Scrapbook industry woos male crafters

With an armful of keepsake photos, $300 worth of colored paper and a leather album, a would-be scrapbooker recently headed to a Friday night class hoping for practical tips on assembling a memory book.

But once Stephen Webb stepped into the "crop party" at a store in Savannah, Ga., his courage faltered. "It's all these young soccer moms sitting around, giggling," says the 27-year-old firefighter in Atlanta. All he wanted was to organize five baskets of baby photos, shots of him playing for his state championship high-school football team and snaps of his life at Station 8. He spent the next two hours sitting with 15 women at long tables overflowing with frilly paper, packages of ornate stickers and neat piles of photos. "It was just really awkward," he says.

The $2.6 billion scrapbook industry is undertaking a delicate PR campaign. For the past 15 years, it has enjoyed a dot-com-style boom by selling sparkly paper, flowery stickers and cheery albums to scrapbookers — predominantly women — who turn piles of memorabilia into one-of-a-kind books about babies, weddings or the family vacation. But with sales tailing off, the industry has a new plan: Get a few of the nation's 138 million men to pick up a pair of zigzag scissors.

This year, Utah-based direct-seller Stampin' Up rolled out scrapbook goods aimed at men, including papers that look like rusty tractors and weathered barn doors and $17 stamp sets of lifelike deer and war medals. David Palmer, a Seattle consultant for scrapbook heavyweight Creative Memories, organizes scrapbooking events for single fathers and a few years ago started selling his $89 die-cutting scrapbook tools at home-improvement conventions. Even the sister of Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. created a line of macho merchandise, called Speed Scrap Design, in 2004. Supplies range from a $2.49 pack of lug-nut stickers to papers dotted with wrenches, checkered flags or mugs of foaming beer.

The marketing push is finding a few takers. Just over 1 million men made scrapbooks in their spare time last year, according to the Craft & Hobby Association. (It doesn't have historical figures; until last year, the 66-year-old trade group didn't "see the point" of polling for male scrapbookers.) The hobby also boasts some famous fans: Media executive Frank Biondi and movie star Brendan Fraser have display shelves for their custom-assembled, $3,500 brag books. Biondi has at least 15 scrapbooks about his life; Fraser has albums chronicling each of his films, like "The Mummy" and "George of the Jungle."