Scrapbook Insider: Beloved Draper craft store will soon be only a memory

    Jorjana Brown is closing her All My Memories scrapbook store in Draper, just as the country begins to ease toward a leisure economy.
    As baby boomers trade their Blackberries for Hush Puppies, they'll have more time and money to spend on hobbies and recreation. So you'll have to pardon Brown - who is poised to profit from the demographic shift - if she's not eager join them.
    But Brown, like the rest of us, is still living in the Bush economy, and her landlord is raising the rent and demanding a five-year commitment.
    "I'm tired of putting my house on the line for a lease," she says.
    So after 13 years of building a brand in Colorado and Utah, and fueling the obsession behind a $2.6 billion-a-year industry, Brown is about to have a lot more time to scrapbook.
    "I've been sick all month. I never get sick. All I can figure out is that I'm just so sad," says Brown.
    It's a big crowd.
    Each time I visited AMM, I felt like Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka's Fudge Room. I gorged on Rusty Pickles and Wild Asparagus, traveled down Scenic Routes, cavorted with 7Gypsies, and basked in Autumn Leaves and DaisyDs.
    It's not like the scrapbooking industry has a low attrition rate.
    Dozens of stores have come and gone in Utah, but most of them failed because their owners knew more about scrapbooking than bookkeeping.
    Brown was a different breed of businesswoman.
    At one time she managed four stores and a manufacturing business that grew into a global enterprise. When she closed the three stores in Colorado, it wasn't due to lack of profitability; she simply tired of commuting 500 miles, through Spanish Fork Canyon, at least once a month.
    It made sense in 2006 to sell the wholesale business to a man with ties to manufacturing plants in China. Within a year, she had liquidated the whole thing.
    Soon the Draper store will be empty, too, leaving behind legions of loyal scrapbookers and teachers who grew in sophistication and stature along with Brown's brand.
    "Jorjana was always trying to stay ahead of the trends and also wanted her teachers to do so," says designer Amber Packer. She frequently encounters designers who got their start teaching at AMM.
    Now Packer and others must look for other opportunities, and that won't be easy in a sluggish economy.
    Leisure activities are the first to get cut when the budget gets tight. And, as Amber points out, " there are large scrapbook product stashes in most homes and with a tighter budget, ladies can continue the craft they love without purchasing new products."
    Which brings us back to this concept of the leisure economy.
    Economist Linda Nazareth laid it all out in her book, The Leisure Economy: How Changing Demographics, Economics, and Generational Attitudes Will Reshape Our Lives and Our Industries.
    She estimates that by 2015, the demographic shift alone will catapult total leisure hours in the United States by 12 percent from their 2005 level. Leisure hours for those aged 55 to 64 will grow by 33 percent, and for those aged 65 and over, by 28 percent, she says. The gains will continue for another decade after that.
    That would seem to be good news for scrapbooking businesses. One problem: scrapbooking is a middle-class hobby, although the competitive creep in the industry threatens to change that.
    You see, the leisure economy isn't for everyone - just those who can afford it. And that number is dwindling by the day, thanks to a sorry health care system, the fragile state of Social Security and a mortgage crisis that took the American Dream and made it into a Wes Craven movie.
    If, as Nazareth predicts, the shift to a leisure economy results in a new category of haves and have nots, scrapbooking as we know it won't survive. Middle-class scrappers will have no choice but to start doing it on the cheap or give up the hobby altogether, and small retailers like AMM will become a rare breed indeed.
    If that's the case, Brown's landlord may have done her a favor. But try telling that to her 9-year-old grand-daughter.
    "When I told her we were closing, she just sobbed," Brown recalls. "She kept saying, 'But Mimi. I was trying so hard to get older so I could work in your store.' "
    scrapbooking@sltrib.com
   
    Workshop: The End of the World as We Know It
    Materials
    - Scenic Route: Capitol Hill (blush) Chipboard
    - Basic Grey: (Sugared) Paper, Stickers and Chipboard Shapes; Journal Block & Ornamental Flower Stamps and Large circle bookplate
    - Doodlebug: (Bon Bon) Crystal
   Layout design by: Amber Packer (www.bloominmemories.typepad.com)
   
    Packer was hired by All My Memories in March 2004 and started teaching in July 2004. She became the teacher lead in January 2007 and the face of AMM, appearing on "Good Things Utah" and "Studio 5." We asked Packer to reflect on AMM and the role it played in launching her design career.
    "Jorjana was always trying to stay ahead of the trends and also wanted her teachers to do so. It was almost four years ago that I proposed teaching wood letter classes. I had done some for my boys' rooms and wanted to teach them at the store. No one else taught classes like that and it was a little out of the box for some, but we worked through the kinks and the classes were very popular.
    "Through those classes, we learned there is a market for home decor projects using scrapbook supplies. A lot of ladies like the products, but not scrapbooking. It's also a way for them to hang out with their scrapbooking buddies without scrapbooking.
    "I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work at All My Memories. I have had opportunities through this association that I would not have had teaching at another store. Because of the wholesale division, people all over the country know the name All My Memories." One for the Money Use children's foam alphabet and puzzle pieces for stamping. They're much cheaper than brand name stamps and work great with acrylic paint.
   
    Products We Like:
    James Button and Trim, Beer & Pretzels Button Embellishments, $2
    EK Success, embroidered pennant stickers, $2.99
    Karen Foster Baseball Phrases stickers, $1.79
    Marcella by K Baseball Scrapbook Album, $19.99
    Karen Foster Design Baseball Periodical paper, 50 cents each
   
   Buy the Book
   Tantalizing Textures by Trudy Sigurdson (F+W Publications, $22.99)
    You'll find yourself scouring junk drawers and hardware aisles for scrapbooking materials after reading this book, the second design guide by Canadian scrapper Trudy Sigurdson. Whether it's funky fibers or lace, crackle paint or transparencies, Sigurdson provides plenty of inspiration for enlivening your scrapbook layouts and other projects. It even has step-by-step instructions on how to make your own paper.
   
    One for the Money
   Use children's foam alphabet and puzzle pieces for stamping. They're much cheaper than brand name stamps and work great with acrylic paint.