Scrapbooking Became a Job For Local

Debi Damato is the archivist of her own life story.

Every memento, from an invitation to her mother-in-law’s 90th birthday party to her childhood dog’s shed whiskers, gets saved. Her collection is catalogued within more than 50 hardcover albums that line a wall of her basement in Bayside.

Opening one of these books is like turning the dial of a time machine to a specific moment in Damato’s past. Pictures from a family vacation are memorialized on a page layered with bright cuts of paper, lettered stickers and a description of the day hand-written on a slip of paper. 

“It irks me when people take out cell phones to show you pictures,” Damato, 53, said. “There’s nothing like sitting down and flipping through a book.”

Her obsession with memory books became a business venture when she paired up in 2001 with Creative Memories, a scrapbooking company to become a consultant to hundreds of local scrap-a-holics.

The stay at home mother of two teenage daughters decided consulting would help her create a professional identity while still doing what she loves.

“I was always someone’s mother, someone’s wife; I wanted to do something for me,” Damato said.  

While she says the business could provide her family with a sustainable income —she keeps 30 percent of every Creative Memories item she sells, and charges clients $10 a session — most of her profits go toward new scrapbook supplies.

“I make money, but I put it back in the business and my habit,” said Damato, who would spend upwards of $50 a shop on craft supplies before joining the Creative Memories team. 

After 11 years of consulting, the business is about more than making money for her next scrapbooking fix.

“For me, it pays off in friendships,” Damato said of the relationships she’s formed with her mostly female clients over the years.

Damato currently has up to 15 clients come to her home each Monday night for a scrapbooking session.  At these sessions, Damato demonstrates her newest tools, and advises her clients how to layout a new page, using her own books as examples.

The meet ups, publicized on Damato’s consulting website and online meet up sites, offer the women a comfortable place to work on their crafts and buy supplies. Escaping their husbands, children and cell phones for a night of bonding is also an added bonus.

“Scrapbooking is more fun in a group,” Damato said. “Everyone feeds off of each other and when they leave I’m still here. They can call me for questions.”

Her clients appreciate her hospitality, and the community she formed through the niche hobby.

“Debi is very personable, and everyone who comes here is a character,” said client Joanne Wall, 57, of Bayside, who first met Damato at the Queens County Fair last year, where Damato was selling supplies and promoting her consulting sessions.

Another client, Lerida O’Reilly of Elmhurst, has been scrapbooking with Damato every Monday night for four years.

“It’s an addiction, a good addiction,” O’Reilly said.  “Debi is very flexible, she lets us use our imagination on projects. She is very supportive and there is no competition here. We share a lot of ideas and we all relate, more than just creatively.”

The most recent idea the women shared: toilet paper roll mini albums; a craft O’Reilly found through online video tutorial. The women spread out their Creative Memories paper and tools on Damato’s dining room table, and got to work, layering papers and stickers on the flattened cardboard tubes.

Damato’s husband Gerard said he is proud of his wife for making a business out of something she loves, but he did have concerns at first.

“My first thought was ‘how much is this gonna cost me,’” Gerard Damato said of the business that had a start up fee of $195. “She takes all of her hobbies to the extreme.”

Eleven years later he still allows the women to take over the house once a week.

“This keeps me happy, so he is happy,” Debi Damato said.