Scrapbooking start-up grows fast
By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor
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What keeps Bella Finau-Faumuina, 34, and Delia Parker-Ulima, 33, up nights is the business of business — cash flow, overhead, inventory, risk management.
What keeps them going is knowing that their young business, Creative Native Crafts, is communicating their culture, and helping families to preserve their histories.
The two women, buddies since Kamehameha High School, are a tiny part of a $2.55 billion U.S. scrapbooking business, the fastest-growing segment of the hobby and craft industry, according to a 2004 study commissioned by Creating Keepsakes magazine. When Finau-Faumuina and Parker-Ulima attended their first Hobby Industry Association national trade show in 2003, scrapbooking booths occupied a single aisle; at the 2005 conference of the organization now called the Craft and Hobby Industry Association, 47 percent of booths were devoted to scrapbooking. The business has grown by nearly one-third from 1996 to 2004, Creating Keepsakes reports.
Creative Native's niche is Island-themed papers and die-cut paper shapes. Finau-Faumuina, who has long been her family's historian, was among "scrappers" here who had searched fruitlessly for materials representing Hawai'i ways — plumeria and hibiscus instead of daisies and roses.
Parker-Ulima said many scrapbooking businesses began at home, founded by women with an idea for materials they couldn't find, and a desire to earn a living while caring for their families.
Creative Native Crafts, too, was born in its founders' homes, in December 2001. It has only just moved out, opening Oct. 3 in a combined warehouse and retail space at 46-174-F Kahuhipa St., Kane'ohe. The 1,200-square-foot space represents another in a series of steps that have required faith, hope and courage for the women.
These have included:
"We still don't know what we're doing," says Finau-Faumuina, only half-joking.
"The nature of being in business is constantly feeling inadequate," adds Parker Ulima.
The two have built Creative Native, which did $75,000 in sales in 2004, on purchases of 55 cents (the cost of a single sheet of Hawaiian-design scrapbooking paper) and $3 (for a 12-pack of die-cut pieces) at a time.
In 2001, the two attended a six-week entrepreneurship course organized by the Samoan Service Provider's Association. Parker-Ulima had graduated from law school at the University of Hawai'i. Finau-Faumuina was a musician and teacher. The two decided to team up to pursue Finau-Faumuina's dream. Parker-Ulima would handle the business end and Finau-Faumuina was in charge of creative and marketing. In fact, both have to do everything, from packing boxes with orders to giving store demonstrations to helping jump-start sales.
The women faced down some skepticism in starting a business just after 9/11, but they prayed about it and felt reasonably confident.
Both are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and their beliefs imbue everything they do: their values as a business, and their commitment to chronicling family history (keeping a genealogy is part of the Mormon faith).
In fact, the timing was impeccable: The craft industry boomed after the terrorist attacks turned people inward, toward the warmth of home.
Creative Native's first catalog was hand-made. They carried the six copies to the only two scrapbooking stores in the state at the time and to larger general craft stores. Early interest came from the smaller independents, with Scrapbook Clubhouse in Pearlridge placing the first order. Their appearance at the national trade show helped land larger accounts.
The line has grown considerably, with six die-cuts and four floral papers, but adding designs isn't easy, Parker-Ulima said, because it's only cost-effective to order 100,000 sheets of paper at a time. They have to be sure a print will sell before they'll make that kind of investment, so they listen carefully to their customers. Palaka (plaid), for example, was a no-brainer, as were lauhala and kapa.
Finau-Faumuina carefully tracks scrapbooking trends. The hottest thing is diversification from paper into other materials, texture and treatments. Their line now includes lauhala-covered scrapbooks and tinted raffia for this reason.
Is scrapbooking just a fad? The women can't say but, so far, Finau-Faumuina said, "It's just getting stronger."
Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.
