I’ve been a hooked on scrapbooking for a couple of years now…
I got hooked at a creative memories show my SIL held. I’ve become so addicted that I signed up as a consultant! Any other CM dopers?
For the CM dopers … how long have you been scrapping and how do you like it? Any advice for a newbie?
I love Creative Memories! I’ve been scrapping since 1999, but started with CM in 2000 (and actually redid the book I’d done the year before with their products). I’ve completed 5 12x12s and am working my way through the 6th (almost done) and 7th (just started), 1 7x7, am working my way through 2 8x11 albums. It’s so much fun!
My goal in life is to quit work, be a stay at home mom, and sell Creative Memories. I think it would be wonderful. I have had several consultants over the years, due to moving, and I’ve seen a lot of great ideas. My first consultant was lucky enough to have an extra room in her house where she could set everything up and leave it set up to have workshops and parties. She had an open crop once a month. One lady actually had open crops twice a month. She did not have an extra room in her house, but just dragged out lots of tables and we all crowded in. I’ve had several consultants that used rooms in their church. I even had one who only put in orders every three months and never did parties. She just relied on word of mouth and friends to make enough money.
I guess it’s one of those things where you can make as much or as little as you want. One suggestion as a customer who has had lots of consultants is INVENTORY! I am much happier when I can get what I want instead of ordering it. Of course, I also think it takes time to build up the base to have a lot of inventory. The other thing is to keep loose stuff. Many of my consultants keep an accessory binder full of all the stickers, but NOT in the packs. That way if the customer just needs the strip with, oh lets say the Cheerios from the Baby Girl stickers, they wouldn’t have to buy the whole $5.50 pack, but just pay the 50 cents or whatever it is for one sticker strip. You should also do it with paper.
Gosh I know several other things that my former consultants have done that was fun. If you want some other ideas on that front, I’ll tell you.
Albums I’ve made are: Wedding, Travel (hubby is in the army and it’s his album), Travel (I’m a big Laura Ingalls Wilder buff, and this is from all my trips to homesites), Dad (for his 50th birthday I did his life), Family (first 6 years of married life, it all fit in one album since no kids), Germany Trip and beyond (this is the one I’m working on now – I decided to just keep going in this album with the next few years of married life, and I’ll end it whenever we have kids), Baby (this is the album I just started and it’s about ME growing up). Those are all 12x12. I also have completed my 7x7 of hubby and I dating (used the Romance pack – gorgeous!). Then I have my two 8x11s. One is just anything I do that doesn’t involve my husband to go in our family album. There isn’t much in there, but I used to volutneer with a at-risk teen group, I took pictures of my first group of students, and I have taken a few weekend trips with friends. The other is a heritage album for my dad’s side of the family. My mom has already done a heritage album for her side.
After I finish the heritage album, I plan on scanning it in and burning it to DVD so that all the family can have a copy. I’ll add music and nice transitions and probably even film my grandparents some to put in there. It’s a project I’m really excited about. I can’t wait until school is out and I can work on it some more.
Sorry for the book-length here! Once I get on a roll about CM I get really excited. What are you working on?
[sup]coloring and bold type is mine[/sup]
Isn’t a newbie/consultant an oxymoron? 
Uh… 'scuse my ignorance, but what the hell are you talking about? 
WTS?, scrapbooking is the latest thing in the mommy/family crowd, where you put your photos in a nice album and decorate it with paper/stickers/pens/stamps, and document everything. Great family history, very fun. Creative Memories is the high end of the scrapbooking market, and while pricey, is high-quality stuff and all coordinated to boot. It’s sold the Tupperware way, with home parties and so on. I personally dislike the system and won’t host shows, but I do enjoy going to crop parties once a month.
I’m a CM addict and have been since '97. My ex-roomie got started and tried out her schtick on me. I’ve always been a big photo person, so I was hooked. I’m quite a minimalist, but I have fun. I’ve probably made 8 albums? One is of my mom’s family, but I made it before they came out with the ‘heritage’ black pages, so it’s not as cool as it could be, sigh. I do a strict chronological thing; no special albums of each baby or anything (hey, they can do their own when they grow up). That’s all I can keep up with.
Kniz, I’m a newbie consultant - not a newbie scrapper! And I heartily thank RachelChristine for her input. I want to hold workshops and I also want to build up an inventory as I hate waiting the week or so for stuff to come in! Right now I am trying to build up an inventory of the core stuff like tape runners and cutting supplies and page refills. I like the idea about a lot of individual sticker sheets in a sticker binder and will work on that too. I often find I need more of just one thing or only like 2 or 3 sheets in the pack.
I’ve made a few albums so far. I redid our wedding album, have an album for each of my kids, made an album for our pets, one for my cakes and another for my Monopoly stuff.
We’re planning on finishing our basement. When we do that I will have space to be set up permanently for workshops and parties. Unfortunately that won’t be until next summer at the rate we’re going!
My sister-in-law has just become a consultant. I’m not very artistic, but I’m thinking about going to one of her scrapping parties when I’m home and getting started so that I can do something with these eighty million pictures I have! And considering we’re using a photographer for our wedding who’s a friend of the family (but still semi-professional and she’s done weddings before), I’d like to start scrapbooking so I can do one of our wedding photos. And so that I’ve got the skills down for when the little ones arrive.
Then again, I’m still working on a quilt that’s going to take at least another six months (hand-quilting it, no machines), so adding another hobby might not be a good idea!
Ava
My mother has tried selling CM as a way to make an income.
This is NOT as easy as it sounds, folks!
Getting into the business is expensive. My mother’s put in a bunch of money (about 600-700 dollars to become a consultant over a two-three month period) and no one she calls wants to have a party. When she actually does get a party scheduled, no one wants to shell out money to buy product from her, they expect free samples. My mother is NOT a seller and I advised her against this but she tried it anyway. She’s unhappy and out the initial money that she couldn’t really afford anyway (hence the trying to make an income comment). I also noticed people selling CM product on eBay although, when I informed my mom, she told me CM said that was a big no-no. You aren’t allowed to sell this stuff through eBay. Personally, I’m not a big fan of CM. I think their policies are too self serving. I’m not officially ranting… yet.
I’d advise anyone before joining this company that a steady income is needed even before you get involved. Now, my mom’s tried a few things to help get the ball rolling, she’s not a slacker in the creativity department, but it just isn’t easy. It’s definately not for everyone.
Gosh, I don’t know anyone who does it for the income. Most people I know are happy to finance their addiction and have some fun; anything else is gravy. I don’t think you could make a living off of CM unless you were a serious upper-level type person, or a hard-core seller. It’s a small market and very few people buy a whole lot.
I enjoy scrapbooking from time to time, but, frankly, CM is just too overpriced for me. There is an arts and crafts store in our local mall that sells high-quality scrapbooking stuff for about half of what CM charges. My enjoyment of the product might be slightly colored by the first party I attended, where the consultant showed an album full of pics of her mom, and explained that her mom died before she could finish the album, and she did it in such a downer way that it was just depressing! She just kept talking about her mom dying and stuff, and when I go to a “party”, that’s not really what I want to hear, y’know? Not that she couldn’t talk about it, but she should have limited herself on this topic. But, really, when I looked at the prices, I freaked. Going in, I thought “this could be neat; hubby and I never had an official wedding album; maybe I could make us one” when I figured out that it would cost about $300.00 to do so, I figured I might as well spring $600.00 and do a divorce album at the same time, cuz when he saw the amount of money I spent, he’d dump me for sure!
Did a very nice album for my in-laws, using the photos from their 50th anniversary party, and buying the stuff at the arts and crafts store previously mentioned, plus borrowing a couple of things from friends, I spent maybe $50.00. If I’d had to buy the stuff I borrowed, as well, it would have been more like $100.00. Still way cheaper than CM.
Having said all that, good luck, Tanookie; I hope you do well.
I second the matter of price. The women at my mom’s parties (a whopping two party total so far) complained about the prices. They wanted everything as a sample. I doubt my mother even got paid for the party (from what she’s told me, I assume consultants are supposed to get paid for them but I could be wrong). There are so many craft stores in our area that people will shop for scrapbooking supplies at those before paying a higher price with CM. Perhaps if she had started with CM a few years ago before the whole scrapbooking phase went into high gear but the market is flooded and CM doesn’t seem competitive.
tanookie, I gotta apologize for hijacking your thread. I should have posted my semi-rant in the Pit and not disturbed your OP. I’m sorry, I just get frustrated for my mom. I’m sure there are some great CM consultants out there and you might be one of them. I wish you luck in this endeavor.
SanguineSpider don’t worry about the hijack. It really wasn’t a hijack as I am happy to hear all sides of the consulting experience.
Where I live scrapbooking is just really making it big. There are two places you can shop for products - Walmart (cheap stuff) and Scrapbooking specialty stores (expensive stuff.)
When I went to my first show having never scrapped at all before I almost choked on the prices - then I shopped around a lot. Ultimately I decided I really liked the CM product best and their prices are a middle ground. So I’m hoping like dangermom said to finance my addiction and if I do better then “Yay me!”
One thing I would really like to do, Norinew, is run workshops. I would let people borrow my tools and the only things they would pay for are the supplies that end up going home with them (Album, tape, stickers, paper) to keep people from buying the tools they would probably only use twice. Also I think this would be a great way to meet new people. I am no longer new to this area but I still haven’t met too many people.
That’s one of my favorite things. They call 'em crop parties around here, and they are great, because I don’t want to buy all the cutting tools (square/circle punchers, etc.–I have the blade trimmers) or 25 million pens. I got into the habit of doing most or all of my scrapbooking at crop parties, because I can spread out and do it for hours without worrying about the kids or anything. Also there are snacks.
This had its downside when my good friend who was also my consultant moved to Reno. I had a new baby, and didn’t find a new person right away, and it was nearly a year before I got around to going again. I’m back on track now, but I miss my friend!
However, my consultant acquaintances have found that they only get a few people at each crop. Usually, nearly half of the people who are supposed to come, don’t. Friday nights seem to work best.
Fridays? Really? Good to know - I was waffling between Monday and Friday but leaning towards Monday as Friday seemed like ‘date/movie/party’ night.
I appreciate all the comments everyone. Thank you
One of the consultants I know does a huge workshop each season, charges $15.00, serves lunch and snacks, and makes it an all day deal. It’s my impression that quite a few people attend these. I’m sure she makes a few bucks off of it, in addition to the money she makes selling what people end up taking home with them. You might want to consider something like that. I’ve never been to one, so I don’t know what kind of food she serves, but I’m guessing even if she buys a sandwich platter from the market, if she has, say, 20 guests, she probably still turns a little profit on it.
That sounds like a lot of fun… Something to work towards…
The consultant I have now does a workshop every month that costs $5, and she supplies food and a few freebies. These are just little Thanks To You gifts or mats or somthing. She does drawings and silly games – like the first person to find a picture of a ____ whatever might go with the theme. Last month, being Valentine’s, they were all things like a kiss, a heart, etc. Then once a quarter she’ll do a bigger workshop costing $10 with more prizes and longer hours.
The consultant I had when I first started told me that she makes $10,000 a year. She works really hard at it and has parties and crops all the time. She usually does a thing at her crops where she’ll charge $7.50, but only $5 if you bring food.
I’m glad you liked my idea of single sheets of stickers and paper. I’ve always really appreciated that. You can buy the little things easy and cheaper. Another thing that one lady did was kept a basket of leftover paper/sticker strips that were partially used. We could swap for them. You know, things like if you are done with your wedding album so don’t need those last few stickers, you could swap for someone else’s leftover zoo stickers for your trip to the zoo! Same thing with paper. I thought that was really cool too.
The thing that has always stopped me so far is getting started at it. I’m just not sure how I’d get the word out to get going. I think once I had some clients I’d be awesome, but who knows? My sister sold it for awhile, and my mom bought a bajillion dollars off of her, just to keep her afloat or get her incentives. Of course, my sister never scrapped in her life, other than a few pages during the whole 6 months she was selling. She’d often ask me to come “help” her at crops, because she never knew what she was talking about it. At least I got a lot of free product out of it!
My mother in law buys all the new products that come out every month. She also goes to scrapbook stores and Michael’s and places like that and just has so much stuff I don’t know what she’ll do with it. She bought the new Champagne album that just came out, and has no plan at all for it. Just for “someday…” – and she doesn’t even like yellow!
That’s about where I am now - I signed up because I’ve wanted to for a year now and I just mailed a batch of catalogs to friends and family to get started. I also have an idea for a fundraiser crop workshop at our local animal shelter where they host the space and I donate a percentage of the sales.
I also wanted to be able to get all the ‘incentives’ when they came out. They have some great stuff.
I’ll keep the idea of a swap basket too. I really like that. Thanks!
I don’t know if all Targets are the same, but I realized our Target here is starting to carry a LOT of scrapbooking stuff - and it seems fairly reasonable. They have an entire aisle full of it. Also, if you have a Michael’s or a Cafton’s craft store (I think that’s what it’s called), they have a ton of scrapbooking stuff!
Ava