Articles

The summer scrapbooking trends reflect the mood of the American consumer and offer solutions to the scrapbooker who is more carefully monitoring her expenditures. She wants luxury at a budget price. Overall, new paper collections have more staying power, even those designed around themes, if crafters can use them for many occasions.

More is more when it comes to page embellishment; glitter, shimmer and metallic are well represented in papers and embellishments. Vendors seem to be working very hard to create more value for the consumer, which will certainly help retailers make the sale.

COLOR CUES

Pink Powers On
Talk about staying power. Is pink the new black? Papercrafters must be in love with the hue because it’s being incorporated into just about every theme and palette imaginable.

In the Key of Black and White
Black-and-white prints are abundant and look very interesting with colorful collage accents.

PRINTS & PATTERNS

Inspiration From Textiles
Home décor prints and menswear fabric textures and prints are being transferred to paper: foulards, Venetian prints, tweeds, English florals, dobbies, ikat, etc.

Sophisticated Child
Youth-oriented collections aren’t so literal that they can’t be moved into other arenas. There are plenty of florals, circus and zoo animals, and new “boy” collections with a bit of refinement.

Words on Paper
Typography is being used liberally on papers and embellishments. In some cases, it’s being combined with graphics. In others, it creates a wallpaper effect.

Textural Collage
This isn’t a collection of a couple of items, but rather many, many fibers, papers and textures combined. In page design, consumers are creating tactile surfaces that work better as art than album fodder. Designers are capturing the look and printing papers with collaged artwork.

SEASONAL/HOLIDAY

Collections That Last
Most of the new holiday collections feature coordinating prints that are less literal in their seasonal message. Halloween morphs into autumn and Thanksgiving. Christmas coordinates can be used all year. When all pieces are displayed together they read “holiday,” but on their own, they can be used any time of the year. The bonus in many cases is a solid, metallic or shimmer on the reverse side.

Purple Halloween
Halloween may be spooky or more seasonal. The palette is orange and black with strong strokes of royal purple. Sparkle, texture and tone on tone prints add depth to what could otherwise be very whimsical prints.

Pretty in Pink Christmas
Pink partners with green. Sky blue provides a fresh accent, particularly on collections that transcend Christmas, and for scrapping winter activities.

PROJECTS & SURFACES

Sensational Surfaces
Look for new offerings in die-cut album shapes, as well as blank items that can be embellished. Surface materials include acrylic, chipboard and whiteboards. Choose from multi-drawer treasure boxes to food containers and gift packages. This trend can have great legs for holiday gift giving.

Stamping Keeps Going and Going
More intermediate techniques are coming to the forefront, as scrapbookers become more confident in their stamping abilities.

Acrylic Gaining Tread
There is a great deal of interest in clear surfaces for albums, cards and tags. Retailers can find die-cut shapes and albums or sheets that can be transformed into cards or die cut.

Acrylic Paint
Paint is being used as an accent and texture. Incoming: pastels.