Smashbooks!

I LOVE my Smashbooks! If you've never heard of them, Smashbooks are basically spiral bound scrapbooks with a colored cloth spine made by K&Company. Each page is a different piece of deocorative paper, and there are no page sleeves. Smashbooks are about the size of an average magazine, so they are perfectly portable and great to do on-the-go. The idea is that Smashbooks don't have to be perfect- they can be filled with anything you want. Here is the video from K&Company that I think explains them pretty well:

There are many different styles of Smashbooks, and each one has different theme and a different colored spine. For example, there is a wedding one, a baby one, a retro one, an international one, etc. My first Smashbook, which I just recently completed, was the pretty style. Here is a picture of it:

 

 

Here are two example pages from my book. One is about my first birchbox, and one is a collage of magazine clippings.

My first Birchbox

Collage

I bought a new one the other day a Michael's (it was on sale), and it's the doodle style:

I haven't started it yet, but I can't wait to! You can grab the pretty style here and the doodle style here. All kinds of accesories are sold for Smashbooks, such as special tape, pockets, labels, and paper pads. Here are my three rolls of tape:

I have quite a few mini pockets and paper pads. Each paper pad has a theme (I have family, top 10, and travel), and is filled with little papers with prompts that you can rip out and stick right in your book. For example, the family pad has prompts such as "a typical family gathering looks like..." and "the time I got in huge trouble...". The pockets are good to glue onto a page and just stick random little things in them.

I also have larger pockets, calender pockets, and black brads with numbers on them.

I use solid-colored rectangles to mount pictures sometimes so that the page doesn't get too busy, and I also have decorative tags that are good for writing captions on.

I organize all of my Smashbook stuff in a purple caddy so that it is easily portable. I originally saw this idea online somewhere, but I'm not exactly sure where.

I keep all of my scrapbooking stickers in this bin:

All of the things that I am going to smash are stored in these two boxes:

Finally, Recollections has a sort-of knock-off brand of Smashbooks called Creative Chaos. Instead of being spiral bound, these books are mini binders that you can add and subtract paper from. I bought the travel style the other day to make a scrapbook of a vacation we took last spring.

Smashbooks are a really fun and easy way to scrapbook, and are definately one of my favorite things to use now!