Scrapbooking
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Making scrapbooks is a hobby relating to pasting newspaper clippings, magazine articles, photos, usually personal, or other memorabilia into custom-decorated albums, or scrapbooks. The hobby has grown in recent years. In many locations, groups of hobbyists called "scrappers" get together and scrapbook in many venues such as conventions, hotel conferences, beach retreats, mountain retreats and even on cruises. Scrappers share tips on topics such as layout and artistic cropping of photos. These events are commonly referred to as "crops."
The hobby of scrapbooking has taken off largely due to multi-level marketing enterprises such as Creative Memories (http://www.creativememories.com/).
Modern scrapbooking is done largely on twelve inch by twelve inch pages. More recently smaller albums have become very popular. The most common new formats are 6x6 or 8x8.
Various accessories are used, such as stickers, die cuts, fancy lettering and trinkets to decorate and personalise each page.
As an industry, it is young, with many new players entering the market to serve various niches. For example, right now there are several brand new scrapbooking magazines for sale, there are also entire shows and infomercials dedicated to selling products related to the hobby of scrapbooking.
Originally, it was hard to find scrapbooking supplies, but now most major discount stores and almost all major craft supply stores stock them. Local Scrapbook Stores termed "LSSs" are considered the heart and soul of the hobby of scrapbooking. It is at LSSs where one can attend classes and find out where the best "crops" are. There are also many good websites devoted to selling scrapbooking supplies such as Scrap Lovers (http://www.scraplovers.com), JK Crafts (http://www.jkcrafts.com/cgi-bin/store), Sizzix (http://www.sizzix.com) and Creative Express (http://www.creativexpress.com)!
Digital Scrapbooking
Sophisticated scrapbookers no longer need to cut and paste clippings or photos into books because scanners, desktop publishing, page layout programs, HTML, and web pages make it relatively easy to self-publish, even if it is just for a readership of one. Scrapbooks that exist completely in digital image form are referred to as "digital scrapbooks," or "computer scrapbooks." While some people prefer the physicality of the actual artifacts they paste into their scrapbooks, the digital scrapbooking hobby has grown in popularity in recent years. However, digital scrapbooking is not limited to digital storage and display. Many digital scrappers print their finished layouts to be stored in scrapbook albums. Others have books professionally printed in hard bound books to be saved as keepsakes;
Some popular digital scrapbooking websites:
- Scrapbook-Elements (http://www.scrapbook-elements.com)
- Scrapbook-Bytes (http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com)
- Scrapper's Guide (http://www.scrappersguide.com/index.html)
- Scrapbook Graphics (http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/)
An example of a digital scrapbook page
