Scrap the Scissors

Computers help scrapbookers create cutting-edge pages

Jennifer Harr stumbled on to digital scrapbooking. She was at a bookstore looking for books to help her improve her digital photography skills and found Simple Scrapbooks' Digital 4 Scrapbooking. The magazine was what she was looking for.

With a new baby and an older child, she hadn't done any scrapbook pages for them and was frustrated because she felt behind, she said. But she had always loved computer graphics. Here was a way to catch up quickly and hone her digital photography skills, she said.

"I came across it, opened it up and couldn't believe it," says Harr of Durham, who has been doing traditional scrapbook-type projects, such as cardmaking, for about a half dozen years. "I have two young kids and can't get little itty bits of paper and sharp objects all spread out."

Now, when the kids want her attention, all she has to do is click "save" on her computer and her creations are stored away. No scissors for little hands to pick up or paper shreds to munch on.

Not too long ago, scrapbooking meant cutting out colored paper with special die-cut scissors, affixing a few photographs to a page and decorating it with cute stickers and ribbons. These days, a growing number of scrapbookers don't have the time to do it the traditional way. Like Harr, they have jumped on the New Age digital scrapwagon and are enjoying the ride. They are using computers to turn color photographs to black and white, to crop pictures and to create very cool-looking designs with colorful backgrounds and funky typography.

Some scrapbookers are using computers to create entire projects. Others are using it here and there. It's all part of the trend, says Christina Headrick, owner of Carolina Memories in Durham and former News & Observer reporter, who defines digital scrapbooking as any use of a computer to create an element on a page.

"It could be using your computer to print out journaling because you don't have a neat handwriting or printing out a large-size front for a title on your page. More than 50 percent of American families in 2005 printed their photos at home as opposed to taking them to a photo processing lab so that's a huge shift."

The advancement of picture-taking is indeed fueling the trend. Says Lynda Angelastro, special projects editor at Simple Scrapbooks, which is launching a new digital scrapbooking magazine early next year: "It's grown so much in the last little while, in part, because digital cameras are coming out with photo-editing software and because younger and younger consumers are much, much more comfortable with the computer than scrapbookers generally used to be."

Digital also offers other advantages: It's easier to take a laptop than one of those big, heavy black bags that scrapbookers often tote to crops -- a kind of modern day quilting bee where scrapbookers get together. It's reproducible. The albums can easily be copied and given to grandparents, children and friends, Angelastro says. And some applications can even be used to create scrapbooks that look like high-quality glossy books.

Growing hobby

Scrapbooking has blossomed in the past decade. Today, one in four U.S. households has a scrapbooker -- making it bigger than golf, according to Creating Keepsakes, which publishes a magazine, books and a Web site.

The Triangle is certainly representative of the trend. Crops are going on at local scrapbook stores, churches and homes across the area. The local Girl Scouts council two years ago created a special scrapbooking badge for girls to learn the craft. And Archiver's The Photo Memory Store, the largest chain for scrapbooking and preserving photos, is set to open Sept. 15 at Triangle Town Center. "We see it as a growing area," says Brian Olmstead, the company's senior vice president.