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Thursday October 4, 2007

Niche company fills a need — and your scrapbook

by aron rivin
correspondent

Making a scrapbook used to be about taking photos, ticket stubs, hair clippings — anything sentimental, really — and sticking them inside a plastic sheet.

Now it can be a commercial endeavor, with elaborate designs that require specialized media such as acid-free paper, much of which comes already designed with layouts and illustrations appropriate for specific occasions — baptism, communion, Easter, Christmas ...

You see where this is going.

Until recently, Jews have had few options for forging material memories with the prefabricated layouts and templates available to scrapbook hobbyists.

“Whenever I would go to scrapbook our Jewish events, there was nothing on the market to make it special,” says Rachel Simon, co-founder of Shalom Scrapper, a Jewish scrapbook company.

Shalom Scrapper, which recently moved from Walnut Creek to Texas, papers and die cuts decorated with pastel menorahs, golden photographs of bagels and challah and monochromatic shofars — material to be used as backdrops in Jewish photo albums.

Traditionally a makeshift process, scrapbooking in the last 25 years has shifted toward professionally made templates and designs, where consumers order pages with pre-made motifs and apply their own photographs, notes and other memorabilia.

Historically, the industry has been dominated by Mormons — so it’s no wonder the religious motifs have been mostly Christian. The first scrapbook company began in Spanish Fork, Utah, amid a Mormon culture fascinated by family genealogies.

“But Jews are interested in family history as well,” Simon said.

One day while standing in a scrapbook store with her family, Simon decided to take it upon herself to provide Jewish scrapbookers with specifically Jewish designs.

Simon, who started Shalom Scrapper with her husband in November 2006, says they have already had a tremendous response. “Business has grown remarkably almost exclusively through word of mouth,” Simon said. “Some customers have been almost tearful upon finding the company,” she said.

Because the Internet allows such easy access to a national market already has a customer base across the United States. A good amount of business comes from southern and Midwest states not known for their Jewish populations.

“We never envisioned ourselves to be entrepreneurs,” Simon said. “It just struck us that there was a real gap for us to fill. We really feel if Jews have an ability to pass down their Jewish memories, and if children see their Jewish lives documented before them, they’ll be more likely to celebrate it and pass down their heritage.”

Shalom Scrapper and other Jewish scrapbook companies are broadening the originally narrow scope of material available to hobbyists, and in the process, building a new demographic.

With 32 million people involved in scrapbooking — that’s more than golf — there is no indication the industry is slowing down.

“We’re really very hopeful we’ll encourage more Jewish families to pass down their memories. It’s more than a business for us.”

To view its catalog and order paper and die-cuts, visit Shalom Scrapper online at www.shalomscrapper.com.

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