BWScrapbooking - Intro to chipboard

One of the popular trends in scrapbooking is to not use sleeved albums, but to instead turn to chipboard. Chipboard products
come in a variety of sizes and shapes. You can easily fins most major sizes at most supply stores. Unlike traditional square or rectangular scrapbooks, chipboard albums have pages that are made of shaped pieces of thick cardboard. For example, you could make a chipboard scrapbook where each page of the album spells out a letter in the word MOTHER or FATHER.

The information contained in this document is from many sources I found online or at local scrapbooking shops about cutting chipboard. It is ONLY meant to be a guide to help you get started cutting chipboard. As always you should refer to the documentation you get with your cutting knives or cutting machine. Your machine may respond differently to the settings in this document. You will need to make adjustments accordingly to how your machine responds to the settings. The settings in this guide are what worked best for me when cutting chipboard.

Getting Started

What is Chipboard?
Definition: Chipboard is used for the backing of notepads, backing of stacks of business forms, and in scrapbooking used to ship stacks of sheets of paper to scrapbook stores. Some manufacturers are making acid-free/lignin free chipboard specifically for use in making scrapbook pages. Chipboard can be used to create depth or layered effect in scrapbook pages. You can paint it (acrylic paint, or paint dabbers), Ink it, sand it, cover it with patterned paper, and use rub-ons to embellish it.

What Items can I use around the house?
Answer: You can use: Cereal boxes, Backs of Paper Pads, Cardboard that comes with some clothing items, Cracker Boxes, Pizza Boxes, Minute Rice Boxes, Any type of Food Boxes.

How do I know if it is acid free and achievable material?
Answer: My suggestion is if your unsure if the material you’re using is archive safe than you should spray it with an archival mist. This will help preserve your projects.

How to Make a Chipboard Scrapbook

If you want to learn how to make a chipboard scrapbook, follow these simple steps:

Choose your supplies. Generally, it's a good idea to use the same product line throughout your album to provide a sense of continuity and to make sure all of the pages look like one visual unit.

Plan the arrangement of your album, deciding which photos you want to appear on each page and what supplies you want to use for each layout. Since a chipboard album is usually very small, you'll be rather limited in how many photos you can include.
Cut the background paper for each layout. It's helpful to use a pencil to trace the outline of each page onto the backside of your patterned paper, then cut with a craft knife or sharp scissors.
Adhere the background paper to each page using Hermafix glue dots or another strong adhesive that won't buckle the paper.
If you discover that your paper is a bit too big for your background, try rubbing the edges gently with fine-grit sandpaper to remove the excess.
Arrange photos and journaling blocks onto each layout.
Add stickers, rub-on phrases, and other embellishments. Try to avoid placing too many dimensional accents onto your chipboard album since this type of scrapbook doesn't have plastic page protectors to prevent damage to your photos caused by embellishments rubbing against the facing page.
If you wish, add a thin layer of ink or acrylic paint around the edges of each page for extra definition.
For scrapbooks that will be handled on a regular basis, consider brushing each page with a coat of Mod Podge for added durability.
Tie small scraps of ribbon to the album rings for a fun finishing touch, adding small beads or charms if desired.

Info for cutters

Chipboard fibers accumulate while cutting:
I do want to add that while this is cutting you get cardboard fibers that accumulate while you’re cutting. I just brush or blow them off the cardboard as its cutting so I get the cleanest cut that I can get. So the blade doesn’t hang up on debris.
Deep Cut Housing vs. Regular Housing – Any Chipboard 1/16” you will need the Deep Cut Housing. I find that chipboard under 1/16” I have used the Regular Green Housing. I have used the Deep Cut Blade in the Regular Green Housing.

When cutting Chipboard my blade is cutting crazy all over the chipboard!
Lowering you r Speed, Pressure and/or Blade Depth will help resolve this problem.
I’m finding that if you cut chipboard at the slower speeds and lower pressures that your blade is more likely to cut through the chipboard sometimes with or w/o Multi-Cut. If you adjust your pressure down from Max to High or Medium, this will also help resolve this issue you may have to multi-cut with lower pressure. If you adjust your blade depth from 6 down to 4 and do Multi-Cutting, this will also help resolve that problem. You may need to make one adjustment or sometimes all 3 adjustments to correct the problem. Chipboard cuts best when using a NEW BLADE!!!

Published on: 2009-07-23 (366 reads)

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