A Scrapbooker for Hire

Here’s an inspiring story from the National Post that is no longer available online:

According to scrapbooking business maven Sue DiFranco, there are big bucks to be made assembling scrapbooks for busy, stupid rich people.

Well, she doesn’t exactly put it that way, but on her Fun Facts Publishing Web site she explains that you can earn between $50 and $150 an hour scrapbooking, with virtually no set-up cost. Some people, she says, prefer to “hire out” their scrapbooking, much like they would pay professional organizers or house cleaners, rather than learn how to do it themselves.

If you’re wondering why anyone would need a professional to assemble a scrapbook, it’s time you woke up and smelled the rubber paste.

In middle-class homes, scrapbooks are the new measure of domestic adequacy. If you just stick your photos in chronological order in magnetic albums, well you might as well be leaving your children down at the laundromat while gambling away your afternoons. Any responsible mother wanting to hold her head high at the PTA should be spending at least $50 a month (some people spend $50 a day) and her spare hours (between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.) documenting, cropping, matting, embellishing, hole-punching and stamping little doodads all over the family scrapbook.

People who don’t have the time, money or “talent” to scrapbook are hiring others to do it for them — for thousands of dollars. Even if you’re talentless they’ll hire you, according to DiFranco. She advises, “Don’t question your own ‘scraptistic ability.’ Most clients actually prefer the look of simple layouts. And because they’re not scrapbookers themselves, they won’t be comparing your work to anyone else’s.”

Photo by kaylhew.

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