My first Smash Book

When we returned from our recent holiday to Florida I shared some of my my holiday crafty purchases which included my first Smash Book. The idea behind a Smash Book is that you can use it as a journal or scrapbook, but with the emphasis being on speed, quickly 'smashing' things in, in a more random and chaotic fashion than traditional scrapbooking.

The branded Smash Book comes with all sorts of accessories. The coolest one is a special pen that has a glue stick in one end so that you can smash on the go. It's a bit of a gimmick but I think it's a fun idea. The book has a large stretchy band to hold everything in, a roll of matching washi tape, and some stickers and mini post it notes. There is also a little notebook containing various journalling prompts, for example top ten lists that you can fill out and stick in. The whole pack was quite expensive but I bought it using a 50% off coupon (in Michaels I think) and things are cheaper in the US anyway, so it didn't work out to be too pricey. I've an idea I paid around $8 in total.

The pages of the book are thin card and each one is printed with different designs. Some of the backgrounds are fairly plain and others have quite large images and text on them. I'm not a fan of all the pages. You couldn't browse through it on the shelf as it was all sealed up and this book has quite a lot of fairly random pictures, including lots of sporty ones that don't really appeal to me. That doesn't matter though, I can just cover them up with some prettier paper or images of my own.

I decided that I'd use the book to stick in little bits and pieces that I collect as I go through life - tickets, postcards, odd photographs and so on. I began by making a couple of pages using things that I picked up on our holiday.

I started in the middle of the book, because spread out throughout the book are several pages which are made of postcard sized clear plastic wallets and I had some postcards and photos that I wanted to place in them. Each one is holding three or four different things. I decided that as long as I date the pages it doesn't matter what order things are in within the book!

This double page spread is mainly Disney and Universal, with some free photos that we had taken when we went to the NBA Basketball game. There are entrance tickets and a wristband, along with some other bits of memorabilia that I collected.

The following double page spread is about our cruise, with a postcard of the ship and one of the islands along with a few notes. The top ten list comes from the notebook included in the pack. At one of the family sessions on board the ship we were given some Royal Caribbean scrapbooking packs which included a few stickers that I've used on these pages.

I've started a couple more pages since, one about a great day out that we spent in Portsmouth recently and another with some of my favourite postcards that I've had lying around the house. A couple of the prettiest Christmas cards have made it in too. There is loads of space in the book and I love that the pages are really thick and sturdy for gluing.

There's plenty of inspiration for Smash Books available online, although I've not found many examples of people using the actual branded books. I wonder whether they didn't take off as well as hoped when they were launched a few years back - to be honest they are quite expensive for what they are and it's a concept that is very easy to replicate using your own supplies. I can't find the exact book that I own online, but you can also buy the books and the pens separately and I've seen the books and accessories on Amazon and in Hobbycraft.

I have started a Pinterest board for inspiration of course which I'll be adding to, so you can see some of the cool Smash Book examples that I've found below!

  Follow Jennifer Jain's board Smash book on Pinterest.