Memorable gifts Scrapbooking kits, classes gain in popularity

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Digital camera owners, don’t let your holiday memories get lost this year. Make a resolution now to print out your favorite photos from the season and, on a snowy day in January, sit down with family members and put them in a scrapbook instead of letting them gather cyberdust.

Not just any old scrapbook, either, but a personalized, individualized “memory album,” complete with all the bells and whistles: stamps, cutouts, designer papers, decoupage, keepsake envelopes and all the adornments that will turn your most precious holiday moments into true mementos.

Scrapbooking kits make great gifts, as do scrapbooking classes. Even if you or your gift recipient is just a beginner — especially if you’re a beginner — finding good sources for scrapbooking isn’t hard. In fact, after gardening and genealogy, scrapbooking is the third most popular craft in the nation, with sales of $2.6 billion last year. And in the past decade, hundreds of scrapbooking Web sites have popped up on the Internet.

Locally, you can find scrapbooking materials just about anywhere. The possibilities are endless, and here are just a few places to start, from little mom-and-pop stores to home-based businesses to “big box” stores.

Weldins, 413 Wood St., Downtown, carries a complete line of scrapbooking items. There is 12-by-12-inch acid-free paper, die-cut stickers, embossing powder, metallic inks and vellum stickers.

It will cost between $50 and $75 “to do a nice scrapbook,” said Sarah Edwards, a sales clerk, who noted that the store offers scrap “packs” full of all of the items necessary to get started.

But if you don’t want to go it alone, you can always attend one of the “crop” parties — named for the photo and page cropping that goes on — held all over the Pittsburgh area, at YMCAs and public libraries, on any given weekend or weeknight.

Marsha Green of Baldwin Borough, who has been holding scrapbooking open houses, classes and get-togethers for the past 10 years as a consultant for Creative Memories, says attendance has grown “tremendously.” She also holds workshops for children or hospital patients, and sells materials ranging from computer software — to help organize digital or printed photos — to items aimed at the avid scrapbooker who is looking for the perfect designer paper, trimming and stickers.

Prices at Creative Memories range from $2 for photo-labeling pencils that help you write details on the back of photos to $55 for a specialty leather or tapestry album. The most popular items, besides albums, include “shapemakers” that punch hearts, stars and hexagons as well as Creative Memories’ custom-cutting system, which cuts your pictures into any shape.

“For some people, it’s a one-time project. They might make a special 50th wedding anniversary album for the parents or a holiday album for friends and family. Others just like to work on their albums because they’re taking in everyday life,” Ms. Green said.

At JoAnn Fabrics’ “Superstore” in the North Hills, a whole corner is devoted to scrapbooking. Education coordinator Betty Mazza says she recommends a basic kit for $29.99 that includes all the materials needed for starting a 12-by-12-inch scrapbook. The kit includes 10 plastic sheet protectors, cardstock sheets for cutting out shapes and designs, tape, glue and other acid-free materials. Classes are also available, and the $20 fee includes a 10 percent coupon off supplies at JoAnn Fabrics.

In the very basic beginner class, Mazza says, students learn how to create page layouts — usually no more than two or three photos on a page; how to “distress” the photos and paper for an old-fashioned look; how to caption photographs; and the art of “journaling,” in which the scrapbooker writes a story about the photograph and its meaning.

JoAnn also offers more advanced classes that focus on more complicated techniques, such as three-dimensional paper that unfolds when a page is opened.

However you choose to get started, it will be hard to stop, says Ms. Green of Creative Memories.

“I’ve been scrapbooking since I was 13,” she says. But her interest intensified after both her parents died within a few years of each other when she was in her late 20s and early 30s.

“It’s just being able to capture those feelings from the past, to be able to write down stories to share with your family, that gives me so much satisfaction,” she said.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05352/623023.stm