Smashbook, smashbook, smashbook! What the hell is a smashbook?

Well, I will tell you...a smashbook is A LOT of fun....

And the Smashbook stuff is super cool, and super cute.....

However, it is a little bit pricey.....

So what do I do, we'll, I buy some of the stuff, like the tabs, and the cute journal squares....

The books are a little pricey...and who really wants the same books that everybody else has? Besides....do you know how much fun it is to make or alter a book.....well, it IS fun...just saying.


So heres the scoop...smashbooking is a new trend in scrapbooking...it is sort of a pseudo scrapbooking...it is a way to get all your mementos like concert tickets, restaurant napkins, and things like misprinted pictures, and whatever is in the bottom of a so-called "junk drawer". It is more about the momentous and less about the photos....it's all about accepting the imperfections, and not worrying about layout...rules of design, and jazz like that...that I feel scrapbooking had really started to get lost in....this is old school scrapbooking ...no rules...just fun...you want to overlap a bunch of stuff...who care? You know what it is...you want to put a picture that printed when you didn't have any yellow in the printer....go for it...it's yours...there is no wrong way...

Now, here's the thing...I like original, not mass produced, handmade things...with a few store bought things sprinkled in....especially when it come to books....so I went to the local thrift store found me a nice square coffee table book for .50 cents and brought it home painted the cover...added a hand drawn title..(dream home) and stamped a date on it... I tabbed it according to rooms and parts of my dream home, including yard, garden, porch, deck....then I hit my Pinterest account and printed a sheet with all the tiny pictures that inspire me....and I started glueing them in my new found book....adding things I already had like letters, stickers, scraps of old scrapbook paper, magazine scraps, and stamps....oh yeah, and punches...

I did my cover, and I did one page and all the tabs in my altered journal version, and I assembled a book from an old composition book and used scrapbook paper, I had on hand to make the pages....this is great because you can make the pages ANY WAY YOU WANT....yeah, I said it, ANY WAY YOU WANT! If you want to use transparencies as pages...go for it...if you want to fold a page haphazardly and use it as a page that folds out to make a bigger page...that is great!...use gift cards, pockets from jeans, Manila envelopes, you name it, you got it...by all means use it! Glue or tape it in...then stamp it...doodle on it...even paint on it...it fun ...it really is..and the results are sooooo amazing!
Here are some pictures I took of the tiny beginnings....
So there ya go...hopefully it will give you an idea of what smashbooking is...

So what are you waiting for!? Go out and SMASH something!