NILES -- Joyce Ruggeri started scrapbooking eight years ago, combining photos and memorabilia in

NILES -- Joyce Ruggeri started scrapbooking eight years ago, combining photos and memorabilia in scrapbook albums and personalizing each page with stickers, cutouts, lettering and other embellishments.
Ruggeri often brought the scrapbooks, featuring her oldest son, into the bank where she used to work. They caught the eye of co-worker Anita Madura and inspired her to take up scrapbooking four years later while she was on maternity leave.
Ruggeri and Madura said they often had trouble finding scrapbook supplies near their Austintown and Niles neighborhoods and decided to open their own store, Scrappin Divas, a year ago.
"In other parts of the country, there's a scrapbook store on every corner. There just weren't enough places around that were close and friendly," said Ruggeri. "There wasn't a little, local store, just corporate stores."
Ruggeri, who now has three children, said things have changed since she started scrapbooking.
Hobby has grown
"When I started, all that was available was construction paper and markers. It wasn't something you really heard about. It was just something that I started doing instead of putting my pictures in an album," she explained.
Madura said the scrapbooking craze really kicked in about four years ago.
"They just keep coming up with more and more different embellishments and techniques," Madura said.
Madura and Ruggeri offer a wide variety of products at the store, including a range of paper choices, stickers, mats, types of adhesives and dozens of embellishments with various themes.
Madura said one of their biggest challenges is keeping up with the new trends in scrapbooking.
"There are some people who subscribe to scrapbooking magazines, so they see the new stuff in the magazines and they want to see it in person," she said.
Other services
The women also offer scrapbooking classes, a custom scrapbook service, scrapbook birthday parties for girls, and meetings they call "crops" where customers come to the store and work together on their scrapbook designs.
"People come here to work on their scrapbooks because when you try to do it at home, there's laundry and distractions and phones ringing and kids crying," said Ruggeri. Crops are usually held Fridays and Tuesdays.
Ruggeri and Madura provide dinner at the crops. "We know what to cook, based on which customers are coming," said Ruggeri. "We know this one doesn't like chicken and that one's a vegetarian, and I think that's what they enjoy -- that we treat them like they're family."