Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a popular hobby these days.   Just go to any crafts store and you’ll find aisles of materials available for making scrapbooks.   But this isn’t a new hobby by any means. It’s been around a long time – its roots were in journaling, but it quickly progressed to a means of collecting mementoes for friendship books, and then to saving photographs.   We’re reconnecting with scrapbooking because it connects us with the past, our own and the society at large.

The River Park sponsored a scrapbooking class at Sikes Adobe Historic Farmstead because it seemed apropos.   In the 1870s companies were beginning to mass-produce embossed paper for use in scrapbooking albums.   Ribbons, calling cards, hair lockets, colored scraps of wallpaper, tokens of affection – all these things were placed alongside photographs and pictures of birds and flowers and other favorite things to make personal scrapbooks reminiscent of coffee table books.   

Cara Gabbard led the scrapbooking class at Sikes, beginning with a short history of the hobby and fun anecdotes – did you know that Mark Twain channeled his Sunday scrapbooking addiction into the first commercial line of scrapbooks, earning over $50,000.00 dollars for his “Mark Twain’s Adhesive Scrapbook” with pre-pasted pages!   Gabbard also showed students the newest tools of the trade and instructed them in using acid and lignon free paper, important in preserving their photographs.


Scrapbooking Instructor Cara Gabbard

Today’s scrapbookers aren’t so different from the hobbyists of yesteryear.   Scrapbooking remains a personal craft and while the materials may be somewhat different, and the cameras may be a whole lot different, the goal is the same – to create lovely books of memories for pleasure, and ultimately for the ages.   We’ll be back in January, after the holidays, so be sure and take lots of pictures!   You’ll have another chance to learn about layout and design, and techniques and tools.   Come and enjoy!