Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking in its earliest form was a way to blend ephemera, memorabilia collections and journaling. People have been scrapbooking since printed material became available to the average person. Some of the earliest and most famous American scrapbookers include Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain.

As of August 2006, the commercial scrapbooking industry celebrated 25 years of existence, as started by Marielen (pronounced "Mary Ellen") W. Christensen of Keeping Memories Alive, the world's first scrapbooking store (which then had a different name), headquartered in Spanish Fork, Utah, USA, in 1981.

Scrapbooking as an industry has its roots in 1976, when Christensen began designing creative pages for her family's photo memories. She inserted her memory pages into a new product called sheet protectors and placed them inside 3-ring binders. By 1980, she had assembled over fifty volumes of family memories, and was invited that year to display her albums and demonstrate her concept at the World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City.

As scrapbooking became more well-known, people were searching for new, fresh ideas on how to preserve their own memories. As a result of many requests from customers, Marielen Christensen authored and published the first idea book for scrapbookers in March of 1995.

In 1996, Keeping Memories Alive made history again, as they launched the world's first commercial website for scrapbook supply sales.

In the United States, Scrapbooking as a hobby has taken off in recent years, possibly in part because of its first commercial website. Another reason may be the strong social network that scrapbooking can provide

In the late 1990s, many scrappers in the US opened stores to turn their hobby into a business. Within approximately 5 years, many of those stores were forced to close due to a downturn in the economy and the fact that many store owners mistakenly assumed that loving to scrap was enough to run a retail store

Originally, it was hard to find scrapbooking supplies, but now most major discount stores and almost all major craft supply stores in the United States stock them.