Digital scrapbooking kits are getting bigger — in size and in price. I’m not talking about the crazy sales that sometimes happen, but rather about the going rate for a full kit. As I poked around the digi world the main price range I saw in some of the more established shops was $6.99 – $7.99. That’s a lot of money! However, there is a trade off. You are getting a LOT more in your kits than you used to. When I first started scrapping a normal kit had 6-8 papers and maybe 12-15 elements and it sold for around $5.00. Now, kits often contain 15+ papers and over 50 elements! You may be paying a lot, but you get A LOT.
Here’s the deal, though. If you only use your kits once you lose both ways — you are paying more and you are wasting more. There is no way you are going to use 15+ papers and 50+ elements on one page, so what’s a scrapper to do?
Easy. Use your kits more than once.
Otherwise, your scrapping costs are at $7.99 a page before printing. Ouch. And people keep saying that digi is cheaper!
For some of you, this is easy. If that is you, you can just skip the rest of this post. But if you find using a kit multiple times a difficult thing, keep reading! I am going to give you some basic tips on reusing kits and then I am going to show you one cool method I tried this past week.
TIPS FOR USING KITS MORE THAN ONCE
1. Think before you buy. Make sure the kit you are adding to your cart is really one that you love and that you have plans for. If you truly love it, you are more likely to use it again.
2. Buy more generic kits than “themed” kits. Buying generic kits with no specific theme allows you more flexibility in your scrapping. If you do buy themed kit, stretch yourself to see how far you can stretch the kit (see below for an example).
3. Buy kits that are your style. I love looking at all the fantasy type kits out there and I enjoy scrapping with them every once in a while, but really, they don’t fit my scrapping style. I almost never am able to use them again. If you know your scrapping style buy kits that fit it and don’t buy kits that don’t fit it. The same goes for color palettes.
4. After you unzip your kit, go through the kit and COPY (not move) elements that you REALLY love and that would work on lots of different pages into an elements folder than you can pull from later on. I tend to pull flowers, alphas, and generic elements. I tend to leave behind staples (I already have my favorites), kit specific items, and elements that although I might love, will most likely never make it on a page.
5. Challenge yourself to use a kit on multiple pages. Although I do tend to reuse kits, I had never challenged myself to see what I could do. It was a great exericse in stretching me, making me think back over memories, and making me take advantage of digital techniques like recoloring.
HERE IS WHAT I DID
As I was searching through my hard drive I came across this super fun kit called Doctor, Doctor by Lauren Grier and Melissa Bennett.
I purchased this kit and scrapped with it back in February. But, I definitely hadn’t made use of all the fun stuff in here. So this is what I did:
I opened up the preview file and looked carefully at everything as a whole. I then made a list of layouts/stories that I could tell using the papers and/or elements. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use all of it, and some of it is not my style, but there was still a lot of GREAT stuff in there. Here was the list I made of pages I wanted to do:
- Caleb’s accident
- Alaina’s trip to the hospital
- Me sick in India
- A non-sick/hospital layout still using the kit
Then I opened up all of the elements and papers in the kit (I don’t usually do that) and looked through them all one by one. I closed the things I knew I wouldn’t use at all and left the rest open to help inspire me. I started with the layout about my son’s trip to the ER for stitches and ended up with this:
(24 x 12 layout )Doctor, Doctor by Lauren Grier and Melissa Bennett, staple by Shabby Princess, fonts are CK Ali’s Writing and Typewriter Scribbled
I then moved on to my daugher’s one stay in the hospital
Doctor, Doctor by Lauren Grier and Melissa Bennett, staples by Shabby Princess, font is Typewriter Scribbled
I then wanted to do a layout about the time I was in the hospital in India (the worst experience of my life!) but I realized that I didn’t have any of those in digital form. So, I moved on to trying to make a layout with the kit that wasn’t tied to the theme. I started by looking at all the elements and seeing what inspired me. I just loved the gingham bows so I chose that as my starting point. I then pulled the green paper to match, with no plan for the rest of the page. I looked at it for a while and then remembered a skirt my daughter has that has the exact same green in it. I then looked through iPhoto and pulled some pictures from her first day of school last year. Perfect. I needed some school type stuff to go with it so I grabbed some of the felt goodies from the Pam Donnis kit in THE DIGI FILES 7. I also used the ABC paper strip. I finished it off with one of my favorite alphas — Teacher’s Pet by Lauren Reid (doesn’t look like it is available right now). I was so happy with how it turned out and happy that I have this story saved.
Doctor, Doctor by Lauren Grier and Melissa Bennett, School Stuff by Pamela Donnis for THE DIGI FILES 7, Teacher’s Pet Alpha by Lauren Reid, fonts are Typewriter Scribble and Quicksand Dashed
Feeling good that I had now completed four layouts (for a total of 6 pages) with this kit, I started to close down all my files in PSE. As I was doing so, I came across the adorable little bandaids in the Doctor, Doctor kit and knew that I had one more layout to do. A little recoloring of the bandaids and I was good to go!
Doctor, Doctor by Lauren Grier and Melissa Bennett,Note paper by Pamela Donnis for THE DIGI FILES 7, fonts are Typewriter Scribbled and MTF Sweetie
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So there you go — one kit, five layouts, a total of 7 pages. If I paid $7.99 for the kit (in reality, I have no idea what I paid, but I do know that it is in the Penny Candy section at SSD right now), then I am at just over $1.00 a page. Not bad, eh? I loved the process of actually writing down stories that I wanted to use this specific kit for. It gave me guidance and focus. And because all of these stories are from different time periods, you would never notice in my album that I reused the same kit so many times. And I know that if we ever find ourselves in the hospital again, I already have a go-to kit 
P.S. Today is the last day to get THE DIGI FILES 7! Grab it before it is gone!
Share This Using…
One of my favorite posts yet — thank you!
Great tips! I will try this the next time I scrapbook. I tend to keep kits together, named by designer and kit name, so that I can easily compile a list of credits for a layout. So one tip that works for me: add to or replace file names if necessary. That way, I can search on a generic name with the Find function in Windows to browse for an item I’d like to use on a particular layout. For example, I make sure all frames have the word frame as part of their filename.
loooooooooooooooooooooooove this article!!!
have you shared how to recolor elements yet? I’d love to know how!
Keep up the great work!
Thanks – this is good stuff! I had to do this recently with a kit that I released – I got into a store, but have as yet had no time to get a CT and all that – so I had to be my OWN CT. And make 5 or 6 pages that don’t all look the same! I think I did a good job, too. It was a pretty big kit, so I was able to make some boy pages, and some girl pages. I use a pretty broad palette, so the pages don’t even necessarily look like they’d be from the same kit – unless you look too closely at the flowers (which I recolored, but still, same flowers on quite a few layouts). It was a good exercise, and I had so much fun, I still haven’t dug up a creative team for myself yet!
GUILTY!!! I am guilty of collecting kits and using them once (or even not at all I hate to admit!) Thank you for this post, I am going to try and use the kits I have for more than one layout. I think part of my problem is that I tend to use a lot of elements on my pages, and then I don’t like repetition, so I tend to not use it again. I love how clean your style is, and I think I’m going to try and pare down my element use as well, and maybe I won’t feel like I’ve got 10 pages that look the same because I use my favorite elements all the time. Also wanted to tell you I bought the shmootzy alpha (well, two of them) and I have been using them over and over, thanks for always posting the credits and links to your layouts, so helpful!
I haven’t paid full price for a kit in a long time- I buy The Digi Files, and at ScrapArtist on Fab Friday, and Janet’s template grab bags. These help me get more bang for the buck. I also like to reuse a template with different papers and pictures to stretch my use of those.
Thankyou so much for this article; this is both inspirational and helpful. Especially the part where you wrote out which stories you wanted to tell with the kit. Thanks you so much!
I downloaded picasa today… Started playing around with the tagging element in it… This will probably change the way I scrap… No more hunting through folders looking for just the right element/paper. I can just type in the tag or tags to filter out what I don’t want to see…
And I saw a few things in my stash that I know I will never use (EVER) and so it will also force me to “purge” everyonce in a while too.
And it’s free!
LOVE the layouts, I meant to say!
Great post with good advice. Lot the layouts, too!
Thanks for sharing your process! I am very new to digi scrapbooking and have just started collecting digi kits. Do you have a past entry to help organize the kits? Or do you have a great tips to share? I have also gone through many computers in the last year. Do you have any recommendations for backing up the kits?
Another great article. When I first started digi-scrapping a year ago, I refused to spend any money on kits until I knew I would like it & figured out how to do it. Since then I’ve bought kits.
I really like kits with lots of papers & elements. I only buy kits I really like because I know I’ll use it. However, I never buy on first viewing. I try to avoid impulse buying. BUT, if I really like the kit, I think about what it offers me that I don’t already have. If it’s too much like something I already have, then I skip it. If I decide I want it, then I save it in a favorites folder & wait for it to go on sale. Or, I buy it when I’m ready to scrap with it.
I prefer to avoid theme kits with exceptions like Christmas or heritage.
I’ve thus far avoided tagging programs because if you later move around the folders or have to move files to a different drive, you’ve lost your work. Instead, I use folders to copy pieces from kits for easy grabbing later.
When I get a new kit, I go through it after download and look for anything “generic” enough to be used anywhere. Typically I look for:
solid papers
brads/staples/stitching
stars
flowers
labels or tags
Then I COPY those items into the appropriate folders … when I’m stuck and need some stitching, I don’t have to go on a wild goose chase. I just go to the stitching folder.
It helps to have a LOT of storage space to be able to do this.
Fantastic article Janet!
Love this technique…
It’s what originally pulled me into digi scrapping to begin with… (then I discovered lots of cool kits and wanted all of them…) LOL! But If I really think about it, there are a ton of stories I could tell just by going through what I already own.
I may try iciclelady’s idea by using the tag system to organize by color and element. That will work better than what i’ve got going on with different folders….
Great posting and layouts, which I always want to scraplift.
Tks for sharing your technique w/us!
I love these kind of posts and I really like your method and style. It serves as a jumping off point for me and it’s fun to read your journaling. Thanks for sharing.
That was inspirational! I love how you made the non-themed page, I’m terrible for limiting myself by the title of a kit. I’ve bought a few quite expensive (but lovely!) kits recently so I’m going to try to repeat your feat.
I’m not sure how I feel about kits getting bigger – I guess it’s good as long as they don’t get too expensive and they’re not full of recoloured CU elements that I’ve already got.
Great article, Janet! I love to stretch my digi dollar to make the most of my kits.
My strategy is to use ACDSee to tag all my elements and papers into categories. So, for elements I use categories like buttons, ribbons, paint, glitter, flowers, denim, frames, tags, labels, date items, stickers, journal mats, etc. For papers, I organize them by colour.
As I scrap, if I want something on the page, say a flower, I click on the flower category and all my flowers from all my kits appear in ACDSee. The best part is that they’re all still only with their original file kit so I never have to copy them to another special folder. If I decide that I really like a particular flower and want to see what else was in the kit it came with, it’s only one click to get ACDSee to open the kit for me.