Scrapbookers are saving Memories

By EILEEN FISCHER Staff writer

Remember the Christmas when your Uncle Joe played Santa for the kids? You can just about picture their tiny faces glowing and their wide eyes beaming as they sat on his lap, telling Santa how good they’ve been all year. You probably have pictures of it somewhere, stuffed in a shoebox or in a dresser drawer. And like most people, you have the best of intentions of putting all those Christmas photos in an album someday. But not just any old album. A cute little creative one filled with photos matted in red and green pasted on top of background papers decorated with holly and whimsical snowmen and, on each page, a handwritten entry that explains who, when, what and where. A real scrapbook, not just a dull, 8- by 11-inch album with plain plastic sleeves.

I admit it. I was one of those moms who put together one or two nondescript photo albums of my children. But, most of my pictures were thrown in a box, albeit a decorative box, slowly gathering dust and a faint smell of mildew. Luckily, I was introduced to scrapbooking by a friend before my daughter’s wedding last year and got hooked on a hobby that has captivated one in four U.S. households, according to a national survey of scrapbooking in 2004. Ninety-eight percent of scrapbookers are women. Sales in 2003 were estimated at $2.5 billion and has quadrupled in size over the last five years, according to the Hobby Industry Association.

There are many ways and many reasons to scrapbook, but as Jeannette Lynton, founder of Close
To My Heart, a direct sales scrapbook company in Pleasant Grove, Utah, said, choosing a theme, like Christmas, can get you started.

“If you [took] a vacation and have lots of photos, consider scrapbooking them. Or, you can do a year in the life of & theme,” she said. Rather than creating a theme book, Lynton said she prefers taking a chronological approach. Make an album in the order events have happened in a specific year. That way you can add Christmas in as you go along.

In addition to creating all the papers and embellishments that scrapbookers love, Lynton also has written several books on the hobby. In her most recent one, “Cherish,” she describes how to make eye-catching layouts for 12- by 12-inch album pages, the best size to start with, she advises. To build these pages, you’ll need those precious photos. On Christmas Day you’ll probably be taking a bunch with that new digital camera, so Lynton has some suggestions on what types of photos to take.

“Pass around [the camera] to other people and get photos from their perspective,” she said. “Think about close-ups and being close-up specific, [such as] a child’s hand on a gingerbread house.”

Journaling — writing a line or two to support the photos you’re using — is at the heart of every scrapbook page, said Lynton. “This is where you connect everything — the sights, the sounds, the senses. “If you can connect to the emotions with the senses & the page becomes more real. It’s the connection to the people in those photos,” she said.

Debbie Hull, 44, of Newtown, said she first became interested in scraping in 1994, but really started in 1997 after her father-in-law passed away.

“My son was a year-old and I found we had all these boxes of photos and not a single thing written on them. All that history [the family had emigrated from Holland] and there was no one to ask,” she said. It struck home that a similar thing could happen to her if she didn’t do something.

Since then, Hull has made between 15 and 20 scrapbooks for gifts as well as for herself, including one for the holidays.

She suggests starting a Christmas album and adding to it each year, including putting in all those holiday photo greeting cards sent to you by family and friends .

“It’s a great place to put all that stuff where it really doesn’t fit anywhere else,” she said. “It’s nice to have a theme because you can see the changes [as] the children age and it’s nice to have [the scrapbook] out during the holiday.”

If you want to be a great scrapbooker, it takes practice, good products, said Lynton, and how about some inspiration? She said some women have organized cropping parties — think quilting bees with friends armed with photos, glue and scissors instead of fabric, needles and thread.

For the last four years, Julie Fitzpatrick of Beacon Falls has led cropping parties at the United Congregational Church in Beacon Falls on the third Saturday of every month (except in busy December). About a dozen people, mostly women, attend, she said.

“We get ideas from each other and use each other’s equipment,” she said. “It’s more of a social event.”

For beginners, Fitzpatrick suggests beginning small.

“Start with favorite pictures. Don’t try to scrap every picture you’ve taken,” she said.

Mary King, 42, of Seymour, is a sales consultant with Close to My Heart, as is Hull, and said she dove into scrapbooking about 12 years ago. As part of her business she goes to cropping parties, but also gets together with friends.

“We have a blast, exchanging creative ideas & sharing [equipment],” she said. King made herself a Christmas album and one of her favorite memories that she’s included is her family’s annual wrapping paper war on Christmas Eve.

“This has been going on for 25 years. It’s comical,” she said of the tradition of throwing torn wrapping paper at each other after opening presents. “I have pictures and put [them] in the scrapbook.

“Being able to share it with someone is the greatest feeling. You can hear the laughter,” she said. For information on the cropping parties at United Congregational Church in Beacon Falls, call 729-9232. For information on Close to My Heart, call 1-888-655-6552 or visit its Web site www.closetomyheart.com.

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