Tamara Schulz: Scrapbooking hobby becomes full-fledged business

It may come as a surprise to many, but May 7 is officially National Scrapbooking Day. And perhaps no one in Midland can tell you more about that subject than Tamara Schulz, a former first-grade teacher turned memory captor. “Every family has a story to tell,” Schulz said. “That’s where my passions lie. A friend of mine’s wife died and he called and said he needed to get his photo albums updated. He said it was the only way his children would ever know their mother. It was after his phone call that I realized how meaningful and powerful photo albums are. I was having so much fun teaching people how to scrapbook and teaching them why they should be scrapbooking that I didn’t realize the importance and the impact that it was making in people’s lives.” Schulza consultant with Creative Memories, began her scrapbooking venture 10 years ago as a minor side hobby at which she could make some extra money and socialize with friends. But over the last decade it has ballooned into a full-fledged business where she has 65 consultants, 40 in Midland and 25 scattered throughout other cities and states. Creative Memories , the national scrapbooking company, has also grown substantially, starting with 2,000 consultants and growing to a current 90,000. “Scrapbooking was a lot different in the beginning,” Schulz said. “There have been a lot of changes, and in making people aware that the magnetic sticky-backs in photo albums are harming their photos, draining the color out of them.” Technology has made great strides in the traditional scrapbooking industry. While electronic scrapbooking has not emerged as an industry innovation as big as the more traditional hard-cover scrapbook option, changes in the industry have helped protect primarily old-fashioned photographs. “Everything we do (at Creative Memories) is photo safe, acid safe and lasts for generations. The material we use is acid-free and lignin-free, which prolongs the life of the picture. “And people think they don’t need to preserve their pictures in a scrapbook because they’ll say, ‘Oh, mine are OK they’re all on a disc,’” Schultz said. “But you need to get them off the disc and into an album. With changing technologies, discs will even change. I never thought music would go from cassette to disc. It’s just like the old film strips. Now you can’t even find a place to get those developed.” Schulz said when she and her consultants meet for a scrapbooking event like the one this weekend, she will frequently hear others say they don’t have the time to scrapbook. “And I’ll always tell them, ‘You don’t have time not to,’” she said. “We’re not only scrapbooking for our families, but for the generations that come after us. This is our legacy and our story. I always remember the verse in Psalms, 78:4, that says, ‘We will not hide (them) from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.’ “When I go to garage sales or estate sales, I almost always see baskets of old pictures and picture frames and other things that are just precious. And I’ll ask people, ‘Why are you getting rid of these pictures? Aren’t they your family?’ And they tell me they don’t know who they are and how they mean nothing to them.” Schulz embraces the time-honored notion that if your house catches fire, the first thing you should take with you are your photo albums. It’s also important, Schulz said, to at least write on the back the names of those in the photgraphs. “If we can just help one family, then I’m doing what I need to be doing,” she said, adding that she misses teaching young children. She does, however, host a scrapbooking class for kids every summer. Schulz and her husband Grant have one daughter, Peyton, 10. — – — In conjunction with National Scrapbooking Day, Schulz and other consultants with Creative Memories are planning workshops on photo preservation and how to start photo albums: n 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday at Green Tree Country Club. For more information contact Schulz at scrapperschulz@sbcglobal.net. n 6 p.m.-midnight April 29 and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. April 30 at Calvary Christian Fellowship. The fee is $60 a person. Participants should bring photos to start an album. To register or for more information, call Brandi Westfall at 687-7059. http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14318754&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=475591&rfi=6