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Or the fact the I can learn from pros like Vicki Boutin or Paige Evans from the comfort of my craft room. We now have so much inspiration right at our fingertips, not to mention the amazing online community.Īnd don’t get me started on the amazing YouTube creators. Now we know what a great thing Facebook has been for us who have stuck with scrapbooking and paper crafting. The online, digital sharing world appealed to many-particularly those on the fence about scrapbooking. It became so easy to share pictures online with friends and family that some put scrapbooking to the wayside in favour of social media. In only a few short years, Facebook was a household name. During a time when the popularity of scrapbooking was at an all-time high, the website that would soon become part of everyone’s lives came into being. You still get to be creative but without having to store supplies or needing a dedicated space.Īnd we cannot forget what happened in 2004.No longer having to buy traditional scrapbooking supplies,.Many saw this as a great way memory keep, with the added bonus of …
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In the early 2000s, digital scrapbooking started to gain popularity. And I happily look back at this period of my life with great fondness. I loved having a store, but in a small town, it just wasn’t feasible.
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It was hard to keep bringing in the latest products while clearing old stock and managing the high overhead costs.Īlas, we were only one of many that had to close their doors.ĭon’t get me wrong. It was so fun to hang out with like-minded people and get to be creative every day.Įven at its peak, it wasn’t sustainable. I owned a local scrapbooking store, and I loved it. You had to sell a lot of cardstock to pay the rent.ģ) Needing lot’s of inventory, then having to keep up with the latest and hottest releases. And how can a small local business compete with forty percent off coupons?Ģ) High overhead costs, staffing costs, and then selling products at a low price point. These stores can easily sell the same products for less simply because of their discounts when ordering the huge quantities they need to fill their stores. Besides the economic recession that affected so many, the stores were struggling because:ġ) It wasn’t easy to compete with big-box stores like Wal-Mart, Michaels, Joannes, and Hobby Lobby for one. Why is that? Well, in my opinion, there is a couple of reasons the stores had to close. Local scrapbooking stores are much harder to find nowadays, compared to even ten years ago. Unfortunately, many went away from scrapbooking after feeling the loss of the community and camaraderie that they loved so dearly. It was a flourishing community that women (and some men) depended on for a creative and social outlet. But the biggest hit to scrapbooking would come in the aftermath of this all. Together these (and a couple more) factors resulted in the decline of an industry that so many people loved. In turn, many scrappers decided this was a good time for them to give digital scrapbooking a try. Without the local stores, there was hardly anyone left planning workshops and retreats. As these stores closed up shop, many scrappers bought up as much as possible from these closing stores-resulting in many people having more supplies than they could ever use in a lifetime. This (and a few other reasons) caused a wave of local scrapbooking stores to close their doors, which was a huge factor in the decline of scrapbooking in so many communities. Scrapbooking and other hobbies were some of the first expenses to be cut from people’s budgets. This was a tough time, and many people were struggling. Unfortunately, around 2008 the economy in the United States and Canada wasn’t so great. For example, the value of the industry had dropped to 1.5 billion in 2013.Ī quick search in Google Trends shows the decline in searches for the terms “scrapbooking”, “scrapbooks” and “paper crafts” in the United States from 2004 to 2021. It quickly dropped in popularity over the next few years. The scrapbooking industry was at its peak in 2004 at 2.5 billion dollars.