Martha Stewart Takes Up Scrapbooking

The Rolls Royce of Crafters has just upped the notch of this wonderful hobby, scrapbooking. Who decided she likes scrapbooking? It’s Martha Stewart that is! I admire this woman despite the conviction but hey, no one’s perfect!

The Economist reports

MARTHA STEWART is a woman with many hobbies. She cooks, gardens and makes jam. And now it seems she has decided to take up scrapbooking. This month Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia launched a line of Martha-branded supplies, bringing a dash of glamour to the world of paper crafts.

But although scrapbooking may be popular, it has never been fashionable. The prevailing aesthetic is saccharine. It includes glitter, polka dots and lots of pink. Martha Stewart Crafts brings a slightly more sophisticated style to scrapbooking, with albums in tasteful shades such as walnut and persimmon. The line is not entirely humourless, with stickers of a hula-hooping watermelon and a happy orange waving a pennant.

Perhaps Ms Stewart’s arrival on the scene will earn scrapbooking a little more respect. Other crafts, after all, are taken seriously. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York featured an exhibit of quilts a few years ago. Knitters click away on the subway. Sublime Stitching, based in Austin, Texas, sells embroidery patterns featuring pirates and pieces of sushi. True, a preoccupation with the relative merits of various types of decorative sticky tape is not for everyone. But a well made scrapbook is more impressive than yet another of those itchy scarves.

I couldn’t agree more!