The Scrapbooking Phenomenon

Scrapbooking is taking the hobby and craft industry by storm. More and more scrapbooking stores are popping up, and every retail giant or craft superstore has a large scrapbooking department. What is so special about this craft, and why is it becoming so popular among today's hobbyists?

The fact is, ten years ago the scrapbooking phenomenon was virtually non-existent. Sure, moms put together memory books for their children, and collected and organized important memorabilia from their kids' baby days, but most people did not have scrapbooks the way they are understood today. Pictures were stored in shoeboxes, or photo albums, with hastily written names and dates on the back.

What caused the scrapbooking revolution? As today's scrappers started to look through their parents' photo albums and shoeboxes, they realized that the pictures were being destroyed. The convenient self-sticking albums we all grew up with turned pictures yellow and made them brittle. The culprit was the acid and lignin in the paper. Something had to be done to create albums that did not literally eat away at photographs.

Not only that, but people were looking for a way to tell their families' stories. We were realizing the need for family connections, and wanted a way to pass down the unique attributes of our family to future generations. What better way to pass down a family's story than through a scrapbook?

Finally, women especially were looking for a way to socialize. Scrapbooking has become today's quilting bee. It gives scrappers the ability to get together, talk about life, and exchange ideas.

Thus began the scrapbook revolution. It met these three needs in a remarkable way. People were given acid and lignin free papers and tools that protected and archived their pictures and memorabilia. Through in-home parties and scraps, women had the opportunity to connect with their friends again, sharing their pictures in a fun and creative way. And, in the process, the events unfolding in their families were recorded for future generations.