History Of Scrapbooking: How It All Began!

Have you ever wondered about scrapbooking history? After all, scrapbooking ranks as one of the top hobbies enjoyed by men and women of all ages.

In fact, over four million adults are scrapbookers! Has scrapbooking been around for a couple of decades or dozens of decades? Actually, scrapbooking has been around for quite some time. The form of scrapbooking has changed over the years, but the history of scrapbooking begins in the 15th century.

According to scrapbooking history, people wanted a way to preserve "scraps" that were important to them. Scraps included love letters, greeting cards, business cards, poems and other paper items of importance or sentimental value. Interestingly, embellishments were added to the pages. Ornate designed paper would be cut into small shapes and glued to the pages.

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Scrapbooking history has its roots in England. In the 15th century, commonplace books and the friendship album became popular. Letters, poems, recipes, scrapbook quotes and similar items were kept in the commonplace books.

Friendship albums were typically used when company was invited to a home. The company would be asked to sign the album and to include something personal. Some people included a quote, a poem or their thoughts about the homeowners. Others drew pictures.

Over time, scrapbooking history included preserving black and white photos and newspaper clippings. To house these mementos, scrapbooking albums were invented. Many of these albums were large and bulky.

During the mid-1800s, leather bound albums were manufactured and quite often contained themes. Some albums contained corner pockets to hold photos and even had pages for water coloring or drawing.

In the late-1800s, Mark Twain capitalized on the scrapbooking idea and invented the Mark Twain's Adhesive Scrapbook. The book contained pre-pasted pages that made putting an album together super easy to do.

People still collected and saved their photos, letters, greeting cards, and such, but they were kept in boxes and stored in a dry area. For those who wanted to keep their scraps in an album, it was difficult to find a store that carried the albums.

Later, as the world of photography began to expand, scrapbooking took another hit. People were eager to purchase photo albums and spent less time on scrapbooking albums. In fact, some people tossed out their filled scrapbooking albums because they felt the albums were inferior to the photo album.

Although modern scrapbooking still includes photos, love letters, newspaper clippings, etc., how the items are displayed has changed. Scrapbookers can now choose from a wide variety of scrapbooking albums. Layouts now include backgrounds, matted photos, and interesting embellishments. Pride is taken in designing each page. Scrapbook albums are made with the intent of sharing their contents with other people, rather than keeping the information private.

What was once considered to be an individual hobby has turned into a social hobby. Some scrapbooking companies encourage parties as a way to promote their products.

Scrapbooking groups, formal and informal, have popped up all over the United States. For the truly committed scrapbookers, there are scrapbook cruises and retreats readily available!

Today, scrapbooking history also includes the impact that the internet has on this popular hobby. Now, scrapbooking materials are accessible worldwide.

There are numerous scrapbooking websites, many of which offer compilations of layouts. Recently we have released our scrapbook sketches book which is available on this site.

Within seconds, scrapbookers can find answers to their scrapbooking questions or can order supplies online. Scrapbookers also have the choice of scrapbooking by hand or digitally.

Walk into most any craft store and you'll find a good selection of scrapbooking supplies. Large retail stores typically have a scrapbook section as well.

Scrapbooking has certainly become a multi-billion dollar business. Now with the availability of ordering supplies via the internet, some of the individual small scrapbooking stores have closed.

However, the hobby of scrapbooking continues to grow and the scrapbooking sections in craft sores have increased.

Your next step now is to learn how to scrapbook and read through some good scrapbook tips.

It will be interesting to see what impacts scrapbooking history during the next couple of decades!

Click here to be part of history and begin creating enchanting scrapbook pages with these scrapbooking ideas!

Topic: Scrapbooking History