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Scrapbooking is an increasingly popular craft, but for Joy McPhail and Nicole Brittain, it has also become a profitable business. Kieren Charteris reports.

The women talk easily as they work; soft voices and laughter float above the busy rhythm of agile fingers; eyes rise and meet in time with the gentle swell of conversation before returning intent once more to the task at hand. The room is warm with sisterly camaraderie and shared purpose.

It could be a scene from a medieval palace or Victorian parlour; the workers weaving a tapestry or embroidering a piece of needlework. But instead of a shuttle and loom or needle and thread, these women are working with high-quality paper and scissors, pretty ribbon and fabric and, most importantly, treasured photographs. They’re attending a scrapbooking class in the village of Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne.

“It’s a very social craft,” explains Joy McPhail, co-owner of Simply Scrapbooking, the venue for tonight’s class. “We have 10 to 12 women around the table here most nights for classes with our scrapbooking teachers. It’s great fun. We turn up the music, exchange ideas, share a laugh and drink coffee all night. You see people’s photographs and hear their stories so you get to know them pretty well. Sometimes it can be very therapeutic; we’ve had more than one class where we’ve needed a box of tissues in the middle of the table.”

Her business partner Nicole Brittain believes the storytelling component of scrapbooking is another important factor in its meteoric rise in popularity. “One of the reasons it appealed to me – and I think many others feel the same – is that scrapbooking is more than just putting photographs in a pretty album,” she says. “It’s telling a story; your life and your family’s. That’s what motivated me to start, to make sure I recorded precious moments for my children and grandchildren before they’re all just distant memories.”

While most ‘scrappers’ are female, the pair have noticed an increase in the number of boys using scrapbooking for school projects and year books, as well as older men using it for archiving genealogy information and war memorabilia.

“It’s the fastest growing craft in Australia today, with its own specialist shops, magazines and online groups,” says Nicole. “Even mainstream retailers such as Kmart, Target and Lincraft are allocating floor space in their outlets for scrapbooking. It’s huge!”

Joy says most new scrapbookers are prompted to start documenting their memories by passing one of life’s milestones – a new baby, a 21st birthday, getting married, becoming a grandparent, or experiencing the death of a loved one. “They’re going through some pretty major emotions – joy, sorrow, love or heartache – and those really come through in their pages.”

“We often ask people to come back in to show us their finished work and they are always more than happy to share their albums with us,” Nicole adds. “We form quite strong bonds with our customers... and we consider all of them friends.”

It’s not surprising that friendship is a happy side-effect of the business when you consider it was founded on friendship; that of Joy and Nicole. The pair met six years ago when Joy’s younger son Nathan and Nicole’s daughter Tahli were both three. (Joy and her husband Mark also have an 11-year-old son, Declan, and Nicole and her husband Grant have an eight-year-old boy named Cade.) “I first met Joy at playgroup and then we started playing netball together,” Nicole recalls. “It wasn’t long before we discovered a joint passion for gardening and we started trawling the local plant markets together.” Nicole introduced Joy, Mark and their boys to her husband and children and soon the families were firm friends, alternating school runs, sharing holidays and enjoying weekend barbecues together.

Joy also introduced Nicole to her favourite pastime – scrapbooking – and her friend quickly became hooked on the hobby.  But there was a problem – scrapbooking supplies were scarce in their area. “There was nothing at all really,” Joy recalls. “The closest shop to Eltham was over 35 minutes away and it didn’t really stock the products we were after.”

The solution seemed obvious – open their own scrapbooking outlet. Both had time on their hands with the children at school and their husbands both ran their own businesses, allowing a certain amount of financial security. Simply Scrapbooking began trading from Nicole’s living room in October 2003.

 “We basically set up the shop to suit ourselves and our needs,” Nicole laughs. “We thought, ‘What would be the worst-case scenario? No-one would come and we’d spend 12 months doing our favourite hobby; how bad could that be?’ But as it turns out, we’ve hardly had any time to scrap ourselves since then!”

“Looking back, we were kidding ourselves thinking we could contain the business to a room in someone’s house,” Joy continues. “Once word got out, we were just inundated with enquiries. We knew almost immediately that we would need a larger space, but it took a while to find the right place.”

In the end, a chance drive past a small factory for lease in Eltham solved their dilemma, but then came the difficult task of turning the nondescript interior into a bright, welcoming retail space and comfortable venue for classes. “We had a month of working bees before it was suitable for us to move in. Our husbands were amazing; they fitted all this out for us,” says Nicole, gesturing to the shop counter and floor-to-ceiling shelving stacked with reams of paper every colour of the rainbow and then some.

The hard yakka paid off though; today, Simply Scrapbooking has grown to support a staff of four part-time sales assistants and a total of nine additional teachers. Joy is in charge of sourcing and ordering stock and balancing the books, while Nicole manages staff rosters, writes the monthly newsletter and oversees the evening classes. “We’re a good team; our skills complement each other well,” Joy says. “And, because we’re involved with different aspects of the business, we’ve never had any problems with it getting in the way of our friendship. Although we’d never let that happen anyway.”

This holistic approach to doing business also extends to their customers. “Sales aren’t the top priority for us; customer satisfaction is,” explains Nicole. “We’ll talk someone out of buying something if we don’t think it will fit their needs.”

“A lot of first-timers are a little unsure of their ability,” she continues. “They’ll often ask us if we like what they’re doing. But our question to them is, ‘Do you like it?’ It’s a very personal thing. Once they know there’s no right or wrong, they tend to relax.”

Simply Scrapbooking’s customer numbers have doubled over the past two years, and with the loyal support they clearly enjoy, expansion might seem the obvious next step. However Joy and Nicole are taking a cautious approach. “We’ve considered expanding to a larger showroom but that’s on the back burner... A move like that comes with significantly greater costs and our focus would have to change,” Nicole explains.

“What we are looking at doing more of is our scrapbooking events and weekends,” Joy adds. “They’re a chance for forty or so like-minded women to spend a couple of days in luxurious accommodation and just scrap until they drop! Our first weekend, at the Yarra Valley Grange, sold out in 15 minutes – we had women in here crying because they didn’t get a place. Needless to say, we had no problem filling two further get-aways and we’re already planning our next one.”

Ironically, the pair’s efforts to provide women with a rewarding hobby and a network of friends with whom to practise it have left them with very little time for themselves. “You wouldn’t work these hours for someone else but we work around our families – they’re always coming down here and ‘helping out’,” Nicole smiles. “And I like that my daughter can see it’s possible to have a family and a career... It’s our passion as well as our business.” 

All about scrapbooking

• Scrapbooks have long been used as a way to record personal histories, and as a form of artistic expression. The earliest known reference to scrapbooking dates back more than four centuries, to 1598.
• The term ‘scrapbook’ comes from the brightly coloured paper called ‘scrap’ that originally filled albums. Early scrapbooks were collections of brilliantly hued scraps of paper items, such as advertising cards or greeting cards, arranged by subject or type of material and referred to as ‘common-place books’ or ‘friendship albums’.
• Modern scrapbooking is documented to have started in 1980, when Marielen Christensen shared her 50 volumes of memory books with the crowds at the World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City.

Reaction was so overwhelming that Marielen and her husband decided to write a book detailing how to scrapbook, as well as opening a retail store (take a look at www.scrapbooks.com).

• Today, scrapbooking is the art of creatively showcasing photos and memorabilia in albums using acid- and lignin-free paper products, adhesives and techniques (this stops photos from ageing). Pages are embellished with stamping, stickers, die-cuts, artwork and journaling.
• For scrapbooking stores in other areas, check out your local Yellow Pages. There are also many websites that sell a great range of scrapbooking products and offer inspirational ideas for layouts.

Where are they?
19 Brougham St, Eltham; phone (03) 9431 3959; or go to www.simplyscrapbooking.com.au.

Words: Kieren Charteris. Photography: Andrew Lehmann. Styling: Kim Ellmer. Hair & make-up: Ruth Sebire.