Shopping for Scraps

For a long while I haven't been updating my photo albums. The albums were safely in the cabinet while the digital shots were religiously copied to disks. But that's just about it.

It was my sister Marissa who got me into scrapbooking again. Long distance this time. She sends me copies of layouts she made through e-mail. As usual, they were creative and interesting. She does both paper and digital scrapping. Though lately, she has concentrated on the latter. It is her way of connecting with loved ones here in the Philippines. We would e-mail her our latest pictures and she would get our stories about them. Then she would scrap and send her finished products back to us.


A sample of Manang Marissa's work

When I went to visit her last year, the first store we visited was Michaels Arts and Crafts Store. I went ga-ga over the stuff that were on display. I was like a kid in a candy store. So many paper to choose from. No. Not choose. I want them all!!! But as always when I am in the U.S., I mentally converted the prices to pesos and I ended up not buying much. I did zoom in on the sale bins which had the Slabs for half the price. Slabs are a collection of 180 sheets of patterned paper with 60 designs of 3 sheets each. At $19.95 less 50 percent, it was a very good buy. Roughly P3.00 a page. At the time, they had Slabs IV and V on sale.


Paper from Michaels and Jo-Ann's. Stocker boxes from Japan (Everything P88) Home Store

I also placed quite a number of The Paper Company 8 1/2" x 11" cardstocks in my basket. At $1.99 for a value pack of 50 sheets, it came out to only P2.00 per sheet. And the colors were already color-coordinated.


Cardstock from Michaels

I just picked up some Pioneer 12x12 albums ($9.99), extra protective sleeves, photo-safe glues and I was done. I was very happy with what I had.

My sister was giving me a set of Kraft Edgers scissors, Sharpies, gel pens and more paper so I didn't really need to buy any more. Also, at that time, I wasn't really into scrapbooking mode yet. Thus, I concentrated on the basics.


Stackable shelves from Japan Home store, contents from Manang Marissa

I thought I was a very prudent shopper but it still came out to more than $100.00 at check-out. It does add up - the "few" items here and there. And of course, there was the sales tax. I just consoled myself, "Hey! I may never pass this way again."

Post-script: My dear husband says that in terms of opportunity costs, the stuff I bought actually cost me more. That's because I didn't take them out to use until a year later. (Thank God, the paper are acid-free so they are still as good as new). Well, that's what hoarding is: accumulating things and hiding them away for future use. Let's just say, the future is now?