My husband gave me my Xyron 850 for Christmas. I love it! At the time they were having a special... when purchasing the 850, you got the 500 sticker maker, free. (We gave the 500 to our daughter who is also into scrapbooking.) Otherwise I would have gone with the 1200, I think. I am a teacher and have used it for making books and materials for class. I don't know if it's the teacher in me and years of experience with using every inch of laminating, but I don't have much waste at all. Since it has a hand crank, you have great control over the speed in which materials go through the machine. You can place items close together to prevent the waste you were referring to. If you want tiny punches as stickers or laminated, put a whole sheet of paper through the machine and then punch your punches. My husband was also hesitant when I showed him the machine for the first time but now he sees how many uses I have for it and is glad he made the purchase.

Dear Anne, There are some items that are highly acidic, that I do not reccomend using in scrapbook albums. 1. Newspaper or Magazines, most of these have a LARGE acid content and even with a buffer (acid free paper in between them and the photos) these items put off so much acid that they can in a short time yellow or age everything on that page. Color copy these items and then place the copy in your scrapbook. Kids construction paper, this again is a definite no-no. However the birthday cards and ribbon should be tested with an acid free testing pen. (Price about $2.00) While I have found most ribbon to be acid free, I do not know enough about some types to give this a definite go ahead, the birthday cards are a mixed bag, I have found some really cheap cards that I thought for sure would test positive for acid and they did not, and on the other hand found some really expensive cards that you would have thought would be acid free and they tested positive, so the safest way is to go ahead and test them. If you really would like to add an item that tests positive for acid, then add it to a page that just has journaling on it (in both sides of your page protector), that way you can keep it away from your photos. As for the gel pens, I love them, for a better description of ink go back to an earlier forum question: Am I missing something, I believe that is where you will find the ink discussed, and a link that better explains ink use in scrapbooks. Hope this helps. Penny

posting so this will move down Penny

Okay this is a two part info-mercial about Walmart! LOL First part: At least at our walmart they GIVE AWAY stickers as you walk in the door, to not only kids but to adults, all you have to do is ask... They are usually given away by the store greeter, who hands you the shopping cart, and are hanging by the roll next to the cart storage. Last week I got Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey stickers which were at least 3 inches in size. I don't know the acid level of these stickers for for free I can spray them with archival mist. Second Part: Inside walmart they have bubble gum type machines, usually just inside the doors, or in the arcade part if it's a super store, that sells large kids stickers for .50 cents each. While 50 cents each is pertty expensive for a single sticker, they have a lot that are just not available in your LSS. Last week I found some sports ones that were REALLY neat for teen pages, the sports were: football, hockey (DB), snowboarding, skateboarding, basketball, and I am sure a few others. These stickers were about 3 inches tall. They also had pro wrestling stickers, and some REALLY CUTE state stickers with Looney tunes characters pictured with the shape of the state and name of the state. They were REALLY NEAT! While I don't know the acid content of these stickers there were SO cute I'd put them in my album either way, just not touching the photos. They also had some hot rod car stickers that would be great for those hard to do teen and men pages. Love Penny