The new crop of scrapbookers

By Charlie Amter

April 6, 2006 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

IT’S 10 on a rainy February night in Burbank, and 18-year-old Ali Nunley is eschewing the high school party scene in favor of spending her Friday night with a group of women inside a closed crafts store.

Nunley’s parents haven’t grounded her; rather, she is here willingly to feed her growing addiction to her latest hobby, scrapbooking.

“I just think it’s cool,” she says as she delicately places a photo of her and friends on a recent outing to Knott’s Berry Farm into an elaborately designed montage deep inside her thick scrapbook.

Nunley is with 20 other women, ranging in age from 18 to 60, sitting at a 25-foot-long table at the scrapbooking store Once Upon a Page, joining in what’s known as a “crop.” The store’s weekly “Friday Night Croppin’ Frenzies,” with participants sometimes dressing in pajamas, typically attract at least 15 women from 5 p.m. until midnight, all there simply to swap tips and work on books full of personal photos and artistic embellishments.

Like thousands of women all over the U.S., Nunley’s propensity to spend disposable income on stylish 12-by-12-inch hardcover scrapbooks, and trappings such as expensive stickers, raised lettering and glue-on sequins, has become nothing short of an obsession.

In an age when many young women document every second of their social lives with digital cameras, some members of Generation Y are taking their growing collections back to the decidedly analog world of the photo album. Fans of scrapbooking favor personalizing them with exotic textured paper, felt stickers and dimensional effects such as ribbons -- a tactile approach to preserving memories that runs contrary to the immediate gratification of digital recorders, computer slide shows and camera phones.

Although the hobby is certainly not new, scrapbooking is burgeoning across several demographics thanks in part to increased exposure on cable networks and advances in digital photography and printing, not to mention increased marketing muscle from the likes of Martha Stewart, who has decided to join the fray.

“We’re entering the world of crafts, which is a $30-billion-a-year industry, and scrapbooking ... is a very large area that will soon surpass $3 billion,” Stewart says via speakerphone in a car on her way to a meeting in Manhattan. The lifestyle guru in January announced her partnership with New Jersey-based scrapbooking giant EK Success for a branded line of products set to hit stores nationwide early next year.

Among her target consumers are devotees such as Lori Serber, a 44-year-old mother of two from Los Angeles. She fits the profile of the scrapbook enthusiast -- a 2004 survey commissioned by Creating Keepsakes magazine put almost one-fifth of scrapbookers in the 40-to-49 age bracket.

“Old photo albums weren’t meant to last -- the new paper and albums are all meant to last hundreds of years,” says Serber, who estimates that she spends “maybe $150 a month” on paper and ephemera for her books. “It’s more fun to buy the supplies than to actually make the pages sometimes ... [but] it’s a creative outlet for me.”

‘It’s a social thing’

Stewart’s entry into the scrapbooking market will be anything but easy -- she will face stiff competition for precious aisle space from companies already near and dear to the hearts of devotees.

One such company, Huntington Beach-based Creative Imaginations, is doing booming business nationwide, with sales exceeding $18 million per year.

Since 1997, Jack Behlmer, Creative Imaginations’ CEO, has been riding the wave of growing demand for his products such as stickers, designer paper and special metal embellishments. “Scrapbooking is the fastest-growing craft in the world,” he asserts. “We sell to Australia, Norway, New Zealand and Japan -- demand continues to grow.”

Behlmer, who oversees a staff of around 20 at his warehouse-office facility, fell into the business after he noticed his ex-wife was spending an inordinate amount of time cutting paper as part of a home-based selling enterprise called Creative Memories with other women at house parties in the mid- to late 1990s.

“I saw what she was doing and I thought it was interesting because it was more than just creating a scrapbook, it was a whole social phenomenon of women getting together, eating chocolate and bashing their husbands,” he says. “It’s a social thing -- that’s why I think there’s a lot of life in this industry.”

Indeed, scrapbooking, like other hobbies before it (knitting and quilting), is as much about sharing and socializing as it is a solo pastime.

“The No. 1 reason most of our readers scrapbook is to preserve their memories ... but a growing number of women are using scrapbooking to make new friends and network,” says Tracy White, editor of the craft’s bible, Creating Keepsakes.

“People like Leeza Gibbons, who has become pretty passionate about the hobby, have really helped bring a lot of new people into scrapbooking.”

If Creating Keepsakes is the craft’s bible, then former “Entertainment Tonight” co-host and current “Leeza Live” radio host Gibbons is its patron saint.

“The best advice I have for aspiring scrapbookers is just to get started,” Gibbons says. “There are no rules, you can’t be wrong, it’s your story and you can claim it and express it in whatever way you want.”

Gibbons jumped into the scrapbooking world in 2002 after she founded the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, a charity helping Alzheimer’s patients. In 2003, under the name Leeza Gibbons Legacies, she started selling branded products to boutiques such as Once Upon a Page to raise money for her charity.

“When my mother’s memory began to fade, I became aware of how important memories are and my desire to finish her story and create a legacy for my kids,” she says.

Crafting an artistic theme page based on a precious family photo can be therapeutic, Gibbons says. She helps run four care centers nationwide for memory disorder patients. Each center is called Leeza’s Place, and two are slated to open in the L.A. area by the end of this month. Scrapbooking at the centers, she says, is a cornerstone activity for both the afflicted and the families.

“Because Alzheimer’s is such a negative word, we knew that it would be so much more acceptable for people to say, ‘Let’s drop by Leeza’s Place, have some coffee and make some scrapbooks,’ ” she says. “That way, the whole family, including the diagnosed individual, can feel comfortable.”

Not that the hobby is only for those losing their memories and hoping to reclaim past glory; Gibbons and friends such as Camryn Manheim and Oprah Winfrey are avid scrapbookers.

“It’s a whole lot of fun and I’m not even crafty,” Gibbons says with a laugh. “I will never be one of those women for whom it just comes easily, but I do truly love it and I try to turn people on to scrapbooking because it’s just a cool thing.”

Tween attraction

While the jury is still out on just how “cool” scrapbooking is in the eyes off the all-important “tween” demographic so desirable to advertisers, signs point to the craft catching on with young women nationwide.

“We are seeing growth in the market [aimed at] younger girls,” Behlmer says, “especially with event-driven scrapbooks like sleepovers, proms, bat mitzvahs.”

The event-driven scrapbook has even given local scrapbookers such as Beverly Hills-based Amy Phillips a source of income to help with her love of the craft. Phillips, who runs her own company, the Photo Fairy, has created custom scrapbooks for actors such as George Lopez and Jane Kaczmarek. “I used to have a ‘real’ job in the entertainment industry and I wanted to create a business where I could spend more time at home with my family,” she says.

“Everybody has a box of photos that they would love to do something with, and I saw that there was a need to help people get those photos out of cluttered closets and get them into books.”

Phillips’ lignin-free scrapbooks, bursting with colors and embellishments, are eye-catching and textured to the nines -- a far cry from the bland photo albums of the 1980s and early 1990s (which invariably end up rotting away in the attic thanks to acids and chemicals in the magnetic paper that tend to destroy 3-by-5s over time).

The 47-year-old says she “works consistently,” making scrapbooks for other people.

“I try to support local scrapbook stores like Scrap Session or Once Upon a Page,” she says about her buying sprees for herself and clients, adding that she spends hundreds of dollars a season on supplies.

“Neighborhood young mothers are our bread and butter,” says Linda Cherry Bullock, owner of the Westside supply boutique Scrap Session. But she too has noticed the demographics of the trend skewing younger. “A lot of UCLA students also are now coming into my store.”

Mike Hartnett, publisher of trade newsletter Craft & Leisure News, says that although scrapbooking might be at or near its peak for small retail outlets, there is still room for growth.

“I do think scrapbooking has peaked within the traditional industry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that consumer interest has peaked,” he says. “Scrapbooking has spread out to almost every kind of retail store -- drugstores, stationery stores, office supply stores.”

One demographic that has yet to catch onto the craze in any measurable way are men.

“Scrapbooking is still largely a women’s game,” says White, whose Salt Lake City-based Creating Keepsakes magazine found, in its survey, that none of the 20,000-plus respondents identified themselves as male.

“Men are still the exception,” she says. “When I refer to our readership, it’s women.”

But future players in the scrapbooking world like Stewart see an opportunity to lure more men into making compelling scrapbooks.

“Any man in the advertising word is a scrapbooker, any guy involved in graphic arts is a crafter ... there’s a big market there,” Stewart asserts. “I went on a fishing trip with a bunch of men recently and one of them sent me one of the most beautiful scrapbooks I’ve ever seen.”

Bullock agrees: “I have guys that do books for their girlfriends.”

Whether men start heading to the scrapbooking aisle at Target remains irrelevant for now to those making millions in the industry just off of the fairer sex.

Stewart hints she will use her syndicated TV show as a platform in 2007 to show viewers how fun the hobby is for everyone.

“We’re going to be really clear with how to download pictures, how to print them out and showing people how to make multiple smaller scrapbooks so you can hand them out to your family at reunions,” she says. “It’s about preserving memories.”

Charlie Amter may be reached at weekend@latimes.com.

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Stocking up

Scrapbooking shelves are bursting with supplies at major stores such as Michael’s and Jo-Ann Stores, as well as these independent stores, some of which host “crop” parties:

A-Z Scrapbooking, 4651 Torrance Blvd., Torrance. (310) 792-5320

Collective Journey, 1755 Orange Tree Lane, Redlands. (909) 793-2200

The Crop Circle, 6249 W. 87th St., Westchester. (310) 641-8000

Flavor & Flair, 3808 Main St., Culver City. (310) 202-6567

From the Heart, 143-A Harvard Ave., Claremont. (909) 626-3479

Once Upon a Memory, 19060 Brookhurst St., Huntington Beach. (714) 965-0088

Once Upon a Page, 2800 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank. (818) 846-8910

Scrapbook Safari, 6100 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills. (818) 227-9704

Scrapper’s Corner, 9301 Tampa Ave., Northridge. (818) 349-4969

Scrappin’ Good Times, 564 W. Arrow Highway, San Dimas. (909) 305-0748

Scrappin’ in the Hills, 5773 E. Santa Ana Canyon Road, Suite J, Anaheim Hills. (714) 998-8855

Scrap Session, 10524 W. Pico Blvd., Suite 210, L.A. (310) 204-3883