Mary Revels works on a scrapbook with a group who celebrated National Scrapbook Week at the Isle of Palms, SC.

National Scrapbooking Week could not get here fast enough for a group of Columbia hobbyists, so they celebrated two weeks early with a beach retreat on the Isle of Palms.

Mary Revels, among Columbia's most ardent scrapbookers, said Crop at the Beach, held at a local hotel conference room, gave scrapbookers plenty of room to spread out their supplies and work uninterrupted over a three-day weekend. The group took over the upstairs and downstairs of the center for their cropping and pasting.

Scrapbookers enhance memories by adding graphic touches to pages with embellishment, trim, insignias, and by strategic placement of old letters or invitations in proximity to pictures of people being featured.

Revels, a certified professional scrapbooker, said the chance to exchange ideas, slowing down only long enough to savor a midday box lunch, enabled participants to accomplish a lot in a fairly short time. "I completed 37 pages I had prepared at home, making some changes when I saw new products or gleaned new ideas from others at the retreat."

While the beach retreat was a chance to meet new friends from throughout the state and region, Revels knew those at her table. "We are part of a Memories on Mission Group at Greenlawn Baptist Church. Every month we create a page on a missionary or a mission project for a scrapbook that remains at the church for congregation members to look at."

Group members especially looked forward to getting together again with one scrapbooker who returns each year from her new home in Florida. "She is from South Carolina but now that she lives in Florida, she brings her little girl to visit Grandma on Isle of Palms so she can scrapbook all weekend."

Since retiring from her long-time position at Fort Jackson, Revels has worked on family scrapbooks and has created some on a contractual basis. As historian of Columbia Council for Internationals, she regularly updates a scrapbook featuring organizational events so that international students participating in CCFI offerings can see the legacy they are part of.

Scrapbooking took off as one of the nation's fast-growing hobbies when memory preservers realized they could add their unique creativity and craft to their pages. The hobby now has a national organization and website, magazines, and retail outlets. Home parties are occasions to share inspiration and ideas and stock up on the latest embellishments and tools.

Ownership of digital cameras has also been a boon to the hobby. Revels, who has claimed the sunroom of her East Columbia home as her studio, can size and print images she has created with her digital camera. When she makes scrapbooks for others, though, she works primarily from vintage materials provided by the family that engaged her services.

Since returning from the retreat, Revels has completed a Memory Album for a special neighbor, Sue Kurpiewski, who was for many years the Gamecocks' dietician. "When she retired in 1988, she was honored on the field at a home game, and was featured in stories in Cock & Spurs and The State newspaper," Revels said.

Revels finds it rewarding to create scrapbook pages to keep memories unforgettable.