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Selling Scrapbooks

Is Selling Scrapbooks a Viable Craft Business?

Thank you for your website. It has been very useful.

I am a scrapper and would love to make some money out of my hobby.

Do you know anything about selling scrap books, or do you know anyone who does?

Thank you.

Leah

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Sure do. Go to the Search Box and type in “custom scrapbooks”.

When you press the Search button, you will get a list all of the “hits” found. When I did this, I got 410,000!

Don’t be discouraged by that. After the first couple of pages, most of the hits will be only tangentially related.

For example, you may find directories of scrapbooking sites, articles on how to scrapbook and listings for scrapbook supplies.

Take some time to browse around the more promising-looking sites and you’ll see how some fellow scrappers have turned their passion into a web-based business. This should get your creative juices flowing.

I have a couple of additional suggestions.

If you haven’t read our For Profit section yet, take the time to do so – now that you’ve seen one way scrapbook artists can build a profitable business.

I hope you will see that there are multiple points of entry to building a home-based craft business.

Just brainstorming – here are the ideas that pop into my mind.

• 1. Solicit custom scrapbook jobs – Do you have friends who keep their precious photos in shoeboxes and keep vowing to “put them into a scrapbook ‘someday’”? Do you have business cards (If not, why not?!) that you can hand out to anyone you meet who is planning a wedding, baptism, bar/bat mitzvah, milestone birthday/anniversary party, or family reunion? Do you know anyone or any store which caters to this market: bridal shops, event planners, reception halls, photographers? Get your cards out there and see what comes back.
• 2. Have you considered other types of scrapbook art? Scrap art has gone so far beyond simply scrapbooks that you may be missing the boat if you haven’t thought about the following:
  a. Heritage art – beautifully framed collages of a family’s heritage, usually containing vintage photos;
  b. Altered Art – art that applies scrapbook techniques to objects such as paint buckets, tin or wooden boxes, recycled CDs, vintage books;
  c. Greeting Cards and Tag Books – employing scrapbook artists’ techniques.
  d. Shadow Boxes – these are enjoying a resurgence of popularity. I personally think that scrapbook artists could take shadow box art to a new level. One of the limitations of scrapbook art is its (almost) two-dimensionality. I would love to see what some of our scrapbook artists could do with the three-dimensional space of a shadow box.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you subscribe to a couple of scrapbook magazines. They are always chock full of great paper craft ideas. My favorite paper craft magazines are: Creating Keepsakes; Paper Crafts Magazine ; Giftmaker, formerly PaperWorks ; and CardMaker .

If you read between the lines, you’ll see other opportunities to profit from your art. Notice who writes the articles and submits pages for publication. They were once scrappers for fun like you. Now they’re selling articles, winning contests, giving classes locally and at national conventions.

Here are more articles on scrapbooking.

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Recommended Reading

These books are excellent resources for scrapbookers. They contain lots of new and original designs and ideas.

Outstanding Scrapbook Pages: 250 Of the Best Pages and Techniques from the World's #1 Scrapbooking Magazine Kerry Arquette

Special-Effects Scrapbooking: Creative Techniques for Scrapbookers at All Levels (Crafts Highlights) By: Jill Miller

Creative Memories : The 10 Timeless Principles Behind the Company that Pioneered the Scrapbooking Industry By: Cheryl Lightle

Scrapbooking Your Family History
By: Maureen Taylor

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