Take those old records off the shelf. No, not your vinyls from the 1980s, but all of the photos of your favorite family moments, and spend time with your kids by using them to create a priceless book of treasured moments — create a scrapbook.
From Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to Long Island City, Queens, scrapbookers are snipping photos and meeting for crops (when the hobbyists gather to arrange their pages). They are similar to the old-fashioned quilting bees, when a group of women came together to share conversation, material, and sewing tips. Scrapbooking is the fastest growing sector of the craft and hobby industry, and 30 percent of all U.S. households have at least one member who scrapbooks.
The best part of scrapbooking is that anyone can do it.
“All you need are an album, glue, scissors and photos, and you can get started,” explains Mattie Ettenheim, a Brooklyn resident and scrapbooker since high school. This expressive craft combines the love of photography with the art of collage.
She created a birthday wish book for her best friend, made up of notes and photos of family and friends. In the class she teaches in Manhattan, baby and wedding books are the most popular. She recommends working with ideas from different websites, and working with only one or two photos at a time.
Any event can be recorded by using photos, memorabilia, or anything else you can glue to a page.
“I get inspired by the photographs that I’ve taken, and scrapbooking becomes alive with my life,” said an interior designer who takes classes with Ettenheim. “I love to add funny titles.” She says that she keeps a notebook where she can sketch ideas and designs, and her scrapbook pages become a journal of her life. This stay-at-home-mom says she enjoys scrapbooking, because it is an absorbing distraction that has her thinking about composition, color and the image.
Be creative and use your imagination when decorating your pages. Using wrapping paper from holiday gifts makes a lovely background for a page with December photos, and Valentine’s Day hearts can adorn the pages with your family sharing hugs and smiles. Birthday cards can be cut and pasted onto a page, while music lyrics can be background for photos of school musicals and summer campfires. Maps and postcards can accompany last summer’s getaway pics, and recipes for holiday dishes can be put together with family photos and handed out as gifts.
Scrapbooking as we know it today began many centuries ago in the form of friendship albums — old books which would contain mounted photos; memorabilia, such as newspaper clippings and letters; and sometimes, a lock of hair. Scrapbooking became popular in the 1980s and has grown to a million dollar industry with craft supplies available for purchase in stores and online.
And if you’re not handy with scissors and glue, don’t worry, because scrapbooking has caught up with the digital age. Online resources and easy layout options allow you to create cards, calendars and scrapbooks with no mess to clean up.
“I love pictures, and looking back at them is fun,” says Sue Lape, a 35-year-old television researcher who does her scrapbooking digitally. She takes photos with her digital camera, edits them on her computer and then creates gift books, calendars, and scrapbooks — all using various websites. She says she has never made a traditional scrapbook, because there are so many tools available on the Internet.
So, whether you’re snipping and gluing, or moving your mouse, scrapbooking is a great hobby that anyone can enjoy.
