Maybe it is just me, a Jamerican living in the lonestar state of Texas but….. SCRAPbooking???????????????. What is that?..........Who does this?
Well, while cruising Ebay a few days ago I found out that Cricut was the #2 most popular searched for item there, which made me kind of curious, what exactly was a CRICUT?, was it a bird, an insect, a fish, what is a CRICUT?
At first I thought it was a typo, a miss spelling of Cricket or circuit, such a strange looking word, so missing a letter or two, sooo weird (I still think it is a weird incomplete word), yet ranked #2 on Ebay!!! How could this be I thought, so I decided to check it out.
Thus began my brief journey into the SCRAPBOOKING world, armed with my vague idea of what a Scrapbook was, bits and pieces of life’s special moments placed in a folder or binder in the form of photos, Magazine and Newspaper clippings, where the only tool or skill needed was mastery of a pair of scissors.
Back in the day a Scrapbook was a journal in pictures kept by teenage girls, mothers and grandmothers, not any more, those teenage girls are now moms. grannies and women with money to indulge their whims, fancies, and hobbies to the tune of $4 billion US greenbacks in 2009, so says Craft & Hobby Association (CHA).
According to the Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) about 35 percent (about 40 million) of the 113 million U.S. households scrapbook, rubber stamp or make cards and spent approximately $4 billion in 2009 on scrapbook, “Memory Craft” and other paper crafting products. (CHA Attitude and Usage Study – 12/31/2009).
Oh yeah it is a multi-billion dollar Industry of scrapping, lignin-free, acid free, scrapper, scraplifting, faithbooking, matting, eyelets, cropping and embellishments, a World of die cutting machines, dies, and cartridges, where CRICUT roam free, it being the latest break through in Personal Electronic Cutters for paper crafting.
Words from the wise at Google.com is, Scrapping is so popular that there are now well over 1.3 million scrapbook bloggers, thousands of scrapbooking events, and dozens of magazines dedicated to scrapbooking. Many of the major cruise lines now offer special scrapbooking cruises. Tens of thousands of people across the country participate in special scrapbooking parties and retreats, called “crops,” where they get together to “scrap,” socialize with friends and family, and create new memories.
Scrapbooking is part of the important repertoire of American crafts meeting the personal, social, and health needs of millions of people each year while fueling the multi-billion dollar scrapbook segment of the craft and hobby industry,
Yes Scrapbooking is now mainstream, and it is big, very big, some say it is bigger than golf in the USA, that is to say there are more Scrappers than Golfers, which is easy for me to believe.
There you have it SCRAPBOOKING is “big time” Business, fun and therapeutic to some, hobby to others and pretty interesting and eye opening to me.
To all you Scrappers who read here at the 29th America keep getting your Scrapping on and may the SCRAPbooking Force be with you.
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