Scrapbooking as a Business

By Stephen Bucaro
Posted Wednesday, December 22, 2004

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What ever happened to photo albums and scrapbooks? They have combined into a rapidly growing craft called "scrapbooking". With scrapbooking, you don't just line up your photos and memorabilia in the pages of a binder. Instead, you display your photos in an artistic and creative way using decorative backgrounds, borders, frames, stickers, and whatever else piques your creative whimsey.

This new combination of photo album and scrapbook is often referred to as a "memory book". Scrapbooking is the fastest growing craft in the U.S., generating 1.4 billion dollars in annual sales. This presents a tremendous opportunity for an individual with a passion for scrapbooking and an entrepreneurial spirit.

First decide which area of the scrapbooking craft your business will serve:

1. Scrapbooking supplies. Buy supplies wholesale from a source like Scrapbooking Factory Outlet sfodirect.com and sell them at retail, or better yet design and manufacture your own scrapbooking supplies.

2. Books and training materials. Become an affiliate of amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com, or better yet write your own book or develop your own website that provides scrapbooking instructions and tutorials.

3. Develop Kits. Combine your scrapbooking ideas along with instructions and materials into kits.

4. Publish a newsletter. Keep crafters informed about the latest events, ideas and trends in scrapbooking. This could be a paper or electronic newsletter.

Why not choose to serve several, or all of these areas?

Scrapbooking Business Example

Melody Ross, an Eagle, Idaho mother of five had been scrapbooking for a while, but she couldn't create the charming prose that she saw in some scrapbooks. She began writing down any interesting prose that she came upon. Eventually Melody collected 400 quotations.

In response to a suggestion by fellow students in a scrapbooking class, Melody ran an ad in a hobby magazine selling a booklet containing the quotations. She was surprised to find her mailbox stuffed with over 2000 checks for $8 each. Now all she had to do was actually create the booklet!

Today Melody Ross makes over $500.000.00 annually selling her scrapbooking products at more than 4,000 stores across the U.S. and at her website (http://www.chatterbox.com).

For more examples of successful scrapbooking businesses, visit Joan Miller's website Once Upon a Page (www.onceuponapage.com) and Caroline Meisel's website My-Memories my-memories.net. Mrs. Grossman's (www.mrsgrossmans.com) is a very interesting stickers site.

Scrapbooking is the fastest growing craft in the U.S., and it looks like this trend will continue for some time to come. If you have a passion for scrapbooking and an entrepreneurial spirit, starting a business serving the craft of scrapbooking might be your path to success.

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