By David Gewirtz
I'll be the first to admit that I don't fully understand the lure of scrapbooking. To me, that's something that we did back in elementary school and then we moved on. But while I may enjoy spending my copious free time playing World of Warcraft, others seem totally addicted to scrapbooking. Recently, we've had more and more readers request increased coverage of scrapbooking in Connected Photographer.
According to Creating Keepsakes Magazine (who, admittedly, might have a vested interest in showing big numbers), the 2004 SIA survey estimates annual scrapbooking industry sales at $2.551 billion, representing a 27.8 percent increase from 2001. They also say:
- There are 4.4 million new scrapbooking households since 2001, for a total of over 26 million households and 32.1 million scrapbookers. That's almost ten times the number of people playing World of Warcraft, which makes this big.
- Spending on scrapbooking supplies by households that scrapbook has increased 6.3 percent to $96.76 annually since 2001.
- Almost one in four, or 24.5 percent of U.S. households, participate in the hobby of scrapbooking, with Western states showing the most households involved in the hobby (between 26--31 percent of households).
With numbers like these, we figured an article was in order. In fact, it seemed to make the most sense for us to kick off our coverage of this topic with a Site of the Month that itself seems to have many resources for scrapbookers.
That's why this month's Site of the Month is ScrapJazz's digital scrapbooking directory, at (http://www.scrapjazz.com/links/Computer_Resources/Digital_Scrapbooking/) and shown in Figure A.
FIGURE A
Once you get past the ads, there are many useful links. (click for larger image)
If you're interested in scrapbooking, you might also know that there's a sub-category of this hobby dedicated to building scrapbooks digitally, using some of the photo-related tools we've all come to know and love.
What we liked about this site is we found a links directory of 121 digital scrapbooking-related sites and Web pages. Now, not all of them are great resources (and the first six links were ads), but there were enough gems in the list to make Scrapjazz.com work bookmarking. And that's why they're the lucky recipient of Connected Photographer's Site of the Month award.
If you're a scrapbooking fan and would like to write for Connected Photographer about digital scrapbooking, send an email to editor@ZATZ.com. For this topic, we definitely need the contribution of some of you experts out there.
Product availability and resources
For more information on Creating Keepsakes Magazine, visit http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com.
For more information on Scrapjazz, visit http://www.scrapjazz.com/links/Computer_Resources/Digital_Scrapbooking.
Your site can earn this special banner
Do you know a great site, one that offers great resources for photographers? If so, that site may be eligible for consideration as the Connected Photographer Site of the Month. If chosen, the recipient will even be entitled to display the lovely banner shown in Figure B.
FIGURE B
Is your site impressive enough to be the Connected Photographer Site of the Month? (click for larger image)
If you'd like your site to be considered for Connected Photographer Site of the Month, send email to editor@ZATZ.com. Please specify "CONNECTED PHOTOGRAPHER SITE-OF-MONTH" in the subject field of your email.
