Scrapbooking - History of Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is not only a fun hobby, but also a way to share your family's special moments. You get to spend precious time with your family as you assemble your scrapbook and have even a greater time sharing your creation with them. Scrapbooking has been around for generations, but it really seemed to gain momentum in popularity in the late 80's.

Today, there are a multitude of papers and embellishments available to create everything from the most basic pages to absolute works of art. Manufacturers have heard the call of preservationists and have created photo-friendly products.

Albums of the past utilized PVC page protectors, acidic pastes and lignen ridden papers. The harsh chemicals caused photo deterioration, which resulted in color distortion and fading. Today's products are acid-free, lignen-free and pvc-free, leaving scrappers nothing to fear when assembling their precious family albums.

Often times, new scrappers may find it a bit intimidating to layout the perfect page and find coordinating materials to use. Many books, magazines and online websites offer detailed instructions for page design. Stores have multiple offerings with page kits that have all coordinating elements included, as well as classes educating participants on how to put it all together. Some stores even offer monthly scrapbooking kits that can take some of the decision making out of your hands.

In today's technological world, many scrapbookers have discovered digital scrapping. Photos can easily be uploaded from a camera and added to pre-formatted pages in a software program that also allows photo editing.

No matter what you choose, there is something out there that appeals to every type of scrapbooker. The best part about scrapbooking is that it is something you can do and share with others. Many friendships and family relationships benefit from the time spent together creating and sharing.

Erin Reason has been in the business of scrapbooking and scrapbooking supplies for over 10 years. Please visit her online scrapbooking store.

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Making Money From Your Scrapbooking Hobby

By Scott Lindsay

Scrapbooking takes time and effort. There is a learning curve involved before most people are really skilled at putting together the various elements into a pleasing scrapbook page. For some people this is something pleasing to learn as a hobby. They will learn by experimentation and accept failure as it happens. For others, there simply isn't the time to invest in learning this beautiful hobby. That doesn't mean they do not want a remarkable presentation of their cherished photographs within a scrapbook.

If you have the time and experience of putting scrapbooks together then you might consider advertising your services for others, either as your primary occupation or as a side line to existing at home work. There are several ways that you could operate such a business.

A website is essential. Through a business website you can show and suggest available layouts and themes for both pages and entire books. How customers order particular items will depend upon your billing system.

How will you know what photos to use? Customers can upload to your site or email the photos they want used to you, indicating the order in which they wish them to be used. Or else you may wish to make the option available to people to use their own photographs, mailing the set to you. In this case you would likely offer a minor price decrease because you would not have to print them yourself. You should also emphasize that any mailed photos could be lost. Remind customers to send only duplicate photos.

Materials used will include the pages themselves; any die casts and special papers, as well as the photographic paper. The costs for these will need to be covered with the fee you charge. A fee for your own time spent will also need to be added.

Once the layout is completed and any books are assembled, you would email them back to the customer. Here again they would perhaps have the choice of shipping options.

A variation on the traditional scrapbooking is digital scrapbooking where all layouts and themes are chosen in digital format and any images and other graphics are added all within an image manipulation program. Software such as Photoshop and GIMP work well for these kinds of functions, however you may have to purchase the royalty free graphics you wish to use on your sold items.

This option is more flexible than traditional scrapbooking because you may either choose to print the completed pages and ship them to the customer as the pages are assembled into a book (at a cost to the customer) or you may simply send them in digital format to the customer. Such delivery would often be via email and would significantly reduce costs to both you and the customer. It would also mean the customer would receive their scrapbook pages sooner.

A great deal of customer interaction may be needed to ensure that you are confident of what the customer wants from your service. If you have a flare for design as well as good customer service skills you may find you can make a living from this hobby.

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