Scrapbooking Changed My Life: A 3 Year Reflection

Three years ago, in the Spring of 2003, I was in between contracts in the duck and dive world of broadcasting when I decided to open my own cardmaking and scrapbooking shop in Caerphilly, South Wales. Life hasn't been the same since.

It's unbelievable to think that scrapbooking had hardly been heard of in the UK at the time, even cardmaking was less popular. As I was so passionate about paper, I made it my mission to convert South Wales into paper loving crafters through my new business but at first it was really hard work!

I ran the first scrapbooking workshop in the whole of South Wales in September 2003. It was a whole day workshop where we made our own album and then completed our first page. Six brave crafters took the challenge that day and I am proud to say that all but one (who I have lost touch with, so I can't say for sure) have kept scrapbooking in their lives to this day.

I then spent the next six months trying to coax, cajole and bribe cardmaking customers into trying out scrapbooking, while the orginal small group continued to create their first and second albums. It was really hard work trying to get people to even try it and I would do demonstrations, try special incentives...all sorts of things to get them to give it a go!

I started writing for Scrapbook Craft Magazine (the first home-grown magazine to launch in the UK) in an attempt to raise the profile of scrapbooking locally. I had been a news editor in my former life, so it was lovely to write again except this time on my favourite subject! It started to work slowly but surely and each month we would get a few more brave souls sign up for a Beginners Scrapbooking workshop until in 2005, we had turned the corner and were taking workshop bookings for two or three months in advance.

My business developed further in 2005 to include a webshop www.crafty-ness.co.uk. I also started teaching and taking a mobile shop to regular crops in Newport and Bristol and to the Scrappers Unlimited Weekend Retreats around the country where I started to make a niche for myself do more artistic scrapbooking with an emphasis on creating page elements from raw materials. I also became a regular contributor for Creative Scrapbooking Magazine and even did a few stints of demonstrating on Ideal World's Create & Craft TV for one of my suppliers - now that was an experience!

So in three years, scrapbooking has changed my life. With my own shop and studio, teaching and spreading the word, writing and designing for the magazines and when I get a chance, doing the odd layout for my own album!

And I wouldn't have it any other way.