my daily life), inspiring things from magazines or printed from Pinterest – the possibilities are endless!

Since we’re all dig scrappers, let’s talk about how we can use our digi-supplies to add to our journals! Make ’em hybrid! I used some digi-alphas to put my name on the front cover of mine, and have some ideas to use journaling elements and other cute elements along with word bits to add to my pages. I might even print some of my layouts in small versions (3 or 4 inches) to stick in….or perhaps the preview of a kit I designed and love!

I’m just getting started, but expect another post from me in a few months sharing my progress and perhaps some new tips and tricks! I’d love to hear your comments, thoughts, tips and tricks for Smashing together an album, and be sure to join my discussion in the forum if you’re going to get in on the SMASHING fun as well!

Hugs,
Mandak
Nibbles Skribbles

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