Your Scrapbooking Tool Kit

Here are the bare necessities you need to create your beautiful scrapbooks:

Pictures - They are essential to doing a scrapbook. Also, you can include postcards, ticket stubs, menus, and anything else that will lay fairly flat that you want to preserve in your scrabook.
Paper - You need paper to adhere the pictures to. The paper should be acid free and lignin free. You should have many different colors and patterns of paper. You can buy both 8½ by 11 paper and 12 by 12 paper.
Pencil - You need a pencil for writing, so that if you mess up, you can erase. No. 2 is the best because of its softness. Mechanical pencils are very easy to work with; I recommend them.
Ruler - You need a 12" ruler for spacing and writing. You can use the ruler to make sure something is in the middle of the page, and you almost always want to write straight in your scrapbooks. (There are some exceptions.)
Art Eraser - An eraser is good for erasing pencil. It is essential that you buy a good art eraser, they are usually white in color. DO NOT buy the cheap pink school erasers. The pink erasers can erase the color on your pages and can smear your pen ink!
Black Pen - You need pens for writing, and I suggest you buy a black one first. They MUST be acid free and lignin free. Then you can buy different colors and styles of pens. (For different styles and colors go to Lettering.)
Scissors - If you plan on cropping you pictures, you need a good pair of sharp scissors.
Photo Stickers or Picture Glue - You need some adhesive to attach your pictures to your paper. I suggest you buy the photo stickers. They are easy to use and come in an easy dispenser. They are also fairly inexpensive. DO NOT use tape of any kind for attaching your pictures because most tape has acid in it.
Photo Album - You need an album to preserve your pages so they won't get ruined.

Here are some more things I suggest you buy, but aren't needed to make a basic scrapbook:

Templates - If you want to cut your pictures into shapes, you can buy templates that you can trace from.
Paper Cutter - I recommend a sturdy 12 by 12 paper cutter. It can be used for many things: cutting paper to fit into the scrapbook, cropping pictures, cutting anything else that needs to be trimmed, etc. My cutter is Fiskars.
Circle Cutter - My mom loves using a circle cutter that creates perfect circles out of her pictures. It is nice to use them, if you don't think you are that good at cutting.
Flexible French Curve - This is great when you want curvy lines that are smooth. It is also nice for writing captions over oval or circle pictures.
Stickers - There are millions of stickers to choose from! They can always spruce up your pages when you feel you have an empty spot on a page. I suggest that you get some sticker letters (both big and small) for when you don't feel like writing a title for your pages. I also suggest design lines that you can use for borders. (For creative ideas go to Page Extras, coming in two weeks.)
Die Cuts - Die Cuts serve the same purpose as stickers. They enhance a page and can sometimes inspire an idea for a page. (For ideas to use die cuts go to Page Extras.)
Decorative Scissors - If you want to create a mood for a page, you can buy different scissors to cut pictures and paper with. Ex. If you are creating a beach page, you could opt to buy WAVE.
Paper Punches - Punches is another good way to create more elaborate pages. You can use a punch multiple times and make a border with the punch. You can also use a combination of punches to create flowers, animals, food, people, etc. There are a lot of cute choices!
Variety of Pens - I strongly suggest that you buy a different colors of pens. If you buy pens the colors of the rainbow and maybe a few pastel pens (plus the black pen) you should have a great selection to use that you can coordinate with the prominent colors in your pictures or paper.