Picture This

Scrapbooking has become a billion-dollar industry as more and more folks cut and paste their life’s memories

Wednesday - August 11, 2005
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Owner of Photo Craft in Kaimuki, Brian Ching
(right) and his wife, Carolyn (second from right),
help scrapbookers Winnie Chinen (left) and
Melissa Ha‘o with a project

This author personally knows how addictive the scrapbooking hobby can be, having spent more than $2,000 in the two years I’ve been making my own scrapbooks. In addition to satisfying my inner craftiness, it also allows me some social time with friends. I actually don’t scrapbook much alone and prefer the company of my two gal pals, Seilee Nakamura and Stacy Arakaki, so there’s ample feedback during the process.

I kid you not, we can scrapbook for up to 11 hours at a time, sitting in Seilee’s living room, comparing ideas and retelling special memories. We barely break for sustenance during these marathon sessions. It’s so easy to get carried away with what you’re doing.

Not everyone has this kind of time or artistic drive, however.

But even if you think you’re not the most crafty person, you can still make a scrapbook.

“If you can pass kindergarten with cut and paste, you can do this,” says Ching, who actually learned to scrapbook his first page with some help from Aoyagi. “At first, I had no idea what to do. The first page I made, it took me an hour-and-a-half to choose which papers I wanted to use.”

Ching says Photo Craft was open six months in its original location on Waialae (a smaller space where he also focused on other photo imaging products) before he even tried to make a page.

“We were open a year and finally told my wife, ‘I think we’re a scrapbook store now.’It just kind of took over,” he says.

If you’re short on time, Ching says, manufacturers are now making scrapbooking easier for the consumer.

“Most of us have more pictures than we’ll ever be able to scrapbook,” he says. “So manufacturers are now coming out with these color-coordinated, themed kits that you can just grab the pieces and plop them down in five minutes. So don’t get discouraged.”

Albums measuring 12-by-12- inches have continued to be the most common size, but smaller 8-by-8-inch albums are also gaining in popularity for gift albums because they’re smaller and more manageable.

Aoyagi, who has had her own scrapbooking pages published several times in various industry magazines, also notes that even smaller handmade books are gaining a foothold.

Julie Oana (left) makes family time scrapbooking
time. Her keiki, Punahele, Kumuko‘a
and Liloa, each have their own scrapbooks/div>

“Everybody is going miniaturized,” she says. “It’s a quick fix, but you don’t have to spend a lot of time working on it. I also see scrapbookers getting into card making for the same reason.”

Aoyagi shows me a book she made by cutting a plain gift bag and folding it like a book, standing only 3 inches high. She also created a meandering book that’s even smaller. The pages come out and zig-zag back and forth. Other popular scrapbooking ideas include altered books (actual books that have been scrapbooked over), and circle journals much like a slam book, that’s passed among friends with each person putting his or her own touch on a page. Eventually it makes it way back to the originator.

Aoyagi has made scrapbooking a family affair as well. Her two sons both scrapbook and her oldest son, Sean, who just graduated from Mid-Pacific Institute, served as the school’s historian for two years.

Scrapbooking has come a long way since the days of Thomas Jefferson, Rutherford B. Hayes and Mark Twain, who were scrapbookers themselves. Twain, in fact, dedicated Sunday to this hobby and had 57 different scrapbooks that he sold through the Montgomery Ward catalog.

Scrapbooks originated in the 17th century and were called Common Place books. People would write poems, paste newspaper articles, press flowers or share hobbies in their books. The scrapping craze started in the 1800s and really peaked from 1880 to 1890.

What’s old has become new again, and although the art has been with us since the early days, today’s scrapbooking market really started to pick up steam again in the last decade.

There’s punch art, which allows you to cut your pictures into various shapes or quickly add embellishment to your page, 3- D effects, and even computer software that allows you to scrapbook your entire page right on the computer. The best of the creative minds in the industry are always coming up with something new.

Places on Oahu to get your scrapbooking supplies include Photo Craft, Album Artistry, Down Memory Lane, My Paper Club, Scrapbook Clubhouse, Stamp and Memories, Scrapper’s Den, Creations Unlimited, Ben Franklin stores, Fisher Hawaii, Flora Dec,Craft Supply and selected Longs Drugs stores. Many scrapbooking stores also offer specialized classes to teach scrapbooking techniques as well.

In addition to the retail stores, there are also several representatives who act as the “feet” for various scrapbooking supply manufacturers, giving private classes and introducing people to the many ways to use a company’s products.

Julie Oana, a full-time dental assistant and mother of three, started scrapbooking four years ago. She stumbled upon the Creative Memories line of products and liked how easy it made her scrapbooking, so she became a consultant for the company two years ago.

Now Oana, whose children Punahele, 10, Kumuko‘a, 8, and Liloa, 6, all love to scrapbook themselves, teaches private classes to adults and keiki for a nominal fee of $5 to $10.

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