Laura Vegas

i thought i would do something a little different for this post. i don't have any new projects to share right now, but i am working on lots of fun stuff. so i thought i would share the things that i need, to do my thing in the scraproom. i cannot scrap without the following items.

my external hard drives. i only keep the last month or two's worth of photos on my laptop. i keep tons of other stuff on the laptop, but not photos. those all go on my external hard drives. i have three of them right now. the silver one holds all my photos up thru 2008. then i moved to the red one, that holds everything starting with 2009. the black one holds all my digital scrap supplies, design team stuff, photography classes, and all my layouts. since pretty much all my photos are on these, i cannot scrap without them.

someone asked, so i thought i would add this here. i use western digital external hard drives. i get the smaller sized ones that fit in the palm of my hand, and are so easy to pull out and use whenever i need them. they've always been very inexpensive (usually under $90), and hold a lot. the silver one is much older, seeing as it's a bit bigger. but it holds about 6 years worth of photos. nowdays, you can get more bang for your buck, as far as storage. i would recommend something like:
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB
Western Digital My Passport 500 GB
Western Digital My Passport 750 GB

my trimmer. i have two of these trimmers from fiskars, and they have been my go-to trimmers for about a year now. i have lots of other trimmers laying around, but this is the one i usually pull out.

rulers. i have said this before, but i always have about half a dozen rulers nearby, when i scrap. this sits on the corner of my desk, and i do indeed have lots of rulers. i'm extremely notorious about measuring and double measuring everything i do.

i get on these big kicks where i love to incorporate circles into my layouts. these are my go-to tools for cutting circles. my super old circle cutter system from creative memories, and a few large circle punches from fiskars. i think they're 2.5 inches, and 3 inches.

border punches. i do love my border punches. although, to be honest, i usually use the same 2-3 punches over and over. i should show more love to the others.

very simple tools, but very important to me. my paper piercer and my tweezers. i know there are newer styles out there, and they're probably cuter and more colorful than these plain silver, metal ones. but these do the job, and that's good enough for me. i use the paper piercer for poking holes for brads, or when i want to mark where i'm threading buttons to a page. the tweezers are for adhering stickers. they're really helpful for getting letter stickers, especially the tiny ones, where i want them.

staplers. a regular old plain stapler. and my tiny attacher from tim holtz. love them both. i mainly use them for stapling on ribbons, but i also staple stickers, tags, or die cuts.

this is kind of a boring one. but all my layouts start with either white or kraft cardstock. i like to leave a white border around a lot of my layouts, so then i start with white cardstock, and build on top of it. if i know i'm covering my entire page with pattern paper, or colored cardstock, i will start with kraft and build on top of it. why kraft? because for some reason, i have TONS of kraft. and because i'm not actually a fan of using kraft cardstock on it's own. so i'm sort of recycling it 😉

adhesive. you cannot scrap without adhesive. and i have TONS of it. this bucket sits on my desk, and is filled with a huge assortment of adhesives. i use different kinds, for different things. it all depends on what i'm adhering. i have my favorites, but i also get a lot of different kinds to try out. so i try to put a good mix in here to pull from.

my go-to adhesive for paper is my duck adhesive. it's the tape runner type, and i have used it for years. i can get it pretty cheap. i get the 4 packs at joann's when they're on sale, and it's a great deall. it holds really well, and is just easy to use.

ahhhhhhhhh. my glue dots! i love, love, love my glue dots! zots, from therm-o-web, are my favorites. i buy all the sizes. mini (not shown here. must not have any in my backstock), medium, large, and 3D.

i'm also big on pop dots. love my pop dots. my favorites are from scrapbook adhesives. they come in two sizes. the ones shown here, with the small squares. and then there are mini little ones as well. i buy these in bulk.

i have a few different size xyron adhesive machines. but the "X" gets the most use from me. there are several things that i use these for, but the most often one, is my journaling strips. my tape runners are all too wide for adhering my thin journaling strips. so once i trim them all up, i just run them through my little red X or my sparkle pink X, and it makes for really easy adhering. i can fit 3 strips side by side, so it works really well.

and this might seem like a wierd one. but i cannot stand having dust, glitter, tiny pieces of paper, or anything on my desk as i work. so i have a swiffer nearby, and i'm always dusting off my desk 😉