Good for people unable to get out of their homes either because they have small children, work alot, seniors etc
Not Good because they could send you boxes of stuff and you could loose too much time sorting items out. Also if anything is lost who is liable?

In a Walmart the other day I saw an ad for someone to make your scrapbooks for you.

Maybe you could limit the number of photos they send and also have them send them insured so that you are not responsible if they don't get to you.
I think it is a nice idea and maybe a trial run would be good to see how warm the water is on it. Good Luck

I think it's a great idea myself. I have been looking for a month for someone to do a scrapbook for me as I don't have the time nor am I creative, etc. I can't find anyone who will do it just people willing to teach me!!

How would someone get customers for such a business? Is it as simple as posting on bulletin boards?

I provided this service a few times. It is hard to be paid properly for your time and to justify to someone how it can cost $200 or more to do an album for them. It is a REALLY time-consuming process.

Think of how long it may take you to do a page for your own album. Sometimes, maybe more than an hour to lay out, choose the papers, crop, journal and do the page. If you charge $20 an hour, that means $200 just for 10 pages and an album is usually 20 or 30 pages long and sometimes more!

I did a memorial album for a law firm that lost a colleague and it took oh, my gosh, more than 60 hours to make. It was GORGEOUS. Not an easy job considering the topic and I used beautiful papers and really put a lot of creativity and time into it. I submitted the invoice for only $800 to her (charging less than $15 an hour) and she fought me on it (she, a lawyer who bills out at $150 an hour just to talk to you on the phone).

The value of a photo album is "irreplacable" but it is hard to charge what your time is worth. If you can figure out how to do it so you don't lose money or at least be paid for your expertise, then I think there is definitely a market for it. People rarely have the talent or the time, yet want so much to have their photos in albums. If you can market to an upscale clientelle, you will have a nice little business going, but be up front about your fee and make sure they understand the value. Good luck!

There are some pages that I have worked on for hours. I just don't think I have it in me to do it for someone else. I had a friend who "suggested" I make her one. I had to politely decline. If you go on e-bay and punch in "paper piecing" you can find lots of neat pages. So..you could go that route and sell on e-bay

I think you could lower your time and cost input by using the same colors and basic scheme throughout. Keep it simple, but nice. I saw an idea for a quicky scrapbook somewhere. They suggested the idea of using punches and the same color theme throught the book. I think something similar to the style of what CM does would be easy and cheaper. The pages I've seen are usually a 1/2" strip of paper located near the top or side of the page with a couple of coordinating or contrasting punches on top of that and stickers on top of the punces. I'd drop the stickers, use the line and then put a few tiny stars or other punch below that on each page. Have the client type up a few comments on each photo and then print that out on your computer for journaling. You could always add more stuff to pretty it up if needed.

IMHO, I find most people spend to much time making artwork rather than preseving history. I guess your needs would depend on what your end goal is in having a scrapbook.

I am interested in having someone do my daughter's scrapbook. She's 3, so it's not a crazy amount of things yet, but there are a good amount. I've been saving them to put in a scrapbook. I bought a scrapbook and I could categorize everything so it's organized. I'm just not good with the creative part of it so this stuff is just sitting and begging to get lost. I would be interested in talking with you. Drop me an email.

Just out of curiosity, Sandip, how much would you think to pay for this service? Would you expect to pay for everything or would you provide the book and expect the scrapbooker to supply the paper and stickers, etc?

I did a memory book for my brother's deceased dog. I have to brag, it came out really good. I mean really good. All he did was put the pic in dated order and left the rest to me. I cannot recall how he paid me. I think he paid for the book and that was it. Because it was only about 20 8x11 pages it literally took me about 8hrs total, during my spare time one weekend.

I was so inspired that I did a 7x7 book for my beloved kitty. It was about 32 pages. I started at 9am and was done by 2:30pm. I did another for my dog, he has two books because he is still living, and his took me about 2 days.

I would love to do books for people's pets. They are really easy to do compared to person books. I simply stuck to a color theme, black and white or tans. On the pics my bro told me he had specific stories, I left some journaling boxes for him to complete.

I have had several friends tell me I should do this for a living. But what would one realistically pay for this? A cheap book would cost about 20, paper would be only a few dollars, same for a handful of stickers.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Im 17 years old and so far i have made 6 books.
Last year one of my moms co-workers asked me if i could make a book for her. Her son just turned 31 and she wanted a book that would reflect his life up until that point. He was a world champion Irish dancer, worked in the white house, took part in the air force, graduated from law school, became part of a prestige law firm, and the achievements go on. I made one book [which i always refer to as the "big book"] fulled with his achievements, awards, pictures, and diplomas. And then strictly a photo album. It ended up about 100 pages in the "big book" and about 50 in the photo album
She paid me a little along the way $20 here and there to keep me motivated and then a final sum of $100. The total i believe was about $180. She loved my work so much that she decided that she wanted me to do all her kids.
I made another two books for her older son. His books was less time consuming and less awards. She paid me $150.

I just did two books for her daughter. Both the books were "big books" I hand sewed and machine stitched a cover for her book with and added a ruffle.
I really did think of taking it up as an actual job. I thought that i would charge a flat fee. .. say $50 just for doing a book. Then a price range depending on how many pages you want done, how you want it done, if you want a cover, and when you wanted it done.

so yea, you can make quite a lot of money off it, but i dont think online is the best way to do it.

its good to sit down with the person to go through the pictures and find out stories behind them. It makes it easier to connect to the person the book is about.