I put this tote together when I was living in a studio apartment in Colorado Springs as a way to have my must-have scrapbooking tools together in one place and still easily moved around. When I arrived back home after that work assignment, the tote stayed together and is now my staple for scrapping both at home and on the go. I can just pick up this tote and a box of page kits and be ready to go! Oh, and the tote came from Target- it was $16 when I bought it, though I don't think they carry it any more.
First up are my cutting tools. I have dreams of replacing my trusty Cutterpede
with a Rotatrim 18-Inch Cutter
one of these days, but the Rotatrim is definitely NOT portable, nor will it fit in my tote. I bought the massive set of craft knives at Harbor Freight for $3.99 during a sale- if you keep an eye out, they put them on sale quite often. I'm also quite fond of both my Cutter Bee
and Honey Bee
(Teflon coated) scissors. They have such tiny, precise little points!
And how in the world could I possibly get anything scrapbooked without adhesives?!?!? I wrote at length about my favorite adhesives in a post earlier this month, so I won't cover that ground again. The Tape 'n Roller plus was my favorite for mini albums before the refills were discontinued- I actually won the dispenser in a door prize drawing at an LSS in Colorado! And I can hardly bring myself to use foam dots now that I've discovered Glue Dots pop-up dots, but I'll keep these in the tote until I've used them up. I have no idea why I'm still carrying the Xyron 150 around- I never use it!
Some miscellaneous punching and shaping tools...the big set of craft files was another cheap score ($3, I think) from Harbor Freight. And of course I love my Crop-A-Dile
and Corner Chomper
. I have a little EK Success Corner Rounder
, as well. The hammer is for setting the occasional eyelet that the Crop-A-Dile can't reach, and the wire cutters are in there just because they were my great-grandmother's and I love them. :)
An assortment of measuring tools including rulers (of the straight, flexible, and tearing variety), french curves, and various items that used to be instruments of torture back in my high-school geometry days. I hate math. Funny, since I have a minor in it.
I carry only a few pens in black, brown, blue, and white (Signo Uniball, anyone?) and two Krylon leafing pens (in gold
and silver
) for adding shiny edges. The brushes are for sweeping away stray bits of glitter and embossing powder, and the date stamps have become staples for many of my projects (one of them is current and one is for the last decade or so, since I'm still scrapping those photos). A Making Memories Bone Folder
and a Basic Grey Rub-On Roller
(if you don't have one of these, RUN and get one!) round out this set.
I apologize for the wonky colors in the previous picture- I was losing daylight fast and hate using a flash!
Just for fun, here's what the pile of tools looks like when it's outside the tote. It's hard to believe that it all fit back in there!
