Creative Uses for Scrapbooking Paper Trimmers

My daughter's new favorite hobby is scrapbooking. For those not familiar with scrapbooking, this relatively new hobby is a way of preserving family photographs and memories in a creative & artistic fashion. Instead of storing photographs in a plain photo album, scrap bookers use specialty papers, embellishments, stickers and more to create full sized albums related to a particular theme.

In just the past several years, the scrapbooking market has been flooded with specialty cutting tools. One such tool is the Fiskar's personal Paper Trimmer, a 13" x 8 inch tool that neatly trims paper edges without the danger of cutting oneself. The paper trimmer has a built in 12" ruler, a "t" square so as to cut perfectly on a 90 degree angle, and 1/2" guide marks.

Scrapbooking paper trimmers aren't just for scrap bookers! We've discovered that this method of cutting paper is so much safer and accurate than using an old fashioned X-acto knife.

Cropping photographs

For cropping down photographs manually, a paper trimmers does an excellent job of slicing down a photograph to the right size. This tool is particular useful for photography students who need to trim full sized photographs to a mountable size.

Making stationary

Use a Fiskar paper trimmer to cut several standard 8.5" x 11" sheets of typing paper in half to create your own stationary. These half sheets are standard stationary size, and can be folded in half again to fit inside a greeting card or envelope.

Removing greeting card illustrations

For those of use who save the front part of greeting cards for charity, art projects, or school, use a paper trimmer to neatly separate the front of the card from the back. I send the card fronts to my daughter's school, and save the greeting part of the card for our scrapbooks.

Cutting cards to fit

Whether its a recipe card, over sized business card, or some other type of information, sometimes cards are a little too big for the containers in which they belong. A paper trimmer can help trim off the excess so those cards will fit properly in your wallet, recipe box, or Rolodex.

Cropping graphics for Science Fair display boards